IShowSpeed, commonly referred to as Speed, has amassed a total of 5.84 million subscribers on YouTube, and may be one of the fastest growing channels on the site. It was only a year ago that Speed was celebrating his 10 thousand subscriber milestone. Known for his gaming and entertainment livestreams, and for gaining over 1 million subscribers in a matter of days in 2021, Speed continues to grow on a daily basis.

Although Speed joined YouTube on March 16, 2016, he didn’t upload a video until December 21, 2017. He then did his first livestream on December 18. 2018, in which he plays the popular battle royale game Fortnite. It wasn’t until 2020 that his streams began to pick up the pace, especially with the growth of NBA 2K, a popular basketball simulation game at the time.

In June of 2020, Speed averaged about 10 viewers per stream, gaining around 150 subscribers every week. Then, in the beginning of 2021, Speed’s livestream began to average 350 viewers, and he began to gain almost 1 thousand subscribers weekly. Suddenly, in April 2021, Speed reached his 100 thousand subscriber milestone.

Part of his growth was the popularity of Social Media App: TikTok. Speed began a habit of uploading the funniest clips of his streams to his channels on YouTube and TikTok. With a constant stream and clip upload schedule, Speed’s channel skyrocketed.
On June 22, Speed added a subscriber count to his steam. When he was getting ready to reach his 400 thousand subscriber milestone, his viewers began to mass-unsubscribe from his channel. Speed raged for a few minutes until his fans resubscribed and his count went back up. Two days later the same thing happened. Speed was going to reach 500 thousand subscribers, but then his viewers unsubscribed, and he freaked out again.

Speed continued this pattern for every one of his subscriber milestones. Three days later, he reached 600 thousand, and the next day he reached 700 thousand. On June 29th, Speed woke up to find he was about to hit 800 thousand subscribers overnight. Later, on that same day, Speed hit 1 million subscribers. The very next day, June 30th, Speed hit 1.5 million subscribers. In the middle of July, Speed hit 2 million subscribers, meaning that in about 1 month, Speed went from 300 thousand to 2 million YouTube subscribers.

Speed then took a trip to Los Angeles, where he began to meet up with another popular livestreamer, Adin Ross who is known for his gaming content. Seeing this in-person connection between their friend-groups added to their popularity. Through Adin Ross, Speed got to meet several of his celebrity inspirations, including famous artists and musicians.

In August of 2021, Speed began his career as an artist with the song “Doodie Booty.” Speed began to upload a song every month, and has accumulated over 1 million monthly listeners on Spotify. His music videos also tend to hit tens of millions of views, with his most popular song, “Shake” reaching 44 million views on YouTube.

IShowSpeed has definitely put in the work to reach his popularity on streams. Speed would grind livestreams and clips to his Twitch, YouTube, and TikTok daily, and even after hitting 5 million subscribers, Speed doesn’t seem to have any plans to stop his livestreaming career in the near future.