IShowSpeed's LA Hunt Ends With a Nursing Student Named Ben

A nursing student named Ben was the first person to find IShowSpeed in Los Angeles on October 28, and that win closed out a livestreamed scavenger hunt that Dr. Squatch had been building for nine weeks. Ben reached the streamer in a little over an hour, according to HypeFresh, and left with the grand prize of the brand's Million Dollar Mission campaign. The only name given for him is Ben; his last name and school have not been published.

What Ben Won and How the Hunt Worked

The prize was $250,000, handed over as a check by IShowSpeed, whose name is Darren Watkins Jr. The hunt ran on his stream from about 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. Eastern. Watkins was hidden somewhere in the city with a golden briefcase while the broadcast released GPS coordinate digits roughly every ten minutes, so anyone watching could narrow the search as the afternoon went on.

Dr. Squatch added a second layer on the ground. Five costumed Dr. Squatch characters were stationed around the city carrying extra numbers, and participants could photograph them to speed up the hunt. In the clip that spread, Watkins first told Ben it was all a prank, then said "You just won $250,000! You found me."

A Student With About $2,000 and an Exam to Prepare For

HypeFresh reports that Ben had around $2,000 in his account and skipped exam prep to join the hunt. That detail comes from a single outlet and Ben has not been independently profiled, so it should be read as that outlet's reporting. It explains why the clip landed. The winner was an ordinary viewer who made a tradeoff on a Wednesday afternoon, and the stream rewarded the choice.

The format also explains the speed. A hunt where the coordinates arrive in slow pieces rewards people who can read a map and move at once, and Ben covered the ground in a little over an hour.

Nine Weeks, 25 Challenges, Four Countries

The finale was the last piece of SPEEDRUN: Million Dollar Mission, a nine week campaign that Dr. Squatch announced on August 31 and ran through October 31, 2026. It offered $1 million in total across 25 challenges in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom and Australia. More than 4,000 Walmart stores and select retail partners served as hubs, with in store displays and QR codes that sent shoppers to a live leaderboard and weekly challenges on SpeedrunMDM.com.

The weekly missions were deliberately silly. One asked entrants to bark at a Dr. Squatch display in a store, film the attempt and post it tagged to the brand. Briefcases holding a gold bar of Dr. Squatch soap were hidden in select cities, each redeemable for up to $50,000, with clues released as the campaign went along. A TikTok Shop tie in offered 25 scratchers worth $10,000 each, which adds up to another $250,000.

A Soap Brand Bought an Afternoon Instead of an Ad

The structure tells you what Dr. Squatch was buying. Marketing Dive framed the campaign as the brand investing in experiences instead of ads, and the finale is the clearest example. A three hour live event gives the brand an afternoon in which viewers are doing something with its name on it, not scrolling past a spot.

The prize money also did double duty. A quarter of a million dollars went to one person, and the same moment produced a clip of a winner that pop culture accounts such as Pubity carried on their own. The clip traveled on Ben's reaction, not a logo.

What the Campaign Leaves Behind

The hunt ends with a winner, a check and a clip, but the more useful record is the format. A creator hides, an audience searches, the brand supplies the prize and the numbers that drive the search, and the winner is whoever treats the afternoon as a firm commitment. The campaign window closes October 31.

What remains unconfirmed is small. The precise location of the meeting and the fuller transcript of what Watkins said to Ben were not in the coverage available, and Ben's identity beyond his first name has not been published. What is established is the date, the format, the hour it took and the amount: a student named Ben found him first.