Do we like IShowSpeed?
Our score: 5 out of 10. Some ugly moments early on that he apologised for, no campaign against any group turned up, and a messy streak of impulsive stunts keeps this in the middle.
IShowSpeed, real name Darren Watkins Jr., came up as a gaming streamer shouting at Fortnite and Valorant lobbies, and in 2026 he walked out at the World Cup closing ceremony. That's quite the glow-up for someone who built a name on being loud, chaotic and unfiltered, and the chaos is exactly where the trouble comes from.
Then in April 2022 an old Valorant clip of him telling a female teammate to go do her husband's dishes went viral, and Riot permanently banned him across its games. This time he apologised, said he “wasn't having a good day” after racist messages, but called it “no excuse” and took the blame. That is the right way to cop a mistake, though it's the second time in four months he'd been in strife over the same kind of thing.
In December 2022 he was accused of racism for repeatedly yelling “konnichiwa” at a Chinese fan at the Qatar World Cup. He denied being racist, said the fan was mistaken for Japanese, and apologised “if it came off that way”, which a lot of viewers found a half-hearted apology.
On the harm test: searches turned up nothing from him campaigning against LGBTQ+ or trans people, pushing anti-vax or climate-denial claims, or platforming anyone who does. What there is amounts to a run of cruel or careless moments on stream, each apologised for, and I found no sign of a pattern since. That's the asterisk, and the reason it isn't a clean pass.
The recent story is him on the receiving end. During Argentina's win over Cabo Verde on 3 July 2026, fans allegedly hurled racist abuse at him while he streamed, and AFP reported a further alleged incident at the Egypt match. FIFA said it had launched an investigation and condemned racism. The abuse aimed at him counts for nothing against him.
Off the pitch, Social Robotics, the company behind the viral robot Rizzbot, sued him in December 2025 for $1 million, alleging he punched and choked the robot at a September meet-up in Austin. No response from him was reported in that coverage and I found no ruling, so it stays an allegation.