Who Is Absi? The Middle Eastern King of Kick

The next great frontier of streaming is not in Los Angeles or Stockholm. It is in the Middle East, and Hani "Absi" Al-Qablan is one of the people proving it.

A Jordanian creator streaming almost entirely in Arabic, Absi has become one of the biggest names on Kick, pulling enormous Arabic-speaking audiences to a platform that, until recently, was dominated by Western faces.

What makes his rise remarkable is the path he took.

Absi built a huge following on TikTok first, then he moved that audience wholesale from short, snackable clips to hours-long live streams. Converting passive scrollers into dedicated live viewers is one of the hardest tricks in the modern creator economy, and most who try it fail. Absi did it so completely that he now sits at the very top of Kick's global charts.

Find him here:

• Kick
• YouTube
• TikTok

Absi's story starts on TikTok, back in 2022. He built his following the old-fashioned viral way, through comedy skits, TikTok challenges, his loud support for Jordanian football, and a warm, approachable personality that made him feel like a friend rather than a distant celebrity.

It worked to a staggering degree. By early 2026 his TikTok following had grown to around 5.2 million, with individual videos routinely clearing a million views.

An impressive reach, but viral views do not guarantee a loyal audience. Getting those viewers to commit to hours of live content is a barrier many TikTok creators struggle to cross.

Absi had already built a close connection with his fans on TikTok. When he moved into livestreaming, many of them followed, giving him a core audience to build on.

Where he went next was Kick. He launched his channel there in February 2024, and the climb was rapid. Within his first couple of years he had blown past 800,000 followers and established himself as one of the platform's elite performers, comprehensively dominating the Arabic-language category.

By the first quarter of 2026 he was not just a regional star, he was the single most-watched streamer on all of Kick by hours watched, racking up more than 34 million hours in three months.

The defining moment came in June 2025. During one monumental stream, Absi pulled a peak of 108,104 concurrent viewers, shattering his own records.

That put Absi alongside some of the biggest names in Western streaming. He had reached that level broadcasting in Arabic to viewers across the MENA region, showing that a regional focus could attract an audience comparable to those of established international stars.

His success also gave other Arab creators an example of how far they could grow by making content for viewers within their own region.

Absi spends a lot of his time on Kick in Just Chatting, talking with viewers and joking around with chat. His loud reactions and easy humour will be familiar to anyone who followed him on TikTok. Live, those exchanges have more time to develop, with viewers responding to him and helping to move the conversation along.

GTA roleplay is a regular part of his gaming streams. He plays on Respect RP, an Arabic-language server that also features major creators such as sxb and drb7h.

His average GTA audience grew by more than 180% in 2025, reaching over 39,500 viewers and helping him finish fifth in the year's most-watched GTA streamer ranking.

He also spent hundreds of hours streaming PUBG Mobile and Just Chatting during 2025. Despite his popularity in roleplay, GTA accounted for less than half of his total watch time that year, with the rest spread across his other games and broadcasts.

Those broadcasts can stretch well into the following morning. On September 2, 2026, he titled one stream "Let's go until morning, my online friends." It ran for almost twelve hours, averaging around 39,500 viewers across the session.

Absi also takes part in community competitions and events with other creators. His involvement in football includes serving as president of 3BS in Kings League MENA. He joined other leading Arabic-speaking streamers as the league expanded into the region, giving his fans a team to support alongside his regular broadcasts.

That recognition has followed him outside the Middle East, too. During a Kings League visit to Europe in May 2026, Absi told Al Rai that the response from fans had surprised him.

He had not expected so many people there to know his content, and said he had underestimated how closely European audiences followed Arab creators. For him, that reception made the years of work feel worthwhile.

Absi first built his audience with comedy videos on TikTok. Kick gave him more room to talk with viewers, play games and spend hours on subjects he enjoyed. Football eventually brought him into the Kings League, while Kings League matches and GTA roleplay became some of his biggest streams.

In 2025, his channel generated 57.5 million hours watched, more than 500% above the previous year. His average live audience also increased by 240%. By then, Absi was attracting much larger crowds to Arabic-language streams built around gaming, football and conversation.

The same humour that built his TikTok audience remained part of his streams, but Kick gave him room to add gaming, football and longer conversations with viewers.

Because of this, Absi became one of the clearest examples of how far an Arabic-language creator can grow across comedy, gaming and football without leaving the region behind.