At first, I wasn’t keen to write about popular American influencer IShowSpeed’s China trip, mainly because I’m not very familiar with the livestreamer scene. But there he was, popping up in feeds across the country, turning into a kind of cultural phenomenon.

IShowSpeed, whose real name is Darren Jason Watkins Jr, is a 20-year-old YouTuber, livestreamer and rapper, known for his hyperactive, unpredictable content. Not exactly without controversy, but still a creator stepping into some bold adventures.

After diving into his content, his appeal becomes obvious. He’s raw, expressive, impulsive and curious. But what really stands out is a kind of open-hearted nobility that sometimes peeks through the chaos.

That chaos, in fact, is his secret sauce. His unfiltered energy makes reactions feel real, which is why he resonates so deeply with younger audiences, who have actively rebelled against the polish of mainstream media.

What makes this viral moment magnetic is how fully and frenetically he engages with his environment. During his China trip, he wasn’t just observing; he was participating. His content wasn’t about explaining China; it was about experiencing it.

But what makes his trip to China so fascinating? Despite the “wild” persona, his recent travel content shows him enthusiastically reacting to China, and it’s people with an honest open-mindedness that allows him to express genuine awe and curiosity, which simultaneously makes China seem awesome and interesting.

Part of what makes IShowSpeed’s content broadly relatable is that he’s largely apolitical. He steers clear of ideological messaging, which helps his awe and curiosity feel sincere rather than scripted. And this impartiality shows: He openly marvels at Shanghai and Chongqing yet doesn’t hesitate to gripe about Beijing’s infamous traffic.

IShowSpeed’s visit feels like a continuation and perhaps even a product of the “TikTok refugee” phenomenon in January, when many Americans, through Chinese social app Xiaohongshu (known in English as RedNote), had their world views on China challenged, expanded and even flipped. IShowSpeed stepped beyond the constraints of mobile phone screens, to experience China in person, in real life.

Other influencers and celebrities are definitely taking note. For those whose careers are driven by metrics, the numbers coming out of this trip are stunning. IShowSpeed began his China tour with 36.9 million YouTube subscribers. In just two weeks, that ballooned to 38.3 million. If that growth rate held, he’d end the year with 58 million subscribers.

And that’s just on YouTube. His newly created Douyin (the Chinese version of TikTok) account gained over 1 million followers in less than a week. His Bilibili streams reached over 1.6 million concurrent viewers.

Americans who haven’t been to China aren’t accustomed to this kind of scale, and many can’t even fathom it. IShowSpeed is the first “big-name” content creator to arrive in China and fully experience, at full throttle, the everyday lifeness of modern China.

For expats already living in China, our days might feel ordinary. We wake up in the mornings, grab our coffee at our favorite café; we go to a park, see aunties doing their tai chi, pass by a new art exhibition; we chat with a friend who just rode in a fully autonomous bus, pay for everything without cash, and have robots deliver our food to our hotel rooms. All of this is normalized to us, but for IShowSpeed, this “normal life” is unexpected, futuristic and jaw-dropping.

And so no doubt, other influencers and people of note will start planning their own trips to China. After all, why shouldn’t they? Nick Carter was just in Shanghai. British model Daniel Millar is due soon, along with Chris James, Julian MacKay and Taylor Zakhar Perez. And likely others behind the scenes.

It’s not just the content that makes IShowSpeed’s trip different. It’s the scale and the breadth. More than 40 hours of livestreaming across China: Shanghai, Beijing, Chengdu, Chongqing, Hong Kong, Shenzhen, Changsha, and a visit to the Shaolin Temple in Henan Province. Zoom in, and we see IShowSpeed learning kung fu, riding in luxury Chinese cars, taking part in a Sichuan Opera performance, dancing in parks with old Chinese aunties and eating spicy hotpot.

Of course, this isn’t the full story of China. It’s the China IShowSpeed encountered: largely urban, fast-paced and designed to dazzle. That’s not a critique, just context. This journey is as much about how China chooses to present itself to a global audience — these urban areas, of course, being prime examples of its modern-day achievements — as it is about how a 20-year-old livestreamer reacts to it.

For years, Western audiences have mostly seen one narrow version of China, often filtered through political or economic lenses. What makes IShowSpeed’s trip refreshing is that it bypasses talking points and captures the everyday curiosity, and humor that rarely make headlines.

For those of us living here, this gap between external perception and our lived experiences here is huge. China is not monolithic. Like any large and fast developing country, it holds contrasts: cutting-edge technology alongside centuries-old traditions, moments of friction as well as spontaneous joy. What we experience day to day is largely unknown to the rest of the world.

Was this young man aware of how powerful this piercing of the veil was — creating a real-time, lived adventure for millions to witness? Was it intentional, or simply the natural outcome of unfiltered curiosity?

His ability to do this stems not from a polished script, but from the very nature of social media itself. What mainstream media often struggles to show is what IShowSpeed reveals so instinctively: a modern society that has undergone an astonishingly rapid transformation, filled with welcoming, humorous and open-hearted people.

It all boils down to this: IShowSpeed experienced China as is. Not through a curated lens, not through a tightly controlled itinerary, but through chance encounters, awkward moments and unplanned wonder. Spontaneity was allowed — and by it becoming viral ... celebrated.

Let’s explore briefly some of his adventures. For him, Shenzhen is a glimpse into the future. From riding in a car that drives on water to ordering food via flying drones, dancing with robots and taking a quick ride in a flying car, Shenzhen “is totally a tech city.”

In Beijing, he livestreamed for six hours — much of it stuck in traffic. But the stream stood out for many awkward interactions with another China-based content creator, who lobbed rude, condescending comments and was a tad uncouth at one point. Yet IShowSpeed kept his composure, quietly revealing a strong sense of dignity. The uncut videos of Beijing, particularly in the Forbidden City and Great Wall, did the unexpected: show you just how huge these monuments are.

His visit to Chengdu in Sichuan Province, perhaps more than any other stop, illustrated the sheer vivaciousness of daily life in China. Reflecting on this particular livestream from the perspective of an expat who has lived in China for awhile, it is easy to take for granted the fast paced, varied happenings that seem to spring up around every corner in China’s urban areas. I couldn’t see how incredible some of these things are until seeing IShowSpeed’s reaction to these things as a “fresh off the boat” newcomer, where everything is new and novel.

For example, he strolled into Chengdu’s People’s Park and came upon a group of young musicians playing traditional Chinese music on Chinese instruments. He sang while they are playing, gave them high fives and tried to play some of their instruments. And everyone seemed to be having a good time.

Or there’s the time he was stopped by a troupe of Sichuan Opera performers, who invited him in for a show, right off the street.

IShowSpeed is opening windows for people to see into China. His reactions and interactions make it seem like China is a fun, good-natured place. He sees the people here as being generous and love making connections (and I don’t mean only the local Chinese) — fans of all stripes and ethnicities coming up to him in cosplay, or cracking antagonistic competitive sport jokes, or breaking into impromptu rap battles with him in parks, or aunties inviting him to twirl plastic flowers in the wind. It’s all “in real life” as his streams on YouTube are prefixed.

We may not grasp the full impact of this trip just yet, but what’s clear is that IShowSpeed’s journey has revealed a side of China that feels futuristic, welcoming and full of life. In a generational, grassroots way — powered not by politicians or media, but by social media itself — the world has started connecting with and seeing China in ways it never has before.