Fans of the newest developments in Chinese tech are piqued by American streamers IShowSpeed’s visit to China, where products from BYD Co and Huawei Technologies Co are highlighted.
IShowSpeed, whose true name is Darren Watkins Jr., often streams live to his 38.4 million YouTube members for days at a time. The 20-year-old streamers, who is well known for his funny and serious personality, travels frequently surrounded by fans and onlookers and shares unique and superhero experiences.
Watkins ‘ most recent trip to China, which included highly anticipated appointments to cities like Shenzhen, Chongqing, and Shanghai , made him an improbable ambassador for the Asian region because the country’s second-largest business ires US President Donald Trump.
His spontaneous manner comes across as genuine and relatable, which helps to establish that the technology’s author is truly impressed by the audience, according to Barbara Duffek, assistant marketing professor at Georgia State University. It’s superior to any national, scripted support.
Watkins rode a BYD Yangwang U8 extravagance SUV that you float in water in an almost six-hour video that was watched 8 million times. At first, she screamed in fear as the car was driven into a valley.
” Oh my god, we are inside the car, and this vehicle is no sinking!” He eventually yelled,” China got it, these Foreign vehicles got it bro,” while filming himself posing through the roof.
Watkins also purchased three Huawei Mate XTs, the first commercial unit that can fold half from a product to a cellphone, at a later time in the same stream. Difficulty of bystanders were lining up at the store to watch him make the buys, recording him, and cheering as he did so.
The YouTuber, who is frequently referred to as Speed, praised the device’s thinness and front camera but claimed how expensive it is ($ 20,000 ) when it was purchased for ($ 20,000 ) ($ 12, 080 or US$$ 2,720 ) each.
” These are only made in China, no one got them in the world,” said Yo. As he tested various models, he said in awe that I’m about to return these ( expletive ) to America. It’s a phone-compatible game PC.
” Another amount”
Online users have expressed their disapproval of Chinese tech as being “on another stage” and underappreciated, with some describing the US as being “apparently back.”
” China irritated me because of the press.” Speed made my ears hear the truth. I intend to travel to China in the future, according to a post made on a picture of Watkins performing a backflip while a humanoid robot read.
US consumers are eager to purchase the devices themselves, despite Huawei facing a number of US sanctions as a result of concerns about national security, while BYD now doesn’t sell passenger cars in the US due to the high taxes that are levied on made-in-China cars and a ban on bright driving EV technology.
Additional videos feature Watkins escorting a flying vehicles and showcasing a Yangwang U9 electric car, gawking that it could “dance by itself” while he posed for a photo while dancing alongside it while controlling the vehicle’s moves with a cell phone.
The Chinese embassy in the US, which claimed in an X post last month that the YouTube star’s journey had attracted a lot of international attention with wider trends of digital influencers bridging cultural gaps, has been supportive of his visit. A 10-minute special on his tour was broadcast by Broadcaster CCTV-13, who praised his “presents a multidimensional China with authentic footage.”
Others questioned whether his videos were intended as propaganda for the country or whether he would be” spied on” with Huawei phones.
Robert Kozinets, a marketing professor at the University of Southern California, stated in an email that Watkins ‘ China trip will increase the country’s ongoing interest and demand for its products. The notion of a “broken fruit syndrome,” which according to history,” creates desire,” only leads to the creation of the idea that you can ban these things.