Like culture has a hero.
Answer for Kai Cenat, a 21-year-old African-American, a youtuber by profession and a successful career with millions of followers.
Last Saturday, in a place as central to Manhattan as Union Square, his call to action caused such an uproar that the police had to go to great lengths to contain the eruption that caused shock and astonishment to locals and tourists.
Destruction, attacks, injuries, 65 detainees (more than half adolescents), looting of establishments.
"Kai Cenat brings down New York," said the protagonist in a video that he posted that night, without making it clear when he recorded it, if before or after he was released on charges of causing riots and for illegal assembly. He was seen driving in a car. He gave the impression of being delighted with himself, insulated from the commotion but aware of the consequences. "Many of you are out there right now, make sure you are safe," he is heard in those images.
In case anyone had any doubts, that afternoon the generational change was evidently reflected. Without going into considerations, neither better nor worse, different.
A few years ago, even not so many, the riots were caused by the calls of social and political leaders to demonstrate for free love, against the Vietnam war, the invasion of Iraq, for love
Cenat has four million subscribers on YouTube and more than 6.4 million users of its streaming platform on Twitch, one of the most successful. In a demonstration of the new times, from these means he did not appeal to the intangible in his summons, but to the purest materialism. He put together the one in San Quentin under the slogan of giving away PlayStation 5 consoles, the handling of which has the ability to move away from reality and into the bubble.
"This can end quickly, it depends on how noisy you are," he said when launching the quote. “It is a public place and anything can happen,” she warned. She sensed what was coming.
The situation of lack of control and violence that generated his invitation has also left collateral damage. "This is not a police matter, this is a problem for parents and their children's education," said New York Mayor Eric Adams. "Our children cannot be raised by social networks, they are being inundated by influencers," he warned.
Fathers and mothers of detainees have responded not to blame them, to blame society and its police officers who "use their weapons to harm instead of protect," they replied, alluding to the police brutality they suffer because of their color. of the skin many of those who responded to the call.
In this case, the power of convocation must not be underestimated. Anyone older than Gen Z can be mistaken for celebrity Cenat, who has built a massive audience with her games, pranks, and energetic personality that comes across in her videos. He is one of the most watched streamers by a very young crowd base. His recordings include reactions to songs and movies, skits or challenges posted online. The popularity of this New Yorker made Rolling Stone magazine include him in the list of the 20 most influential creators of 2023.
He started contributing to YouTube in 2018 with pranks and competitions. His big break to fame came when he hit the Twitch stage in 2021. Soon and fast he became a phenomenon with the spread of games and reactions to viral pop culture phenomena.
He did real-life jokes of all sorts, like buying his mom a house or disrupting college classes by cooking eggs in reading rooms.
In these "creations" he enjoys being a threat and his followers fully support his lunatic antics.
Of course, these types of actions have led to Twitch imposing temporary bans on him. The first was for sharing explicitly graphic photos of his followers and in 2022 he was banned for a month as it was considered that he had posted content that could be seen as threats.
And, despite everything, his success skyrockets. No one doubts that he will try to profit from the chaos of Union Square. His vanity received a crowd shower.
