iShowSpeed‘s tour of Southeast Asia has certainly been eventful. Amidst a flurry of passionate crowds and over-the-top stunts, the creator born Darren Watkins, Jr. has achieved personal-best viewership on his YouTube channel. His live broadcast from Indonesia has been the biggest hit of his Asia trip thus far: At its peak, the stream attracted more than one million concurrent viewers.
During an earlier leg of his trip in Thailand, Watkins set a new personal record with more than 600,000 concurrents. His audience in Indonesia blew that number out of the water. Watkins was moved to tears after pushing his audience past one million concurrents. “Oh my god, that’s really one million,” he said. “Thank you Indonesia!”
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If one country was going to provide Watkins with the setting for a record-smashing broadcast, Indonesia was always a likely candidate. The world’s fourth-most populous nation is a hotbed of creator content, especially on short-form platforms like TikTok. In recent editions of our Tubefilter charts, Indonesian YouTube Shorts creators like Virola_Chan have showed up among the 50 most-watched channels on YouTube.
Watkins’ contribution to Southeast Asia’s creator economy is impressive, though one million concurrents is not enough to claim the title of most-watched stream in YouTube history. That distinction goes to India’s nation space agency, which broadcast a moon landing to an audience of more than eight million concurrent viewers. On Twitch, the current holder of the equivalent record is Spanish streamer Ibai Llanos, who brought in 3.85 million concurrent viewers for the fourth edition of his influencer boxing event La Velada del Año.
Though Watkins is a long shot to top either of those records, his tour is proving that he is a star of international magnitude. Perhaps he has been boosted by his affiliation with another world-famous name, soccer legend Cristiano Ronaldo. The Portuguese player set records on YouTube as soon as he arrived on the platform. Watkins, who might be Ronaldo’s biggest fan, drafting off of the striker’s celebrity status to raise his own profile.
Will Watkins’ star continue to shine as he concludes his Southeast Asian swing? So far, there have been highs (huge crowds, traditional dances) and lows (motorcycle crashes, rip-offs from locals). There could be even more nuttiness in store as Watkins takes his show to Singapore. It will be a rule-breaking streamer doing his thing in a city-state that’s infamous for its strict rules. What could go wrong?
