IShowSpeed is best known for streaming NBA 2K, but now he’s becoming known for speed-running YouTube. In under a week, the streamer went from under 500,000 followers to… 1.5 million.
If you’re in the NBA 2K community, you’ve probably heard of the emerging streamer IShowSpeed. If you’re not in that community, you still may know him by face — as he’s had videos go viral on Twitter and TikTok.
While earlier jump-scare videos were big on the web, IShowSpeed’s recent growth didn’t happen until a TikTok video showed how devastated he was by a trolling fanbase. The streamer was reacting live as his fans decided to unsubscribe for an angry reaction.
With his subs dropping to under 400,000, they definitely got a reaction out of Speed. But that reaction has gone in the opposite direction now, as he has gained over a million followers since that TikTok went viral.
As seen in the TikTok, Speed seems to be in real, impassioned pain as he screams at his fans asking what they’re doing and pleading with them to stop unsubscribing.
Subscribe to our newsletter for the latest updates on Esports, Gaming and more.
It turns out they were probably just doing it to get a rise out of the energetic streamer, as his numbers have skyrocketed well past the 400K mark in the week since. During a June 30 stream, he watched the subscriber ticker live as it bounced toward one million — eventually eclipsing the YouTube benchmark.
Having flown past his goals of 500K and one million, IShowSpeed now sits at 1.53 million subscribers on YouTube at the time of writing. The majority of reactions are overwhelmingly positive, as people congratulate him on living up to his name and speed-running the YouTube game.
It’s unclear if Speed intends to celebrate these new numbers or is worried that his fans might troll again and mass unsubscribe. One thing is clear though, it’ll be a lot harder to put a dent in his 1.5 million count than it was when he had 400K.