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.
For many English-speaking Twitch viewers, rivers is unlikely to be a name familiar to them, despite her channel averaging around 15,000 concurrent viewers on any given stream.
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.
The winner of the Streamer of the Year award presented by @QiddiyaGaming is…@samyriveratvCongratulations! 🏆#PlayLife #EsportsAwards2024 pic.twitter.com/P5hOBhEkmK
— Esports Awards (@esportsawards) August 24, 2024
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.
they just ignored the fact that speed had his biggest year by far & kai had the biggest non-event stream & marathons of the year?? 😭 pic.twitter.com/R7WMvSlXoq
— HYPEX (@HYPEX) August 24, 2024
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.”
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However, others argued that the Spanish streaming community was just as strong, even if unfamiliar to English-speaking viewers.
“Rivers community reigns supreme!” said XSET member Feldy. Others said it was another example of “The whole world finding out yet again that Spanish streamers are just on another level.”
Rivers reacted to the award on X/Twitter, writing, “This award is from my community, who are always active and aware of all the projects, supporting them unconditionally.
“I hope to one day be as good a creator as the other nominees, whom I admire a lot. Thanks to my people for always supporting me, because of you I am still here doing what I like, with much love for you, you are awesome and I love you very much.”
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.
