Adin Live - February 16, 2022The TRUTH about iShowSpeed..
Episode Stats
Words per Minute
209.70804
Summary
AishoSpeed could be the fastest-growing YouTube streamer in history. He is now sitting at over 4 million subscribers, and just one year ago, he had 10,000. The 17-year-old Cincinnati, Ohio native has dominated the platform, even at one point gaining 1 million subscribers in about 6 days.
Transcript
00:00:00.000
I'm like, yo, this is really f***ing weird. I'm not f***ing this kid at all. I don't f***ing this kid at all.
00:00:05.180
He was just weird, wasn't talking, kind of attitude-y, wasn't f***ing him at all.
00:00:14.000
iShowSpeed could be the fastest-growing YouTube streamer in history.
00:00:18.000
He is now sitting at over 4 million subscribers, and just one year ago, he had 10,000.
00:00:23.160
The 17-year-old Cincinnati, Ohio native has dominated the platform.
00:00:27.060
Even at one point, gaining 1 million subscribers in about 6 days.
00:00:32.100
He has built some sort of a toxic and high-stress community that, at times, can push him to his limits.
00:00:39.540
I mean, after all, live streaming in general can attract some of the worst viewers,
00:00:43.640
pushing streamers to lash out and react in ways that don't represent them very well.
00:00:47.920
When it comes to speed, the line between what's real and what isn't is so paper-thin
00:00:52.340
that sometimes it feels like you're not even watching a real person.
00:00:58.860
Speed started his YouTube channel in late 2017, uploading NBA 2K and Fortnite highlights.
00:01:04.160
One year later, he began live streaming himself playing Fortnite, but didn't really stay too consistent with it.
00:01:09.480
It wasn't until April of 2020 when he got fully committed to live streaming,
00:01:13.080
with a face cam and interacting with about 5 viewers.
00:01:18.600
I started the video by saying Speed is 17 years old, but his age has been a bit of a mystery for some time.
00:01:23.540
I don't know how to call him fine as fuck, but he's 17, chat.
00:01:27.900
If we could watch the Jiddy on video, we can't.
00:01:41.840
When he first started streaming, a person asked him in his chat what his age was.
00:01:50.720
He was reluctant to give him a straight answer.
00:01:52.680
It's fairly common for people on the internet to not want to give their age.
00:01:55.620
It's also common for young kids to tell people that they are older than they really are.
00:01:59.140
I know when I was 13 on Call of Duty Modern Warfare, I would brag about being 15, thinking that that was so cool.
00:02:04.220
The only reason why this matters is because very often in 2021,
00:02:07.440
Speed did e-dates with Aiden Ross and various influencers where he tells girls that he is 19,
00:02:12.320
so he will have a better chance at scoring a date with them.
00:02:20.720
When girls lie about the age, it's just like, yeah.
00:02:28.780
But in spring of 2020, 15-year-old Aisho Speed was laying down the groundwork for his streaming career.
00:02:42.440
He streamed every day and tried to get tapped into the community.
00:02:46.740
If he took an L, he would get a little stressed, maybe have a little freak out,
00:02:52.040
He was able to play with a bigger streamer, and he played really well.
00:02:56.500
For my son, Aisho Speed, the first time that I had played with him.
00:03:01.940
This got him a couple more viewers, maybe around 10 or so on average.
00:03:08.860
Kind of like Call of Duty Modern Warfare lobbies.
00:03:11.420
You can walk around a public gym and challenge random people to pick up games.
00:03:15.000
Usually, the loser will just end up screaming into the mic all kinds of heinous things that
00:03:20.360
I mean, games are competitive, and trash talk is inevitable.
00:03:23.040
But this game, for some reason, brings out the worst of people.
00:03:26.780
Bro, how many of y'all actually played 2K, bro?
00:03:30.800
Bro, it makes me seem like a fucking monster, bro.
00:03:35.820
And in the early days, we can see it getting the best of speed.
00:03:38.920
Why don't y'all go on this stream right now and say, TJ, you's a...
00:03:41.500
He spent the summer of 2020 grinding the game and trying to build up his viewership.
00:03:48.800
He was averaging around 20 viewers and would eventually amass 1,000 subscribers, still
00:03:53.160
keeping that positive energy, interacting with his chat, and getting to know them.
00:03:57.060
He would only get toxic when other people from the community would come into his stream
00:04:01.920
They would call him names and challenge him to games that he didn't want to play.
00:04:04.960
Around this time, he came up with a winning strategy for growth on YouTube.
00:04:08.180
He would do a 2-hour live stream, then post a 6-10 minute clip of the stream as a YouTube
00:04:12.840
video with a better title, only posting the ones labeled Funny Reaction, because those
00:04:18.080
They were basically just the buildup of him freaking out, and what caused the freak out.
00:04:23.020
This was a great growth strategy for him, and he stayed consistent with this throughout
00:04:27.160
The Rage Highlight videos were becoming a staple part of his brand and was slowly becoming
00:04:31.060
the thing that people wanted to see the most from him.
00:04:36.280
He streamed and uploaded every single day for months without fail.
00:04:40.480
In October 2020, he got banned from streaming, because YouTube thought he was 12, and you
00:04:46.560
So basically, I can't stream no more, y'all, for a little minute, y'all, because of that
00:04:53.460
This would be the first of many, many videos where he tells his chat that he can't stream
00:04:58.140
The ban would only last one day, and he would be back the next day because YouTube was
00:05:05.560
Aiden Ross was a big part of the game's top players leaving and moving on to different
00:05:09.880
There was still a demand out there for 2K21 content.
00:05:12.720
Plus, Speed would play as a unique position, a post-scorer.
00:05:16.140
Most content creators didn't play as a position.
00:05:29.600
You don't want to finish it at all, or what's going on with that?
00:05:32.580
Yeah, we can finish it soon, not today, but I definitely want to finish it.
00:05:53.220
That's why you're a, ooh, I want to say it so bad.
00:05:59.640
At the turn of the year, things started to change a little bit.
00:06:02.080
He was still a bright, positive, happy-go-lucky guy,
00:06:04.600
but his rage moments were getting more and more apparent.
00:06:07.040
Now he even had a person consistently commenting on his videos
00:06:12.080
which was making the audience just skip to those moments
00:06:18.000
It's a warning, so basically, I don't know if I'm going to do Omegu no more.
00:06:21.780
This video got him the most views that he ever got thus far.
00:06:27.620
For the first half of 2021, Speed just kept on being consistent with streaming.
00:06:31.020
He experimented with horror games and Fortnite, but 2K was still his go-to.
00:06:34.320
One thing that started happening that still does to this day
00:06:46.080
His IP address, either by knowing where he lives in real life,
00:06:52.040
they have the ability to overload his internet,
00:06:54.060
so his stream lags super hard, making him unable to stream.
00:06:58.680
Speed would run to make his broken heart videos of him very upset.
00:07:07.100
If it isn't obvious why I call them broken heart videos,
00:07:11.440
because he puts a little emoji in there every time,
00:07:15.040
It seems like at this time, he couldn't really handle the trolling.
00:07:17.720
Rushing to post these broken heart videos are obviously going to fuel even more attacks.
00:07:30.120
But the broken heart videos aren't just to address hackers.
00:07:34.480
For example, he posted a video proving to his chat that he takes showers.
00:07:39.080
As I can see right here, I'm showing y'all poop right now.
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I don't want to hear no more hate comments about me taking a shower no more.
00:07:45.540
And this other one where he says his real name.
00:07:58.440
His comments are about his fan base being toxic and that he deserves...
00:08:20.660
Besides his songs, that's his most popular video.
00:08:37.500
But some people just feel very confused by this.
00:08:40.420
Live streaming can get out of hand with trolls.
00:08:42.280
But if someone gets pushed to crying just for people wanting to know their real name...
00:08:47.360
Or they feel the need to prove that they actually take showers...
00:08:58.380
Leads some people to believe that you may not be fit for this career.
00:09:04.760
But he gets sympathy from his chat because he's very good at making this seem real.
00:09:08.480
The video blows up and gets likes, views, and subs.
00:09:12.300
Then he goes back to streaming the next day with tons of new viewership.
00:09:16.020
Never addresses the situation that happened the day before.
00:09:18.920
And then the cycle repeats again a couple weeks later.
00:09:21.120
It's a very strange middle ground where people can't tell if he's actually upset by these things.
00:09:32.640
You probably think that salad dressing is spicy, bro.
00:09:43.740
But do you think he's genuinely mad about this?
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Or do you think he just uses it as an excuse to rage and freak out?
00:10:35.300
And basically for this entire game and really this whole stream.
00:10:40.320
So losing the game was actually just the final straw.
00:10:43.140
But this reaction to me doesn't look very fake.
00:10:46.200
Now it's not like Speed is 100% innocent and his chat attacks him for no reason.
00:11:03.820
But real quick, let me just say that oftentimes the chat copies the behavior of the streamer.
00:11:08.640
You attract the type of people that you act like.
00:11:16.800
Hey, if you grant me one through ten, well, dreamy.
00:11:33.280
There are specific people that want to watch his content.
00:11:37.620
Even if he's joking and he's just playing around or whatever.
00:11:42.920
But you're still gonna attract people who just genuinely want to see you bully people and be toxic all the time.
00:11:48.640
So if you just want to have a normal stream, but the chat wants you to be toxic,
00:11:53.860
Basically, his live streams from here on out would be him playing a game.
00:11:56.980
Chat torments him and says a bunch of annoying stuff.
00:12:00.680
But about 20 minutes in, he'll have a rage moment.
00:12:03.280
Then slowly rage more and more until he loses a game and ends the stream.
00:12:06.460
Some days he handles the chat better than others.
00:12:08.740
But every stream is filled with people trying to get him to freak out.
00:12:13.760
I haven't really talked that much about his chat, but as it multiplied by the thousands, it got super toxic.
00:12:19.040
Like the things they would say to him, whether it was just in the chat or through donations, is bad.
00:12:25.060
So bad, I don't even feel comfortable putting clips of them in this video.
00:12:31.800
People will figure out a way to say terrible things, no matter what.
00:12:41.700
My chat is pretty bad, but his is really fucking bad, bro.
00:12:48.080
Leaning into the freak outs and rage moments became a double-edged sword for him.
00:12:53.020
Because they were genuinely pissing him off some days, and other days he is just trolling them back.
00:13:03.460
But speed is not even close to the first person to use freak outs as a way to grow.
00:13:06.680
Freak outs and rage moments have been a huge part of livestreams forever since video games are so frustrating.
00:13:29.560
Luckily, I have a deeper voice than you, so you can't talk over me.
00:13:35.100
So, are you saying that people with the deepest voices should be allowed to talk about this?
00:13:45.340
Even Aiden Ross mastered the art of the freak out as a growth strategy.
00:13:54.120
Light reacts, Pugati, and even Aiden Ross mastered the art of the freak out as a growth strategy.
00:13:59.060
Anyways, for spring of 2021, he kept that same cycle of consistent streaming, rage moments,
00:14:05.140
He had around 50,000 subscribers and was averaging more than 1,000 or so people in his chat.
00:14:09.560
His viewers started clipping his freak outs and funny moments and posting them on TikTok.
00:14:13.680
It got to the point where multiple pages have built big followings just by posting his freak outs.
00:14:18.500
And the amount of views they were getting are just-
00:14:21.640
I think it also helped that Aiden Ross was peaking at this time.
00:14:24.380
He created an audience of people who like edgy humor, and live streaming in general was peaking at this time.
00:14:29.260
So Speed provided something that was similar, but in his own unique way.
00:14:32.220
In fact, he actually started a new trope that people really liked.
00:14:38.460
Which were some of the most popular clips that went viral on TikTok.
00:14:44.520
The TikTok clips got a ton of new people interested in him.
00:14:48.560
In March, April, and May, he jumped from around 50,000 subscribers to 300,000 subscribers.
00:14:53.760
But it was in June where it all culminated into something huge.
00:14:57.340
He started putting his subscriber count on the screen and basing his stream around how fast he was growing because he was gaining subscribers really quickly.
00:15:04.220
On June 22nd, he did his 400k stream, where he just kind of passed time waiting for him to hit the new milestone.
00:15:10.480
When he was about to hit it, a ton of people watching started unsubscribing, hoping for a freakout, in which he did a little bit.
00:15:17.020
Then two days later, he was about to hit 500,000 subs.
00:15:21.140
He got close, they would unsub, he freaks out, and everyone loves it.
00:15:25.080
It became this little game, watching his sub count go up and up.
00:15:29.840
Then the next day, 700k, he went to bed and woke up on June 29th to find out that he was about to hit 800,000 overnight.
00:15:38.920
Then later on in that same day, maybe 12 hours later, he was about to hit 1 million subscribers.
00:15:48.740
And if you thought that was crazy, the very next day, June 30th, he hit 1.5 million subscribers.
00:15:56.740
Obviously, Speed put in a ton of work until this point.
00:15:59.460
But he also got a little lucky that thousands of, hundreds of thousands of people were eager to see his reactions as his sub count.
00:16:10.600
Like, bro, I'm telling, that's why I tell you guys in this chat, bro.
00:16:15.580
He forgot to leave out the point where I, not even the point.
00:16:19.540
He forgot, I think he left out where Speed was, uh, no, he did mention, never mind.
00:16:24.320
But, um, I found out about, let me show you guys the clip where I first found Speed.
00:16:39.500
For example, there's this guy named Speedy from the 2Gate community.
00:16:43.900
Like, that's one thing about me that, like, other people just have a hard time doing.
00:16:47.000
Like, I don't know who else is really big and came out of the 2Gate community.
00:16:52.600
Like, for example, like, uh, there's just so many people who I recognize.
00:16:57.480
Like, I don't, I'm not, I don't, I'm not like them because it's like I have a heart and I'm just like, I want to know who's next up and coming.
00:17:03.400
So I can help them and collaborate with them and bring them on my stream or play with them or find a way to just up and coming and I know about them.
00:17:14.940
He, he was at, let me just check his sub count.
00:17:18.820
So, um, okay, he hit 100K, like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.
00:17:23.520
10 days after he hit, sorry, two weeks after he hit 200K.
00:17:28.020
So I found speed around 100K, probably like 120K, right?
00:17:33.960
And this is crazy because it's like, bro, rip the chain.
00:17:40.120
But it's crazy because, bro, like, I saw it, bro.
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I was like in this dude's stream and I was like, guys, I don't know what it is, bro.
00:17:46.160
So I got, you guys don't have ADHD, but for me to watch somebody stream for longer than
00:17:55.920
And I would just, and I would be in a stream, bro.
00:18:11.840
Ricegum was like, yo, Aiden, let's have speed come out here.
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Let me just talk about my first time meeting Speed.
00:18:41.740
Next day, me and Speed were laughing, playing 2K.
00:18:54.700
We would literally go in the car and just drive to fucking random shit, bro.
00:19:00.120
Like, bro, this dude literally became my best friend, like, in overnight, bro.
00:19:05.020
I talked to this dude literally every day, bro.
00:19:09.160
Like, I would do anything, bro, to, like, you know what I'm saying?
00:19:11.000
Like, you know, and that's why I pray to God he gets unbaned because the content that
00:19:24.800
Even if you do get unbaned right now, don't come out.
00:19:28.840
Like, just stay where you are right now and just grind.
00:19:37.000
But, guys, I honestly, before, before, before, before, before Rice invited Speed, do you
00:19:56.840
It slowed down a little bit at the 1.5 million mark, but by the middle of July, he hit 2 million
00:20:02.080
Meaning that in about three weeks, he went from 300K to 2 million.
00:20:11.300
For example, people can say, like, yo, Aiden, when you met LeBron, that was luck.
00:20:15.200
Listen, when you work really hard in life, bro, when you do a lot of good shit, when
00:20:18.840
you're grinding towards your passion, your YouTube, your music career, you're going to
00:20:22.280
have moments that are lucky that are going to bless you for grinding.
00:20:25.800
And how I look at it is Speed wanted this shit really bad to a point where this motherfucker
00:20:30.020
happened to blow up overnight, literally, and keep that blow up and momentum and keep
00:20:36.980
And I'm happy for him because, you know, this motherfucker is different, bro.
00:20:42.520
He literally, whenever it was like, yo, Aiden's coming up so quick, this motherfucker, like,
00:20:50.100
did what I did, but, like, on TikTok, but, like, times 100.
00:20:55.780
He's like, his head, his face is like a meme on TikTok.
00:21:07.180
But at this point, he was still growing like crazy and entertaining the millions of people
00:21:12.500
So clearly, he took advantage of the situation and maintained their interest.
00:21:20.200
He knew that these people wanted him to be as crazy as possible all the time.
00:21:25.400
He also took a trip to LA to link up with Aiden Ross and many other streamers.
00:21:28.820
For some reason, watching that in-person connection just changes the viewer's perspective.
00:21:32.740
Yeah, I don't know if Speed's ever told you guys a story, but, you know,
00:21:35.460
Speed's only ever been phased by one person, one famous person.
00:21:39.720
He said, the first time I met you, Aiden, that's why that first night I was so quiet.
00:21:46.040
And I was like, and then the next day, I was like, he saw I was a normal person on some
00:21:51.320
And he said from that point on, he met Soulja Boy and all these fucking rappers.
00:22:01.480
It's almost like the viewer is part of the friend group.
00:22:06.260
He wasn't giving in to the trolls, and he wasn't getting DDoS attacks kicking him offline.
00:22:10.320
When he went back home to Ohio, it was almost exclusively trolling people on Omegle,
00:22:14.500
more getting kicked offline, and more broken heart videos.
00:22:18.720
Speed's unforeseen music career began in August of 2021.
00:22:22.100
He had a new hit single called Doody Booty, with a high-quality music video in which he
00:22:27.240
was wearing his favorite shirt, barking, and twerking with his boys.
00:22:31.160
The song was actually very well-received, which made him want to do even more music.
00:22:34.820
He would start uploading a song every month, and sometimes twice per month.
00:22:38.040
Now, with over 1 million monthly listeners on Spotify, tens of millions of views on YouTube,
00:22:49.580
I don't know if he wants to do this seriously, or if he wants to do it as a meme.
00:22:53.320
I mean, that seems to be his whole career at this point.
00:22:55.560
For all of fall 2021, he just kept doing what he normally does.
00:22:58.880
Streaming Omegle, scary games, some Fortnite, freaking out, dropping music,
00:23:02.960
which is song Shade getting over 20 million views on YouTube.
00:23:05.760
Barking, chat saying the most terrible things to him.
00:23:08.420
But the e-dates and IRL dating became something that his chat demanded.
00:23:12.500
Watching Speed interact with girls was their new favorite thing.
00:23:15.340
Probably because once the girls said something that he didn't like, or they weren't into him,
00:23:19.020
he would just bark, scream, or insult them, which is funny because literally nobody would react like that.
00:23:24.540
But one day, Aiden Ross invited him to do an e-date with Ash Cash and a ton of other big streamers.
00:23:35.560
Nor do a lot of other people's fans, who don't know Speed.
00:23:38.440
Now, he got eliminated from this e-date, obviously, and he didn't like that.
00:23:49.820
And this is where I started to question a lot of those e-dates.
00:23:56.700
Like, they weren't actually gonna get dates with any of these people.
00:24:01.740
This is where Speed towing the line of what's real and what isn't becomes a little tricky for him.
00:24:07.420
But now saying f*** Aiden and Ash Cash for kicking you out, and that they're wrong for that?
00:24:11.720
This turned into a little beef between Aiden and Speed, which again, I don't know.
00:24:21.620
The day after, I was on the phone with this motherfucker.
00:24:34.220
Speed's joke went viral on various social medias and had a lot of people angry.
00:24:38.060
Ash Cash had a lot of words to say about it on Twitter, rightfully so.
00:24:41.500
But Aiden didn't stand up for Speed, because he knew he was wrong.
00:24:49.500
Like, obviously what the f*** he said was wrong, but.
00:25:08.280
And he knows better to not really f*** with that.
00:25:10.840
And he's maturing every day and he's becoming a better person.
00:25:16.640
Today, I think they're all good and Speed hasn't really done an e-date since then,
00:25:21.620
I think a little clarity between what is a character and what is real life would help Speed out a lot.
00:25:25.760
He's going to continue to get himself in sticky situations if he keeps being edgy like he is.
00:25:30.320
But I also understand that the lore of not knowing what's real and what isn't is exactly what makes him so interesting.
00:25:36.760
But sometimes you can get lost in the character.
00:25:39.080
You play it so much that you even forget who you really are.
00:25:42.520
I mean, the more crazy he acts and the more his views go up and his chat rewards him,
00:25:47.080
the formula is difficult to maintain because the chat doesn't really care about your well-being.
00:25:52.360
They want to see you push the limits because they don't have to suffer the consequences if you go too far.
00:26:00.520
I bet he'll look back on some clips in a few years and cringe at himself.
00:26:04.980
But when you're making tons of money off the same exact thing that is causing the controversy,
00:26:10.320
He seems like a really good kid, obviously very entertaining, and not bad music either.
00:26:15.300
I would hate to see him get lost in this character that he built,
00:26:23.700
But maintaining that high stress, chaotic, and angry character just doesn't really seem like it can last that long.
00:26:31.680
I mean, look at Roy Purdy, who built a brand of being positive, happy-go-lucky, dancing, smiling,
00:26:37.460
wearing bright colors, millions of people around the world loving him for his positive energy.
00:26:44.880
But if you want to hear more about that story, check out this video right here.
00:26:48.840
Yeah, bro, you know, that's why, you know, oh, it's hard, bro.
00:26:56.240
I get, you know, and I get what he's saying, where he's coming from and shit.
00:27:04.160
I don't know how Speed can stream every single day and bring that energy.
00:27:10.120
That's why I tell you guys, he's not human, bro.
00:27:13.660
There's no fucking way this motherfucker, you know what I'm saying?
00:27:51.140
I know we're in a buy right now and I know we're in profit, but bro, like, let's play smart, bro.
00:27:55.300
Don't just be like, it's profit money, you know?