{"id":343010,"date":"2026-06-19T15:52:41","date_gmt":"2026-06-19T15:52:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/343010\/"},"modified":"2026-06-19T15:52:41","modified_gmt":"2026-06-19T15:52:41","slug":"whitmire-and-streamer-speed-have-awkward-houston-meeting","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/343010\/","title":{"rendered":"Whitmire and streamer Speed have awkward Houston meeting"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Meeting someone for the first time is always a little awkward. Telling them you&#8217;ve spent all afternoon Googling them? That&#8217;s a bold strategy.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>That&#8217;s how it went when Houston\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.chron.com\/news\/article\/houston-budget-scrutiny-22243521.php\" data-link=\"native\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"\">Mayor John Whitmire<\/a> met popular streamer Speed during a Thursday night World Cup watch party in Houston, producing a painfully awkward exchange that has quickly made the rounds online.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Are you the mayor of Houston?&#8221; Speed began, getting off to a good start.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I think you are tonight,&#8221; Whitmire responded in jest, having to repeat his fawning comment because Speed had no idea what he meant at first.<\/p>\n<p>The joke didn&#8217;t quite land.<\/p>\n<p>Undeterred,\u00a0Whitmire continued showering praise on the 20-year-old streamer, telling him, &#8220;You&#8217;re taking over my city, taking over the world,&#8221; ultimately trying to endear himself by mentioning that &#8220;I&#8217;ve been Googling you all afternoon.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Speed once again appeared unsure how to respond.<\/p>\n<p>The meeting came as Speed was making appearances around Houston during the\u00a0FIFA Club World Cup. The streamer, whose real name is Darren Watkins Jr., has\u00a0recently been spotted\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/watch\/?v=989165624014591\" data-link=\"native\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"\">at NRG cheering<\/a>\u00a0for Portugal in a match against DR Congo and at a\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/IShowSpeedHQ\/status\/2067773709104886197\" data-link=\"native\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"\">watch party<\/a>, where he yelled &#8220;Siuuuuu!&#8221; as fans cheered his name.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>So it seems\u00a0Whitmire&#8217;s public relations team thought it would be a good photo op to organize a meeting between the mayor and a streamer.<\/p>\n<p>Despite claiming to have spent hours researching his guest,\u00a0Whitmire appeared to walk away with only one memorable fact (for the most part). &#8220;Your father,&#8221; he said before correcting himself, &#8220;grandfather was the first fire chief in Detroit?&#8221; Whitmire appeared to ask rather than state.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Yes,&#8221; Speed merely responded, validating the mayor&#8217;s inquiry.\u00a0The conversation briefly hung in the air before moving on.<\/p>\n<p>Exchanging information after a car accident is less awkward, so mercifully, at this point, the great meeting of minds came to a close. Whitmire concluded by telling Speed to &#8220;Keep making a difference,&#8221; and invited him to come see an Astros game the next time he&#8217;s in town.<\/p>\n<p>It remains to be seen whether Speed will take him up on that, but at least it will give the mayor more time to Google.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Meeting someone for the first time is always a little awkward. Telling them you&#8217;ve spent all afternoon Googling&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":343011,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[85765,2466,1704,56,58,57],"class_list":["post-343010","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-houston","tag-chronbrands","tag-chronculture","tag-chronstaff","tag-houston","tag-houston-headlines","tag-houston-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/343010","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=343010"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/343010\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/343011"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=343010"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=343010"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=343010"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}