Who is Kai Cenat? Tracing the Twitch streamer's 2022

Kai Cenat has seen a meteoric rise in 2022. This year, the YouTuber and Twitch streamer has achieved unprecedented success on Twitch, becoming one of its most watched and subscribed-to streamers.

All the buzz surrounding the Atlanta-based streamer propelled him to nominations in multiple categories at the 2022 Streamy Awards. By the end of last night's show, he had taken home arguably the biggest award of the night, Streamer of the Year.

Considering his immense popularity and success, it is easy to forget that Kai is still relatively new to streaming. Plenty of avid Twitch viewers may not know who he is or what his streams are like. Today, we take a look at Kai Cenat and his path to becoming one of the biggest streamers on Twitch.

Who is Kai Cenat?

Kai is a 20-year-old content creator from New York who began posting short sketch comedy videos on Facebook and Instagram as a teenager, aspiring to become a comedian. He began posting videos on YouTube in 2018, primarily posting prank and challenge content. Today, his main channel has over 3 million subscribers.

Kai was discovered in 2020 by Fanum, a fellow New York-based YouTuber and member of the YouTube creator group AMP. Fanum invited the young content creator to join the group, making him the group's final member. The group now resides in an Atlanta, Georgia, content creation house, where they frequently collaborate on videos and streams.

Kai Cenat ventured into Twitch streaming in 2021, his content being a mix of Just Chatting and reacting as well as variety gaming. The beginning of his streaming career was a bit tumultuous, receiving multiple bans. In March 2022, he received his third ban on his channel for an alleged racist comment he made on stream.

Since it was his third offense, Kai received a 30-day ban from the platform. Fans and other streamers came to his defense, including OTK co-founder Mizkif, who offered to put him in touch with his Twitch representative to potentially get the ban lifted. Kai Cenat, on the other hand, served the entire ban.

Kai has had unprecedented success on Twitch since his return in April. His energetic streams, which included him, fellow AMP members, and occasional celebrity guests, catapulted him to unprecedented success. With over 80,000 subscribers, he surpassed xQc in September for the title of the most subscribed-to streamer on the platform. His growth continued into October, with his subscriber count surpassing 100,000 for the first time.

Kai Cenat's runaway success in 2022 netted him two nominations in key categories at the 2022 Streamy Awards, one for Breakout Streamer and the other for Streamer of the Year. Although YouTube Gaming streamer IShowSpeed took home the award for Breakout Streamer, Kai was recognized as Streamer of the Year at last night's award ceremony. He stayed humble in his acceptance speech, thanking all of the friends, family and fans that helped him get to this point.

The challenge now for Kai Cenat is maintaining his success in 2023 and beyond, although he seems to be in a strong position to do so. Kai has had a lot of success this year, and it will be hard for the next big streamer to reach the same level of success.