Darren Watkins Jr., a streamer known as IShowSpeed, in the Lithuanian capital of Vilnius drinking beetroot soup with the nation’s economy minister. (IShowSpeed/YouTube)

By Drew Harwell

When the YouTube mega-streamer IShowSpeed walked shirtless last week off a private jet into the Lithuanian capital of Vilnius, the nation’s economy minister was waiting for him on the tarmac with shots of šaltibarščiai, a cold pink beetroot soup.

A mob of chanting fans was waiting, too, so the streamer — a 20-year-old from Cincinnati named Darren Watkins Jr., who has 120 million followers across TikTok, Instagram and YouTube — piled with his security detail into a minibus to drive to the city’s historic Palace of the Grand Dukes, where the mayor served him cheese and honey and a troupe of young Lithuanian

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