‘When I’m good, I’m very good, but when I’m bad I’m even better.’
This witticism dates all the way back to the Golden Age of Hollywood, spoken by Mae West, someone who wasn’t afraid of unfiltered behavior, surprising antics and railing against the conventional norms of the day.
And while Mae West never would’ve heard of YouTube or TikTok, and would’ve assumed a stream is something that got your feet wet, it’s surprising to see just how relevant her quip still is.
She understood that behaving badly can sometimes pay off. And that’s pretty much what Darren Jason Watkins Jr, aka IShowSpeed, aka Speed, has built an entire empire around.
Speed started slow…
How did a regular teenager from Ohio become the sort of person who induces hysteria akin to the arrival of a pop star?
Well, it wasn’t an overnight success. Ironically, Speed had a slow rise to taking the crown of controversial content creators.
Speed first started streaming in 2017, when he was just 12 years old. And there was a definite innocence to him. His name - IShowSpeed and his alias, Speed, came from the childhood nickname he had - Speedy - which he’s credited with running from dogs.
He also made some goofs on his first attempts at striking up connections online. His first stream saw him playing Fortnite for a grand audience of… two viewers. And he forgot to turn on his mic.
A child prodigy and natural content creator, he was not. And, arguably, you could still argue that he isn’t the most technical and creative to this day. But instead of being a flaw, it’s been the foundation of his unparalleled success.
How Speed hit his stride
Fast forward to today, Speed isn’t just ‘internet famous’ - he’s famous famous (and, to some, he’s infamous). Indeed, going back to the Mae West connection, many cultural critics have called Speed, Jake and Logan Paul and KSI the closest thing to modern-day Hollywood icons.
Back in the days of studio systems, fans had to be told what to watch, who to watch and when to watch it. But today, these ‘always on’ content creators live their entire lives like the biggest motion picture releases of the year.
Take Speed. He travels across the globe, inviting viewers along for every antic. Whether he’s arguing with football fans during a Manchester United game, racing literal Olympians (and nearly winning), jumping over cars, and meeting his own idols like Cristiano Ronaldo.
Don’t try to keep up with Speed, just go along for the ride
But he also abandoned any notion of content strategies or brand values. Speed is Speed. His videos can go anywhere. He is known to scream directly into the mic. He can act manic, out of control, and, honestly, just quite annoying for many people.
And that’s sort of the point. As he turns his entire existence into entertainment to be consumed, he’s - intentionally or not - showing that real people demand real content. People won’t invest in a creator if everything is always so perfect, and so transactional.
But has his gamble paid off?
Some accomplishments include: A music career, appearances on the WWE, 33 million YouTube subscribers, his ‘IRL Stream in Indonesia’ broke records as the highest number of live viewers for an English-speaking streamer ever, and amassing over three billion views in total.
All of which suggests that his increasingly wild content isn’t slowing him down.
The Need for Speed: what his fast-track to fame means
Like any content creator out there, Speed has his fair share of detractors. Some think he takes it too far. Others have accused his actions of being embarrassing - depicting and damning an entire generation.
But, What can we learn from all of this?
It establishes that it’s better to put something out there - anything - even if it isn’t perfect.
With the right software, (yes, like us, we so humbly accept!) thankfully, it’s never been easier to make videos look polished and professional. But - forgive this technical term, now - sloppy videos didn’t slow down Speed.
In a world packed full of perfectly curated feeds and creators with a clear end goal in mind (brand deals, a career, etc) Speed’s genius was doing the opposite. His content is the chaos. His fans love the authenticity in the aimless. His content doesn’t feel like the early parts of a journey to something… bigger. This isn’t an audition for a bigger brand deal.
He is the brand. IShowSpeed is an unparalleled invitation into his mind; the good, the bad, and the unfiltered.
