Misleading: Video shows crowd chanting Bulgarian word for ‘book,’ not racial slur
A 29-second video uploaded on X on July 12 purportedly shows people in Bulgaria chanting a racial slur directed at a popular American live streamer known as Speed. “Bulgarian teens chant N-word at Black streamer Speed,” the post said.
Speed, or IShowSpeed, whose real name is Darren Jason Watkins Jr., has tens of millions of followers on YouTube, Instagram and TikTok.
The 19-year-old influencer is infamous for his controversial antics, including making misogynistic comments and promoting an alleged crypto scam. He often goes overseas to do his livestreams, including to South Korea, India, and more recently, Europe.
Other X posts also show the same video with similar claims in English and in Spanish. The three X posts have racked up a total of more than 179,000 likes and 8,300 reshares.
Indian newspaper Hindustan Times also reported on the alleged incident, saying that Speed “aces racism” during a livestream in Bulgaria.
However, the claim is misleading as the short clip leaves out important context.
A reverse image search found that the video is part of Speed’s two-and-half-hour livestream on YouTube, shot when he visited Bulgaria on July 11.
At the 35:11 mark of the video, Speed asks his fans waiting outside a restaurant: “Hey, I have a question, OK! How do you say ‘book’ in Bulgarian?”
When Speed claims they say the N-word to him, some of the fans try to explain they did not utter the racial slur. “No, no… It’s ‘k,’ with ‘k,’ ‘kniga,’” said one young man.
Annie Lab spoke with Tenio Latev, the chairman of the Hong Kong Bulgarian Association of Commerce, who confirmed that people in the video said “kniga” (книга), which means “book” in Bulgarian.
“Kniga” sounds similar to the N-word in English because the letter “k” is silent, Latev told Annie Lab.
“There is only one word in Bulgarian for [the word] ‘book’,” he said. “The entire video is a set-up to paint Bulgarians as racist.”
In the video, Speed goes on to ask a few other people in the restaurant the Bulgarian word for “book” and two give different answers. But neither answered correctly.
Latev told Annie Lab that one man said “bubolechka” (буболечка), which translates as “bug,” while another said “zadnik” (задник), which means “butt.”
A Bulgarian journalist confirmed to Annie Lab that the men said “bubolechka” and “zadnik,” which mean “bug” and “butt” respectively.
It is unclear whether the two men in the video misheard Speed’s question or whether they wanted to make fun of him.
Speed was accused of tricking an elderly passerby in Denmark into saying a Danish word that sounds similar to the N-word in another livestream in July, according to online media Sportskeeda.
