Need for IShowSpeed: A YouTuber’s Wild Ride Through China’s Internet
On a packed street in southwestern China’s megacity of Chongqing, a man in a floral jacket pushes braised goose through a cheering crowd. The man he’s chasing — a wildly popular American YouTuber — has no idea what’s going on. Neither do the millions watching.
Since landing in China in late March, 20-year-old Darren Watkins Jr. — better known as IShowSpeed — has livestreamed a chaotic, unscripted journey through eight major cities in just over two weeks. Along the way, he drew mobs of fans, confused bystanders, and clout-chasing influencers into his unpredictable orbit.
Watkins, who has over 38 million subscribers on YouTube and 32 million on Instagram, is famous for adrenaline-fueled stunts and over-the-top reactions. In China, his real-time broadcasts have sparked everything from impromptu singalongs and viral memes to awkward mistranslations — and the occasional diplomatic headache.
Since 2023, his livestreams have broken out of his Ohio bedroom and gone global — from Europe and Australia to Southeast Asia. Now, with Sino-U.S. tensions rising and a new trade war looming, Watkins has become something neither country planned for: an accidental cultural ambassador.
A handful of awkward moments make clear just how unscripted the streams are: Watkins once forgot to mute his mic while using the bathroom, was hit with racially offensive remarks, and nearly choked on a regional delicacy enthusiastically fed to him by fans.
His presence has rippled across the Chinese internet. Aunties on the Great Wall post baffled selfies asking who this stranger is. Random bystanders go viral just by crossing his path. Influencers crowd into his frame hoping for a second of clout — some succeed, others get mercilessly mocked. And across cities, local officials scramble to spin his chaos into cultural PR.
Meanwhile, Watkins has opened official accounts on Douyin, China’s version of TikTok, the lifestyle app Xiaohongshu, known globally as RedNote, and microblogging platform Weibo, where his follower counts are climbing fast: 4 million, 570,000, and 140,000, respectively.
“Who is this?”
On the Great Wall in Beijing, a Chinese auntie filmed a selfie — and accidentally captured Watkins stumbling into frame. She posted the clip on Douyin asking: “Who is this?”
Despite clearly having no idea what was happening, Watkins clasped her hand and lip-synced a patriotic song, his face hilariously warped by a beauty filter that made him look almost extraterrestrial. The video hit 2.4 million likes — more than a separate clip of him doing his signature backflip on the Wall.
In Hong Kong, a young woman from the eastern Zhejiang province seated next to Watkins on a cruise won over viewers with her soft voice and reflections on life. Within days, she launched a Xiaohongshu account, gained tens of thousands of followers, and was invited by her hometown’s tourism board to voice their next promo video.
But the breakout star of the trip might be “Brother Jiang” — the Chongqing local who chased Watkins over five cities, offering delicacies including braised goose, chicken, and roast pig.
After their fourth encounter, Watkins finally invited him into his car. There, Brother Jiang showed off a rap in his local dialect and chatted through a translation app, as viewers flooded the screen with comments showing approval.
Jiang’s Douyin account now boasts over 270,000 followers. And his videos — once topping out at a few hundred views — rack up tens of thousands of likes. Viewers call him “goose influencer of the year,” asking where they can order his hometown dishes. Watkins even put him on a YouTube thumbnail and invited him to visit the U.S.
Clout, chaos, and copycats
As Watkins’ popularity surged across China’s cities, influencers scrambled to share his screen time, hoping a cameo would launch their own stardom. Some got their moment. Others got roasted.
In Shanghai, just an hour into his first livestream, an influencer greeted Watkins with a saxophone cover of “Sunshine, Rainbow, White Pony” — a 2018 hit by Chinese pop star Zhang Wei, professionally known as Wowkie Zhang. The song, originally filled with playful filler words like “nei ge” (“that” in Mandarin), went viral in 2020 after non-Chinese speakers on TikTok misheard the lyric as a racial slur.
Watkins, who reacted to the song during a livestream in 2022, played along, feigning outrage before jumping into a singalong. The bit repeated itself throughout his trip, from buskers to folk bands to electric cars that blasted the tune from their speakers.
The livestream reached its peak on April 7, when a local TV station in Changsha, capital of central Hunan province, arranged for Watkins to meet Wowkie Zhang in person. The two performed the viral song live on stage — but Zhang skipped over every “that” word.
Elsewhere, influencer cameos turned into viral side plots. In Chongqing, a British vlogger trailed him on a motorcycle; in Changsha, street performers tricked him into watching their acts; even local governments joined the scramble, racing to turn the chaos into cultural capital.
In central China, Watkins had hoped to learn kung fu at the Shaolin Temple in Henan — the birthplace of the martial art — but fans and content creators came up short. So local officials stepped in, introducing him to an instructor named Master Liang at the Shaolin Temple Wushu Training Center, who offered both a demo and a now-viral mantra: “It’s pain, but it’s life. It’s pain, but it’s Shaolin. It’s pain, but it’s you.” The clip blew up on Douyin and TikTok.
Since then, cultural bureaus across China have rushed to ride the wave — staging encounters designed to charm both Watkins and his audience. While some flopped, like his stiff TV appearance in Changsha, widely panned online as awkward and overproduced, others landed better.
In the southwestern city of Chengdu, a traditional medicine practitioner checked his pulse and assured him, with a grin, that he didn’t have hyperthyroidism — a playful nod to Watkins’ Chinese nickname, “Hyperthyroid Bro,” coined for his relentless energy and exaggerated expressions.
Editor: Apurva.
(Header image: YouTuber IShowSpeed carries a panda-shaped bag in Shenzhen, Guangdong province, April 5, 2025. VCG)
