Kai Cenat

Kai Cenat is a 22-year-old streaming star who has captured a massive audience with his gaming, pranks, and high-energy persona. With 13 million Twitch followers and more than 6 million subscribers on YouTube, he is one of the most recognized internet celebrities worldwide, and his channel has become a major destination for high-profile guests including 21 Savage, Nicki Minaj, Lil Yachty, Offset and Kevin Hart. He was listed as Rolling Stone most influential creator of 2024, and he won the 2023 Streamer of the Year award.

Cenat got his start in 2018 with prank and “challenge” videos on YouTube, then erupted on Twitch in 2021 as the platform’s growth was fuelled by the Covid-19 pandemic. He was particularly celebrated for his reaction videos, in which he often has amusingly exaggerated responses to songs, game clips, and videos from other creators. In 2023, he broke a Twitch record, pulling in 300,000 new subscribers over a month in which he streamed live 24 hours a day — including when he slept. 

Over his career, Cenat has received several temporary Twitch bans, once for passing out during a stream after eating cannabis edibles, and another time for simulating sexual activity in the game Grand Theft Auto V. Cenat also caused controversy in the summer of 2023 by announcing a PlayStation 5 giveaway event at New York’s Union Square Park that attendees turned into a chaotic riot. Cenat has since continued to expand his range and push boundaries with ever more elaborate premises, as when he hired a therapist to talk to him on camera about his frustration at being stuck on the final boss of the game Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree for more than 60 hours.  —Miles Klee