In 11 months, YouTube Darren “IShowSpeed” Watkins Jr., just 19 years old, has become a star in gaming and is making his mark on livestreaming on YouTube. In Valorant, however, his career is now over. After a clip of IShowSpeed went around the Internet, a Riot employee immediately banned him permanently. A sexist and hateful performance saw to that.

Who is IShowSpeed?

• The 19-year-old US-American Darren Watkins Jr. comes from Cincinatti. His YouTube channel has grown from 100,000 subscribers (April 2021) to 6 million in 11 months: he is certainly one of the very big winners in the last year.
• His breakthrough on YouTube happened because his fans started uploading clips of him on TikTok. This accelerated his growth extremely: he also collaborated with musicians.
• Unlike many gaming YouTubers who produce classic videos-on-demand, IShowSpeed is really dedicated to livestreaming on YouTube: They’re building a competitor to Twitch there. He shows games like Fortnite or NBA2k21 – but had also made a name for himself in Valorant.

3.3 million watch terrible and sexist clip of streamer

The clip became his undoing: E-sports journalist Jake Luckey has shown a clip of IShowSpeed from Valorant completely losing control, ranting and insulting savagely. In the process, he resorts to racist and sexist insults, his facial expression is distorted with rage, his voice rolls over.

The low point of the outburst is reached when he hears a female voice in voice chat:

“Bitch? Is that a bitch talking to me? Is that a woman talking to me? Get out of the fucking game and wash your man’s dishes, bitch!”

This was the reaction: Lucky himself said he now understands why Valorant is considered so toxic. One of the most popular players says such crap and is still cheered for it.

The tweet received so much attention that it also drew the attention of a Riot employee, Riot necrotix: Who said you don’t want someone like that in your community. She permanently banned him from Valorant. She thanked the e-sports journalist and told him to keep reporting on such things – that’s how Riot could make Valorant safer.

Here’s what the YouTuber has to say: IShowSpeed comments on this clip. He says:

• He says that on the day the clip was made, he himself was repeatedly racially insulted. People were talking about his deceased aunt. He had “not had a good day”.
• He doesn’t want to talk his way out of it – it was clearly his fault. However, it was simply not his typical behavior to yell at people for no reason. He was totally in the wrong at the time and could not justify it.
• However, the clip is already a few months old. Since then he has developed further. He is just very young

That’s what’s behind it: Riot has made an effort from Day 1 to make sure Valorant is presented in a way that makes everyone feel safe and welcome.

After a sexism scandal at Riot Games, they wanted to make sure, especially at Valorant, that female players were protected and safe. That was an important point of the agenda. From that point of view, the behavior now is logical.

It is exciting that the clip of IShowSpeed apparently had no consequences at all for months and now causes such a violent reaction within a few hours.

Update 4/8, 12:00 PM: The banning of IShowSpeed has caused a big controversy on the net:

Creator says racist abuse doesn’t count because video games aren’t real, either