YouTuber IShowSpeed visits Bay Area on national tour, greeted by massive crowds in San Francisco, Oakland
By Tim Fang
IShowSpeed, a YouTuber and online streamer with tens of millions of followers, was greeted by massive crowds in San Francisco and Oakland on Thursday as part of his national tour.
The famed streamer, whose given name is Darren Jason Watkins Jr., covered a lot of ground on his San Francisco stop, which included stops at Fisherman’s Wharf, Chinatown, San Francisco City Hall and the Golden Gate Bridge. Wearing a Stephen Curry jersey, scores of people followed him to get a glimpse.
“He’s an amazing guy. He’s really kind hearted. He’s given away so much,” one of his fans told CBS News Bay Area.
Another fan said, “He mess with every ethnicity bro he don’t sugarcoat nothing. He genuine, he real genuine.”
While in San Francisco, IShowSpeed visited City Hall and met with Mayor Daniel Lurie, who posted a video of the encounter.
When Lurie asked him about his first impression of City Hall, IShowSpeed said, “Listen bro, it’s amazing. There’s quinceañeras, weddings, everything’s here. It’s beautiful.”
The YouTuber also paid a visit to a fire station in San Francisco, where he met with firefighters, police officers and interim police chief Paul Yep.
On the Golden Gate Bridge, IShowSpeed was seen performing flips on the walkway, after appearing to have noticed a news helicopter flying above.
At night, the YouTuber and his entourage also traveled across the bay into Oakland, where he was seen visiting a popular burger spot and got in the middle of a sideshow.
With more than 44 million subscribers on YouTube, 40 million followers on Instagram and 2.3 million followers on Twitch, IShowSpeed is in the middle of his “Speed Does America” tour, which started on Aug. 28 in Miami. Streaming his life 24/7 during the tour, the 20-year-old is visiting 25 different states over the span of 35 days.
An 11-hour clip of his Bay Area visit was posted to IShowSpeed’s account, which had more than 2.2 million views as of Friday morning.
Previous stops on the tour included major cities such as Atlanta, Washington, DC; Philadelphia, New York, Chicago, Houston and Dallas, along with stops at Mount Rushmore in South Dakota and Jackson Hole, Wyoming.
The Bay Area was Watkins’ first stop in California.
