The gifts just keep on giving for Kai Cenat, who has followed up a breakthrough 2023 with a pretty solid 2024 so far. That much was reaffirmed with his newest milestone, becoming just the tenth content creator on Twitch to reach 10 million followers.
It is a pretty rare achievement, meaning the American has joined an elite club that hosts names like Ninja and Ibai. That the last online star to reach this incredible milestone was JuansGuarnizo in February 2024 shows that it doesn't happen often, with the likes of ElMariana, ElSpreen, and Pokimane enjoying between 9M and 10M followers for some time now.
It is also a matter of pride for Kai Cenat that he has been able to do this on perhaps the biggest streaming service globally. The purple platform houses some of the biggest names in the streaming industry today, and anyone making it big deserves a pat on the back.
The still-young star has earned this record, having been one of the most watched and busiest creators over the past three years. In fact, he was the number one Twitch streamer globally in 2023 when it came to the former metric, beating out the likes of Gaules and xQc. Kai Cenat was also the only name from his platform in the overall top 15, with this list dominated by YouTube Live.
For those wondering, the red platform’s equivalent record is crossing 100M subscribers and only ten channels have done this. WWE was the latest entrant to this exclusive list earlier this year, becoming the first-ever sports-related organization to do so thanks to the hype generated in the lead-up to WrestleMania XL.
Kai Cenat and his streaming journey
The 22-year-old, also the eighth-most-watched live streamer in Q1 2024 across platforms, has established himself as a megastar on Twitch since the start of 2023, which is when the world began taking notice of his talents. A record-breaking, month-long subathon saw him become the first channel to hit 300K subscribers on the Amazon-owned streaming service, with the final number tallying 306,518 subs.
He overtook another legend in this count, with Ludwig holding the previous mark for the most concurrent subscribers record with 283K subscriptions during his 30-day-long subathon in April 2021. The American had broken another superstar's milestone, countryman and Fortnite legend Ninja's record, who had registered 269K active subs in 2018.
This made him a household name in the global live-streaming landscape, with his name value skyrocketing almost daily. It helped him get a gig with Rumble alongside fellow upstart and YouTube sensation IShowSpeed, with their shared channel — kainspeed — attracting millions of viewers thanks over its 12 episodes so far.
Kai Cenat has also been able to draw on his popularity to hold collab streams with some absolute legends across spheres. This list includes Jynxzi, Druski, Concrete Boys, 21 Savage, and Offset. However, it was with iconic rapper Nicki Minaj that he made history, with her appearance in December last year being his most popular — by both peak and average viewership — live broadcast yet.
However, that he has been able to attract the caliber of celebrity guests seen above shows how far he has come and how big a name he has become for Twitch. Such progress has also seen him win a slew of awards, bookended by his second straight win as Streamer of the Year at the prestigious The Streamer Awards 2024 that is created and hosted by QTCinderella.
There is a school of thought that today's content creation landscape is dominated by English and Spanish streamers, and the numbers certainly back that up. In Kai Cenat and his recent accomplishments, the former has found someone who could lead the charge when it comes to the battle for bragging rights for years to come.
