Kai Cenat Got Mocked for Reading Books. IShowSpeed Got Driven Out of Algeria for Being Black. Both Chose Education Over Outrage
Two of the most influential people under 25 proved that doing something positive doesn't guarantee a positive reception, especially if you're Black.
Kai Cenat has over 20 million followers on Twitch. IShowSpeed has nearly 50 million subscribers on YouTube. They are two of the most influential content creators on the planet, and they are both young Black men who built their empires before turning 25.
This month, both of them made a choice about what to do with that influence. Kai Cenat started reading books out loud on camera, stopping to look up words he didn’t know, inviting millions of viewers to watch him learn in real time. IShowSpeed launched a 20-country tour of Africa, livestreaming his encounters with history, culture, and communities across the continent.
They could be doing what some of their peers are doing. Just days ago, a group of influencers including Nick Fuentes, Andrew Tate, and Sneako went viral for chanting “Heil Hitler” at a Miami nightclub. That’s one version of what influence looks like in 2026.
Kai and Speed chose education and cultural connection instead. And despite that, both still faced attacks. Kai was mocked for reading. Speed encountered racial hostility in Algeria severe enough to end his tour early.
Being young, Black, and massively influential doesn’t protect you from scrutiny. If anything, it invites more of it. But Kai and Speed are proving that the work is worth doing anyway.
I’m working to document stories like these, where young Black creators use massive platforms for education and cultural awareness instead of outrage.
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Kai Cenat Is Teaching Himself to Read Better. Millions Are Watching.
Kai Cenat built his brand on chaos. The 24-year-old is known for marathon streams, celebrity collaborations, and the kind of unpredictable energy that makes him impossible to look away from. He holds the record for most Twitch subscribers ever. He is, by most measures, the biggest streamer in the world.
After taking a break following his record-breaking Mafiathon 3 marathon in late 2025, Cenat came back with something quieter. He launched a secondary YouTube channel called “Kai’s Mind,” where he reads aloud for 15 minutes at a time. The book he’s working through is “The Four Agreements” by Don Miguel Ruiz. When he hits a word he doesn’t know, he stops, looks it up, checks the pronunciation, and keeps going.
“To be honest, I wanted to articulate myself better,” Cenat explained. “I noticed that when I got into arguments, and I had to get a point across, people were not taking me seriously at all. I would have anxiety build up and I would stutter my words.”
It’s a remarkably vulnerable admission from someone with his reach. And it’s resonating.
Rapper Doechii encouraged him to try Toni Morrison, calling her work transformative for vocabulary and heart. Jamie Foxx called him personally to share his admiration. Merriam-Webster praised him publicly. Thousands of educators and fans flooded social media with support.
“I can’t praise this young man enough,” wrote one commenter. “This is the kind of display of curiosity, humility, and vulnerability that is in far too short supply among social media influencers.”
“This is exactly what kids need to see,” wrote another. “This is great influence actually.”
The publisher Hachette weighed in directly: “Looking up words while reading isn’t embarrassing; it’s how vocabulary grows. Curiosity, self-awareness, and a desire to communicate better are skills worth celebrating.”
But the support didn’t come without pushback. Critics mocked him for not already knowing the words. Others called it embarrassing that someone his age would need to look anything up. When Doechii recommended Toni Morrison, one reply dismissed it as “horrible advice” because Morrison’s prose is too “syntactically complex” for someone like Kai.
Doechii shut that down quickly. “Toni Morrison was available in middle school libraries,” she wrote. “You in fact CAN just pick up Toni Morrison. And should!”
The mockery says more about the critics than it does about Cenat. Here is a young Black man with one of the largest platforms in the world, admitting he wants to grow, and doing the work publicly. The fact that anyone would find that worthy of ridicule reveals how little we expect from influencers and how uncomfortable some people get when those expectations are exceeded.
IShowSpeed Wanted to Show the World What Africa Really Is
IShowSpeed, born Darren Watkins Jr., set out this month on “Speed Does Africa,” a 28-day, 20-country tour across the continent. At 20 years old, with nearly 50 million YouTube subscribers, he had a simple goal.
“I want to show the world what Africa really is,” he said.
For most of the tour, the world showed him love in return.
At Ethiopia's Adwa Victory Memorial, he removed his shoes out of respect—a gesture acknowledging the 1896 defeat of Italian colonial forces, one of Africa's most celebrated military victories. In Eswatini, he underwent a traditional initiation ceremony at a royal palace and was given the name “Logijimako,” meaning “the one who runs.” In South Africa, he learned amapiano dance moves and went car-spinning. In Zambia, he plunged into Devil’s Pool at Victoria Falls. In Angola, he was moved to tears by the reception.
In Rwanda and Ethiopia, young fans—some barely into their teens—were moved to tears when they finally met him in person. Crowds gathered wherever he went. For many young Africans, this was the first time they’d seen a major American creator engage with the continent on their terms. Not through the lens of poverty or crisis, but through culture, humor, and shared experience.
An op-ed in Addis Insight argued that Speed’s tour, imperfect as it was, revealed something important. For generations, formal schooling across much of the continent emphasized European narratives while marginalizing local history, a legacy that still shapes what many Africans learn about their own neighbors. Across the continent, school curricula still bear colonial fingerprints, often dedicating more classroom time to European revolutions than to the empires that flourished on African soil. What made Speed's broadcasts different was their lack of polish. There was no narrator explaining Africa to outsiders—just a camera pointed at everyday life, letting viewers on the continent watch one another without the crisis-driven framing of international coverage.
“Digital exposure is doing what decades of Pan-African rhetoric struggled to achieve,” the writer concluded. “Making Africa familiar to Africans.”
For the diaspora, it hit differently, too. “Speed has activated an internal compass in many young people, across the diaspora and on the continent, who have been quietly searching for belonging, pride, and collective identity,” said Samba Yonga, a Zambian mother whose son attended one of Speed’s events.
The Tour Ended Early. The Reason Was Ugly.
The warmth that defined most of Speed’s journey disappeared when he arrived in Algeria.
During a stop at an Algerian Cup football match, fans threw objects at him and doused him with water repeatedly. Stadium staff told him the crowd was upset that he wore a national team jersey instead of a local club’s. Even after he moved to a different section, the hostility continued. He was forced to leave the stadium entirely.
“I think I’m not welcome here,” Speed said on his livestream.
The incident ended his tour.
Comedian Godfrey didn’t mince words about what happened. Speed had traveled across Sub-Saharan Africa receiving nothing but celebration. The hostility emerged when he reached North Africa.
“He just went to all these dope ass places, they treated him like he was one of theirs,” Godfrey said. “But why when he get to North Africa, he get treated like shit?”
He pointed to a recent incident at the AFCON tournament where an Algerian soccer player mocked a Congolese fan dressed as Patrice Lumumba, the independence leader of the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
“It was one kid against all these people,” Godfrey said. “Everybody feels big and bad when they outnumber a Black dude.”
The racial dimension was impossible to ignore. Speed had spent weeks being embraced across the continent. In Algeria, he was driven out. Whatever complications exist around North African identity and its relationship to Blackness, what happened to Speed wasn’t about a jersey. A young Black American showed up with love for Africa, and in one country, that love was met with hostility.
What This Moment Reveals
Kai Cenat and IShowSpeed didn’t set out to be role models. They’re entertainers. They built their audiences on energy, chaos, and the kind of unfiltered content that makes traditional media nervous. But both of them made a decision this month about what their platforms could be for.
Cenat is showing millions of young people what it looks like to admit you don’t know something and then figure it out, publicly, without shame. Speed is showing millions what it looks like to approach a continent with curiosity instead of assumptions, to let people show you who they are rather than telling them who you think they are.
These aren’t small things. In a media environment where provocation drives engagement and outrage is the path of least resistance, choosing education and connection is genuinely countercultural. The fact that both of them faced attacks anyway proves that doing something positive doesn’t guarantee a positive reception. For young Black men with influence, the scrutiny comes regardless.
But the overwhelming response to both has been support. The critics were loud. The defenders were louder. Millions of young viewers watched two of the biggest creators in the world choose growth over grievance, curiosity over controversy.
That’s what influence can look like. That’s what it looks like when someone decides their platform is for more than content.
And that might be the most important thing either of them has ever streamed.
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Sources:
Mark Elibert, “Doechii Suggests Kai Cenat Read Toni Morrison to Build Vocabulary,” Complex, January 17, 2026.
Sofia Saric, “Miami Beach’s Vendôme Apologizes After Influencers Seen Partying to ‘Heil Hitler,’” Miami Herald, January 18, 2026.
“The Hard Truth iShowSpeed’s Africa Tour Revealed: Africans Are Strangers to Africa,” Addis Insight, January 20, 2026.
Nhari Djan, “IShowSpeed Encounters Hostility During African Tour Stop in Algeria,” Yahoo News, January 20, 2026.
Annie Reneau, “People Praise YouTuber Kai Cenat After He Was Mocked for Looking Up Words While Reading Books,” Upworthy, January 17, 2026.
Penny Dale, “’I Want to Show the World What Africa Is’: YouTube Star Brings Joy and Tears on Tour,” BBC News, January 17, 2026.
Hey Kahlil- Thanks so much for sharing this. I'm in my 70's and not familiar with current youth things. Thanks for broadening my horizons ! I admire these young men!
Professor Kahlil, thank you for introducing these sweet young men to me. (I am a senior citizen who doesn’t follow anything online except Substack). They each did marvelous things despite blowback. I love that there are kids like this out there. You too!!