The only 17-year-old American Darren “IShowSpeed” Watkins is an Internet phenomenon. He has over 13 million subscriptions on YouTube, his song for the soccer World Cup has 19 million views, and it’s also huge on TikTok. But he keeps making quite a mess: In a stream on November 16th. he announced he was giving away PlayStation 5 consoles and meeting Cristiano Ronaldo, but in fact a cryptocurrency endorsement went horribly wrong.
What makes IShowSpeed stand out? IShowSpeed has stood out for two things so far:
His fans often defend IShowSpeed by saying that he is very young and is only viewed so critically because he is black, but many of his critics are white. IShowSpeed itself keeps saying: yes, it makes mistakes. But he is also very young and still learning.
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IShowSpeed says he wants to give away PS5 and meet Ronaldo
What went wrong this time? On November 16th, IShowSpeed was again featured in a two-hour live stream on YouTube, where he had a number of PlayStation5 consoles lined up in a room for a raffle. In addition, he actually wanted to meet “his idol”, Cristiano Ronaldo, in the stream (via youtube).
To show the enormous popularity of IShowSpeed. A Twitter clip of him meeting the fake Cristiano Ronaldo has over 4.4 million views:
Speed finally meets Ronaldo ?
pic.twitter.com/hSUOntlhQu
— Speedy Updates (@SpeedUpdates1) November 16, 2022
However, fans reacted negatively when they realized that the streamer was promoting Paradox Metaverse, an open-world adventure game that allows users to earn a cryptocurrency called Pardox Coin, with some guests.
IShowSpeed had obviously been paid to run this ad now.
Cristiano Ronaldo also turned out to be a look-alike wearing a “Buy Paradox Crypto” t-shirt.
Some viewers apparently felt they had been lured into the stream with the promise of PS5 and now they’re being sold something.
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Viewers chant “cheating” and “sellout”
How was the reaction? Some users criticize the YouTuber for this advertising – but he did not react very confidently and had critics banned:
“Mods do something cuz it pisses me off bro,” he said. “Calm the fuck down, Dog. Honestly, you’re getting on my nerves, bro.”
He obviously felt personally attacked by the criticism:
The fact that you think that of me at all. I don’t know if you’re all trolls or not, but just thinking that of me is kind of broken. It kind of hurts me.
How did that go? A day later, on November 17th, IShowSpeed apparently changed its mind. Now he apologized to fans for promoting the cryptocurrency. Although it didn’t really sound like an apology:
Y’all don’t know what I do for you bro. Let me make it short: I make so much stuff for you guys bro. Now I made a mistake. You know, I’m not that smart. I’m being honest. But as I go on, I’ll get smarter and smarter.
The cryptocurrency thing was a “small mistake” that he preferred never to make. But he is not a scammer. He would never do that.
As an expert, YouTuber takes the whole number apart with relish
Now what was the scam? The YouTuber “Coffeezilla” specializes in exactly such cryptocurrencies. He examined the incident in a 14-minute video. He explains that in the chat, users denounced the crypto coin as a “scam” and referred to IShowSpeed as a “sellout,” as someone selling themselves to a bad cause for money.
Coffeezilla explains: The situation became so awkward for Speed that he muted his mic to discuss the situation internally. But it wasn’t really muted, so fans could hear Speed Mods summoning the chat to have the scam allegations removed, looking rather perplexed, although he assured the business partners, “I know what I do.”
In the conversation, which was audible despite the mute, it emerged that the “project” was apparently about $10 million, in which IShowSpeed was apparently involved. However, the advert was disrupted by the chat, which constantly spoke of “fraud”:
He thought he was muted and got exposed for a 10M crypto deal @SpeedUpdates1 https://t.co/CwLrA67zaa
— IIIllllIIlIII (@eef_tw) November 16, 2022
The fraud expert Coffeezilla, on the other hand, clearly enjoys dissecting the phenomenon “Paradox Metaverse” for 10 minutes and presenting it as a brazen fraud, which he easily tears apart in front of a hundred thousand viewers:
YouTuber Coffeezilla gleefully picks apart the misstep.
Coffeezilla hilariously amused that the kids and teens who usually watch IShowSpeed are smart enough to immediately see through the scam and publicly confront the YouTuber about it. If even children see through such a fraud so quickly, then it is probably pretty bad.
According to Coffeezilla, the scam could only be more obvious if “IShowSpeed” had just renamed itself “IShowScams”.
Such deals with “crypto currencies” are apparently a lucrative business for influencers, but a dangerous one:
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