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On November 17, YouTube Gaming star Darren "IShowSpeed" found himself in a peculiar position after promoting a cryptocurrency project and giving away Sony PlayStation 5s to his viewers on livestream.
During the broadcast, he also invited a Cristiano Ronaldo lookalike to promote the project, leaving the streaming community in splits.
Following the backlash, clips were removed from his YouTube channel. However, some Reddit users provided a mirror, and a 23-second clip from his most recent livestream can be viewed here:
IShowSpeed receives backlash after promoting cryptocurrecy project and inviting a Cristiano Ronaldo lookalike on livestream
Darren got together with some guests during a two-hour broadcast, including a person who bore an uncanny resemblance to Cristiano Ronaldo.
The streamer was also wearing a jersey with the logo of a company named Paradox Crypto all over.
At the 27-minute mark, the former Twitch streamer urged his fanbase to follow an Instagram account linked to the cryptocurrency project, saying:
"Yo, bro! Everybody follow Paradoxmeta.io! Please follow them right now!... Follow them right now so I can see what this is, bro! They're saying I'm going to be very happy, bro! Just follow them, please bro! Like, I genuinlly want to see who the hell he is, bro!"
Timestamp: 00:27:55
The guests joined in, announcing that they will be launching the "biggest crypto coin in the world." A few moments later, another person claimed to have obtained the "supplies," which turned out to be several Sony PlayStation 5 consoles.
At one point during the stream, IShowSpeed was seen signing the aforementioned gaming consoles when he received a donation from the viewer, saying:
"None of us are trolling Speed, these guys are scammers."
IShowSpeed's response was:
"That's crazy, bro! That is a dumb a** comment bro! Seriously."
Following the massive backlash, IShowSpeed took to Twitter to apologize to the online community and added "never again."
Fans react to the crypto project in IShowSpeed's stream
Two different clips were shared to the r/LivestreamFail subreddit and ended up becoming the top post on the streamer-focused forum.
With more than 470 community members joining the discussion thread, several viewers voiced their opinions on the controversial livestream. One Redditor commented:
Redditor u/Snoo-43285 speculated that the YouTube Gaming personality makes $250,000 a month and wondered why he was "scamming his audience":
Another user provided an in-depth explanation of the crypto project, stating that it was a "complete pump and dump." They detailed:
One community member mentioned that prominent YouTuber Casey Neistat was also promoting NFT (non-fungible token) related projects on Twitter:
Here are some more relevant fan reactions from Reddit:
IShowSpeed is one of the fastest-growing streamers, who exclusively broadcasts on the Google-owned livestreaming platform.
He joined YouTube in 2016, and in six years, he has amassed more than 13.2 million subscribers and well over 960 million channel views.
Aside from being a Just Chatting content creator, Darren is also an avid gamer. He has played several popular titles such as FIFA, NBA 2K series, Fortnite, Roblox, and more.
