IShowSpeed breaks personal streaming record with staggering viewership in Thailand

Superstar YouTube streamer IShowSpeed has secured a new peak concurrent view count during his southeast Asia tour in Thailand, shredding his own personal record.

Speed drew over 615,000 viewers during his Thailand stream, with the major broadcast kicking off his tour of southeast Asia. While it took him a little while to notice, Speed picked up on the record nearly three hours into his Thailand stream after he checked his phone. This haul blew past his last record, which was 548,000 viewers during his arrival at the 2023 Ballon d’Or awards, and @IShowSpeedHQ reported on X that by the end of the stream, his peak concurrent view count was even 615,275.

During the now-historic livestream, Speed began his travels across the country by engaging in different activities at each destination, including barking at a roaring tiger. At the start of the stream he met monkey trainers and fed the monkeys some bananas. After that, Speed ate scorpions he bought from a street vendor, sparred with a professional Muay Thai fighter, and rode an elephant. When Speed broke his own record, he had sat down to get a fish pedicure in a large tank. By the end of the stream, Speed was celebrating hitting 29 million subscribers on YouTube with fire dancers.

Speed has had a meteoric rise on YouTube in 2024. By June, he was second only to the now-disgraced Dr Disrespect. Other streamers who have dominated viewership are Valkyrae and Ludwig, who’ve spent considerably longer periods of time to cultivate their audiences. 

Part of Speed’s appeal may be how dedicated he has been to finding so many in-person events to showcase. This has been in contrast to his peers, who are generally geared towards gaming and sit-down streams. Some include similar events like his Europe tour that took place over the summer. Other cases are more isolated streams that focus on Speed being active in some way. One recent example was the YouTube stream that got him temporarily banned where he jumped over two sports cars, which still drew in plenty of attention that added to his hype.

Speed’s ambition means he’ll likely attempt to build on this record with more impressive streams and extravagant stunts. One stream in the future includes travelling to the Phillipines, but he will be traveling to Indonesia and Singapore eventually too.