How Kai Cenat rose to fame in 2023
On a summer day in New York City, thousands of people gathered in Union Square and took to the streets. Video and images show the crowd destroying nearby businesses and setting off fireworks. The New York police showed up and started arresting people. All this commotion was motivated by one person: Kai Cenat. People gathered because he had planned an event to give away PlayStation 5 consoles and gaming consoles.
Kai Cenat is streaming's breakout star of 2023. While Cenat has been building a formidable audience for years, the crowd that gathered in Union Square was a testament to the Twitch streamer and YouTuber's newfound stardom. In March, he broke the world record for the number of active Twitch subscribers, surpassing a mark previously held by Ludwig Ahgren.
Since then, his cultural influence has only grown. According to analytics company Rainmaker.ggCenat was the most watched streamer on Twitch in 2023, with approximately 109 million hours watched. He has hosted famous guests such as 21 Savage and Nicki Minaj, and also danced live on stage with Minaj at a recent concert. His work has inspired entire meme trends and even influenced contemporary slang. Even then, his career was a tumultuous one, marked by controversies in addition to the events in Union Square. He's one of the most influential people of the year, so here's Kai Cenat's rise, explained.
Who is Kai Cenat?
Kai Cenat is a 22-year-old American content creator who streams on Twitch and posts videos on YouTube. He shared his first video on his main YouTube channel in 2018 – the channel now has almost 5 million followers – and has since grown his audience through two different YouTube accounts and his Twitch channel. At the time of publication, he has 8.3 million followers on Twitch and 5.4 million subscribers on his Kai Cenat Live YouTube Channelwhere his most popular video has been viewed more than 18 million times.
Photo: Rich Polk/Penske Media via Getty Images
Cenat's early career focused on posting comedic prank videos and other challenges on YouTube. He found viral success with videos of himself playing “extreme” ding-dong ditch in college dorms, and eventually joined the content creation group Any Means Possible (AMP). In February 2021, he started streaming on Twitch, where he is now best known for hosting Just Chatting streams with other guests. These streams have a casual atmosphere and capture the atmosphere of friends hanging out. Often guests huddle around the camera while sitting on folding chairs in his basement. Cenat has an approachable but very boisterous personality where he often shouts.
Why is Kai Cenat so popular?
Several factors contributed to Cenat's success. There's its group for content creators: AMP and its five other members have a combined following of more than 10 million subscribers on YouTube and a group channel with more than 5 million subscribers. Strictly from a numbers perspective, content creator groups like the Dream SMP have proven to be an effective way to grow a significant audience. Creating content with others also helps grow fandom. It's not just about Cenat, but about AMP as a group. Much of the fandom jargon, such as the term “Fanum Tax,” revolves around jokes shared between AMP fans in Twitch chat and on platforms like Discord.
Image: Kai Cenat Live/YouTube
But the streamer also became even more popular by posting famous guests on his stream. In 2022, Cenat hosted a stream with popular rapper 21 Savage, which took him to a new level of fame and later became his most watched VOD. In his career, he has hosted other rappers such as Bobby Shmurda, Lil Baby and Ice Spice. Most recently, in December, Cenat co-hosted a stream with Nicki Minaj; then he and AMP member Fanum joined Minaj on stage during her Jingle Ball concert in Atlanta.
What do people like about him?
Cenat has a large audience on many different platforms and makes videos in some of the most popular categories, such as jokes and reactions. And although his streams are a bit more relaxed, viral clips often highlight spontaneous moments which arise while he is hanging out in his basement with his friends. It could be a surprise visit from a mariachi band or a masked friend who just floats up the stream. There's a sense of chaos in his presence that seems to appeal to fans.
Cenat is also the originator of many internet popular terms and trends. Cenat is black and streams primarily with other black creators; Popular culture and trends have long been heavily influenced by the work of black people, including on the internet, where 'internet jargon' is widely used. African-American English which is later adopted by internet savvy users. Cenat himself has helped popularize terms like “gyatt” and “Fanum tax” among young people. Now these phrases are all over TikTok and Twitch.
The larger community surrounding the fandom also brings people together. One fan Polygon spoke to, who goes by the name Lilnutz online and introduced himself as “lilnutz smallest of all nutz,” told Polygon that he appreciated the community around Cenat. “Most people think they're just little kids, but they're not,” he said via a Discord message, adding that he enjoys “everyone who is in this community,” including older people. “I feel like his community is full of funny people.”
Why is Kai Cenat controversial?
While many fans love Cenat, he and his friends have also become the subject of scrutiny and serious accusations. There's the Union Square incident, which caused heavy traffic and for which Cenat was charged two counts of incitement to riot and unlawful assembly. But the streamer has also received criticism for some of his streams and videos themselves.
Last fall, Cenat did an extended version of it livestream stunt in which he pretended to be in jail for seven days, a stream in which he hosted several celebrity guests. Later, rapper Offset explained why he did not attend the event in the podcast The morning rush“It's not really a game. (…) It is a serious matter. And I understand the content; I salute it. But I just couldn't be a part of that content, because if you guys remember, I got out of prison, and I remember being there in such a bad place, like there was no money on the books. He added: “I have real friends who can never figure it out – you know what I mean? So I didn't want to make fun of them.”
In his regular content, Cenat regularly comments on and beckons women's bodies. He also regularly creates controversial dating content; fans have criticized his behavior in some of these videos. In a stream that he co-hosted the show with Adin Ross, the two went on double dates with women online. During one of these dates, both men used the pronoun “he” with a person who was tall and had a deep voice, which fans criticized as transphobic. Fans also called out one of Cenat's friends using a homophobic slur on Cenat's livestream.
Cenat and his friends have also faced serious accusations for their off-stream behavior. In January 2023, TikToker Jovi Pena, who goes by the online handle Jovilicious, claimed that a friend of Cenat, whom she identified as Djigui Seck, raped her at a New Year's Eve party where Cenat was also present. In a series of tweets about X (formerly Twitter) Pena said that Cenat invited her to the party, and that when she decided to leave, Cenat told her it would be safer if she stayed upstairs because she was drunk. Pena then said she fell asleep and later woke up being raped by Seck.
Later in the conversation, Pena said that when she gave a description of her rapist to Cenat, he told her he did not know the person. She also shared a screenshot of an Instagram post of Seck and Cenat together, and a screenshot of a text conversation with Cenat in which she claims he “knew what (Seck) was doing” in the room upstairs where Cenat had proposed that Pena would rest. .
A day later, Cenat addressed the allegations during a Twitch stream, saying he initially did not respond to Pena's text messages because his legal team advised him not to respond. 'I didn't go anywhere but to the police' he said on stream. “I immediately went to my legal team and to the police. I do not play. (…) This is a serious subject.” Sek posted a response to the allegations on X in April. Seck did not deny that he and Pena had sex, but said he believes it was consensual. Cenat, for his part, has not commented further on Pena's allegations.