IShowSpeed has been named Streamer of the Year thanks to a repeat victory at The Streamer Awards 2025, solidifying his legacy as the most popular live creator on the planet. The show at the Wiltern Theater in Los Angeles lauded a mixture of mainstream stars and fast-rising talent, naming CaseOh as Gamer of the Year and Cinna taking home the Sapphire Award for best female or marginalized gender streamer.
Kai Cenat swept Best Just Chatting Streamer; Best Streamed Event for Streamer University; Best Marathon Stream for Mafiathon 3; and his epic-superstar collab with LeBron James earned him a nod in the Collaboration category as well. The music creator PlaqueBoyMax walked away with two major trophies, while Emiru, Caedrel, and the game Peak filled out a winners’ slate that feels like an indicator of where streaming is now headed.
IShowSpeed’s repeat sets the pace for live creator content
Back-to-back Streamer of the Year victories for IShowSpeed underscore the appeal and power of personality-led, real-life-first content that cuts across all platforms.
Like so many award winners, most of whom produced their work primarily on Twitch, Speed’s YouTube-driven ascendance is a reminder that creator ecosystems are platform-agnostic: people follow people more than logos.
His breakout year was driven by viral live moments, real-world stunts, and rapid-fire chat interaction that makes viewers participants. Observers of the industry point out that these tentpole live moments power a disproportionate share of watch time and social reach, as detailed in State of the Stream reporting from StreamElements and Rainmaker.gg, which always posts personality-based categories ruling hours watched.
The Streamer Awards 2025: The complete list of winners
- Streamer of the Year: IShowSpeed
- Gamer of the Year: CaseOh
- The Sapphire Award: Cinna
- Best Just Chatting Streamer: Kai Cenat
- Best Streamed Event: Streamer University — Kai Cenat
- Best Marathon Stream: Mafiathon 3 — Kai Cenat
- Best Collaboration: Kai Cenat x LeBron James
- Best Music Streamer: PlaqueBoyMax
- Best Streamed Series: In the Booth — PlaqueBoyMax
- Best Creative Arts Streamer: Emiru
- Best MOBA Streamer: Caedrel
- Stream Game of the Year: Peak
What These Findings Tell Us About Streaming
Just Chatting remains the beating heart of live video, a place that rewards creators who can keep up conversation, improvise, and whip community back into action on the fly. Reports from StreamElements and Rainmaker.gg have posted the category’s steady front-running in hours watched, while TwitchTracker and YouTube’s public dashboards demonstrate how top talent are consolidating talk, IRL, and challenges content into one single show.
The spate of wins for Kai Cenat is a testament to the longevity of long-form marathons and spectacle-driven events. Marathons are the new event television: they offer spikes in concurrent viewers, highlights for short-form platforms, and appealing guests to a mainstream audience. Cenat’s LeBron James crossover is thick with on-stream energy but also a prime example of how live creators now boldly co-star — without leaving their set, natch — with athletes and entertainers.
PlaqueBoyMax’s double victories and Emiru’s accolade in Creative Arts highlight a growing canvas for live content. Music production, art, and maker streams transform process into performance — an evolution that agencies and brands have embraced as they move budgets toward interactive creator programming. Games market analyses from Newzoo also dovetail with the Stream Game of the Year pick: games like Peak succeed when they’re causing social friction, emergent moments, and clip-friendly chaos.
Inside the show at The Streamer Awards 2025 in LA
Held at the Wiltern Theater, it mixed red-carpet polish with the self-aware humor fans of streaming have come to expect. Community voting has long been part of the Streamer Awards, which marry that with a panel for a balanced chorus of both fans and industry voices to help determine the winners. The production values, the celebrities popping up in cameos, the branded segments are all a reflection of a medium that has gone from niche pastime to prime-time entertainment.
The takeaway from The Streamer Awards 2025 winners
IShowSpeed’s encore shows that the largest live stars are crafting franchises from personality, spontaneity, and cultural crossover.
Featuring marquee wins for Cenat, CaseOh, Cinna, PlaqueBoyMax, Emiru, Caedrel, and Peak, this year’s lineup looks like a road map of where streaming is headed next: more live stunts, more creator-driven events, and more formats that transform the energy of its audience into the main attraction.
