It's been a good month for Darryl Dwayne "DDG" Granberry Jr on Twitch as his broadcasts have attracted many more viewers. The streamer is currently on a trip across Japan, and his IRL streams from the East Asian nation have seen him climb up the platform's livestreaming charts and build a global reputation.
DDG came into the spotlight at the start of April after Twitch allowed him to change his username from PontiacMadeDDG to simply DDG. Small usernames, i.e., anything below four characters, are usually against the Amazon-owned company's rules, but it made an exception for the popular singer-songwriter.
This news attracted plenty of attention, good and bad, but ultimately, the publicity only helped make him more famous within the online community. He first made headlines at the end of March after shaving his dreadlocks to celebrate reaching 40,000 subscribers on Twitch, which became a much-discussed topic among internet users.
All this has endeared him to a lot of viewers, and his sub count and general following on the purple livestreaming service continue to grow. In fact, the American musical artist has leveraged this recent jump in popularity to emerge as the fourth-most subscribed streamer on Twitch at the time of writing, with only distinguished names like Case "Caseoh" Baker, Nicholas "Jynxzi" Stewart, and Kai Cenat ahead of him.
Having started his livestreaming career on YouTube, DDG rose to prominence thanks to his entertaining vlogs and comedic content. His move to Twitch saw his fanbase follow him there, with his increasing reputation among online users even helping his aspiring musical career to flourish.
The 27-year-old has released quite a few albums over the years, with his most popular tracks being Moonwalking in Calabasas (which received double platinum recognition) and Take Me Serious. The success he saw with his songs also helped the Michigan-born online star collaborate with more prominent artists like Blueface, Tyla Yaweh, and OG Parker.
Presently, DDG is on a tour of Japan, with the IRL streams from his time exploring the country causing a spike in viewership on his Twitch channel. A couple of these broadcasts have also ended among his most popular livestreams ever, reiterating his status as a growing name in the industry.
In fact, a look at the table of the most popular streamers on Twitch since the start of his sojourn in the Land of the Rising Sun puts DDG in the fourth spot. His watch time during the same period is just over a million Hours Watched (HW), placing him second on this leaderboard between April 15 and 17.
What has helped DDG attract attention to these IRL streams from Japan are the activities he does and the people he meets. For instance, he ran into Kevin "XpertThief" LaSean, one of the oldest YouTubers globally, who has settled down in the Far East.
The two instantly hit it off, with XpertThief offering to help DDG interact with locals. He also revealed that he is enjoying staying in Japan, which was a dream for years, and that he has opened a company there thanks to a one-year visa.
DDG has also been hanging out a lot with YouTuber and influencer Wendy Ortiz, with their vlogs walking around Japan, trying out new food, and going shopping, attracting quite a lot of attention among their fans online.
It seems that, with his myriad talents and witty livestreams, DDG is well on his way to becoming the next household Twitch name. With his viewership, following, and popularity growing by the day, it won't be surprising to see the Los Angeles resident appear more frequently on our monthly rankings.
