IShowSpeed evidently isn’t accustomed to living with so many zeroes in his life.
The popular gaming influencer and internet personality from the US, whose real name is Darren Watking Jr. and is also known simply as Speed, learned about the Indonesian rupiah’s excessive digits the hard way during a text-to-speech donation drive on his YouTube livestream this morning.
Some 25 minutes into the stream, the 17-year-old and his entourage broke out in excitement when a user named aqua pledged a donation worth IDR1,599,000.
As Speed was gripped in disbelief, one of his calm friends in the background worked out on his phone that IDR1 million is not the same as US$1 million, but US$64. Based on the current exchange rate, aqua’s IDR1,599,000 donation translates to US$102.
“Why would he lie? Where’s he from, Indonesia? Why would he say it was a million? Oh come on, man. It’s always Indonesia,” Speed said, appalled.
Speed managed to compose himself and went back to his usual shenanigans throughout the rest of his hour-and-a-half stream. Already having a net worth of around US$1 million at 17 is certainly one reason he can put this silly misunderstanding behind him.
For what it’s worth, the government has been strongly considering a redenomination for the rupiah, shrinking the face value of banknotes by three digits. If that comes to pass, we don’t imagine Speed would be particularly thrilled about receiving IDR1,000.
