Samantha ‘Rivers’ Rivera Trevino walked away with the Esports Awards top honor on August 24, being crowned Streamer of the Year during the ceremony.
The Mexican content creator, known as rivers_gg on Twitch, has 6.3 million followers on the platform, where she primarily streams gaming and IRL content.
Fans of Kai Cenat and IShowSpeed, both nominees for the award, have reacted to the outcome with bewilderment that neither took the gong. The full list of nominees was as follows:
- Nicholas ‘Jynxzi’ Stewart
- Kai Cenat
- Ibai ‘Ibai’ Llanos
- Cody ‘Clix’ Conrod
- Darren ‘IShowSpeed’ Watkins Jr.
- Case ‘Caseoh’ Baker
- Félix ‘xQc’ Lengyel
- Marc ‘Caedrel’ Lamont
- Victor ‘Coringa’ Augusto
- Alexandre ‘Gaules’ Chiqueta
- Samantha ‘Rivers’ Rivera Trevino
Responding to the Esports Awards’ post on X/Twitter congratulating Rivers on her win, one user immediately accused organizers of disrespecting IShowSpeed, despite the award being voted on exclusively by the community.
They continued: “The disrespect towards Speed is beyond outrageous. He absolutely deserved to win… The people behind this decision don’t understand what the public wants. I hope you’re happy with your choice because we certainly aren’t.”
“They just ignored the fact that Speed had his biggest year by far & Kai had the biggest non-event stream and marathons of the year?” Fortnite content creator HYPEX wrote.
Other replies in the same post ranged from labeling the outcome a “joke,” to outright refusal to believe that the award was given based on fan votes, claiming that “nobody knows Rivers.”
Kai and Speed collaborated to take on Minecraft in its hardest difficulty in a marathon lasting over 100 hours in August. The pair finally defeated the Ender Dragon and claimed victory on August 22.
Both have recorded huge successes in their careers in 2024, with Speed’s European tour drawing 2.5 billion views and Kai’s 166-hour Elden Ring playthrough attracting massive viewership back in May.