“These lyrics are about stabbing someone in the heart,” one woman said, with a smile.
Speed, as his fans call him, had become famous during the pandemic for his hyperactive, hours-long broadcasts, where he’d rage about video games, leap over Lamborghinis and perform unprompted backflips. But lately, his real star power has come from his international tours, during which he blitzes into foreign countries to see the sights while surrounded by screaming teenagers, all of it live-streamed.
Speed’s TikTok-era travelogues often descend into chaos, but government officials have learned to love them nevertheless. His two-week trip through China this spring, where he fawned over the country’s state-of-the-art phones and luxury cars, went so viral that the Chinese Communist Party’s official newspaper hailed it as a “digital-age Marco Polo journey.”
“The U.S. has spent billions on anti-China propaganda, only to be undone by … IShowSpeed,” one report by the state news agency Xinhua said, citing a YouTube comment.
This month, it was Lithuania’s turn. When the Baltic nation learned Speed’s next adventure would cross through northeastern Europe, local tourism officials scrambled to craft him an extraordinary itinerary, including throwing a discus with an Olympic silver medalist, swinging swords in 14th-century armor and walking along the crown of Lithuania’s tallest tower. They also extended Speed an honorarium worth about $23,500 and spent another $8,000 on minibuses, snacks and 10 security guards supported by the Lithuanian police.
