How Kai Cenat broke into stardom in 2023
polygon.comOn a summer day in New York City, thousands of people gathered in Union Square and spilled out onto the streets. Video footage and images show the crowd vandalizing nearby businesses and setting off fireworks. The New York Police Department 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 computers.
Kai Cenat is the breakout streaming star of 2023. While Cenat has been building a formidable audience for years, the crowd that gathered in Union Square attested to the Twitch streamer and YouTuber’s newfound level of stardom. In March, he broke the world record for the number of active Twitch subscribers, overtaking a mark previously held by Ludwig Ahgren.
Since then, his cultural influence has only grown. According to analytics firm Rainmaker.gg, Cenat was the most-viewed streamer on Twitch in 2023, with roughly 109 million hours watched. He’s hosted celebrity guests like 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 has been a tumultuous one marked with controversies in addition to the events at Union Square. He’s one of the most influential people of the year, so here is the rise of Kai Cenat, explained.
Kai Cenat is a 22-year-old American content creator who streams on Twitch and posts videos to YouTube. He shared his first video on his main YouTube channel in 2018 — the channel now has nearly 5 million followers — and has since grown his audience across two different YouTube accounts and his Twitch channel. At the time of
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