Maybe I'm just an old fart annoyed by the loudmouthed sarcastic child of immense privilege preaching about things he'll never understand. As long as he's saying what the people want to hear, I guess. A new leftist Rush Limbaugh for 2024, great. I'm on the left and I'm just exhausted. IDK.
That post seems to be missing.
extremeboredom -22 points 2 years ago
Schmoo 39 points 2 years ago
I disagree that it's impossible for someone coming from a place of privilege to understand working-class politics. Of course, people with privilege do have a tendency to create or buy into justifications for the system that upholds their position, but at the same time privilege grants people the freedom to do what those without cannot. It's admirable for someone with that background to use their privilege for the good of all, potentially even to their own detriment.
It seems your distaste for Hasan is based on surface-level appearances and vibes, but those same traits that put you off of Hasan are very appealing to a large number of young men who are otherwise susceptible to right-wing cultural framing. I also used to avoid Hasan because he just didn't seem like someone I would identify with, and I was put off by the react content that made me associate him with shameless react streamers who leech off other people's work. After actually listening to him I realized he is very knowledgeable and is actually adding value to the content he reacts to. He used his privilege to study political science and become a political commentator, and he has genuine passion for his work and a commitment to progressive values.
Edit: If you're looking for someone with a similar perspective but without the aesthetic baggage try The Majority Report with Sam Seder
extremeboredom 6 points 2 years ago
Thanks for your response. Yes, it must be a personality thing, combined with a generational difference. Can you see how it comes across as disingenuous as a member of the working class to be spoken down to by a millionaire streamer? Similarly to how some LGBT allyship advocacy from cishet people comes across as blissfully unaware of the actual struggles of LGBT people.
eldavi 4 points 2 years ago
i think that, that blissfully unaware allyship hurt the democrats in this election and most of the world's most impactful &/or influential leftists started out life with a silver spoon in their mouths; according to frederick douglass' shocked impression of john brown's humble trappings.
it also jives with my own anecdotal experiences of being dragged out to leftists &/or artist gatherings and mainstream events like burning man where you can see various cliques of people form where many to most have the rich or famous at their cores; somehow leftists are great at attracting the rich and famous.
it's so unusual that the people who have most level headed views of finances are the ones who have the most money and the few that broke that class solidarity to create a new one with the poor are called leftists, while the majority who maintained that solidarity are called capitalists; with an overwhelming majority in between deride the class traitors as foolish because they're told to by the non-class traitors
i think that some of those rich people who become democrats (or hasan piker's) because their stations in life afford them the freedom to do so like the cishet allies. that proximity to the struggle; is worse that being completely ignorant of that struggle in some ways because the tiny but crucial details that allies will never likely understand makes for big missed opportunities like there still being time to enact the equal rights amendment to protect us from the likes of project 2025.
AnneVolin -1 points 2 years ago
I realized he is very knowledgeable
Citation needed.
Hasan has the same knowledge as an average poster on this website. The average poster doesn't know the differences between Mao and Lenin or China and USSR. Half the posters on this site don't even understand the disagreements between the movements they claim to like.
Hasan literally would tell you this is nerd shit as a deflection when asked (same thing that Felix from Chapo does cuz it's cool not to know basic history about the thing you claim to be). Hasan literally doesn't know how to employ the basics of journalism. When pinned against the wall Hasan will admit that he's entertainment. What you're mistaking for knowledge is the fact that he reads leftist news aggregators all day and his chat is literally one. That's not knowledge that's chattering.
Hasan's strength is that he can understand what vaguely center-to-center-leftish normies vibe with and find convincing, he's a filter, but there's no real depth there.
Half the responses in here are like "he's organizing the working class" which is the lulziest shit ever because for some reason y'all think organizing is posting memes and streaming.
WanderingVentra 1 point 2 years ago
There's no alternative to Hasan right now in the left online space. Look at the top streamers on election day. They're all right-wing except for him. We're going to have to start with people like him, AOC, or Bernie if we want to move the needle in this country. Organizing 20 people in your local communist book club doesn't matter if your movement is constantly demonized in the media and never grows. I don't think some in the left seem to understand how important propaganda is, and yes, even online. Even Lenin worked on newspapers.
Not saying he's anything close to Lenin, but no one else is in the position to step up right now. It's going to take someone with enough money to not have to rely on mainstream media companies to say the shit he does, and the aesthetic to reach the Gen Z people and normies all the other guys are reaching. Other people can't afford to be kicked out of the DNC for talking to Palestine protestors like he was. Right now the only people I can think of on the left with any outreach are a couple niche podcasters and academics doing a couple YouTube vids.
ZebulonP 23 points 2 years ago
I get the sentiment. But I don't need to be lgbtq to be an advocate for their rights. I just want people to be able to be who/what they want and thrive. Compared to them I'm privileged (white cishet male), but I doubt they'd complain about me being an ally.
UltraGiGaGigantic 3 points 2 years ago
I just want people to be able to be who/what they want and thrive.
End the war on drugs cause I want to be high as hell.
extremeboredom -19 points 2 years ago
No. It's a "tired of the dropping standards" thing where I'm dissatisfied with the fact that the biggest voice of our political movement is a loud condescending nepo baby who sits in his bedroom playing video games, watching youtube, and reading Reddit posts for a living, and can't realistically claim to have any idea about the lives of the oppressed classes he claims to champion.
small44 19 points 2 years ago
I guess you want political and social "activists" to have a pathetic life and can't have fun and do fun activities like playing games. What make you think that he doesn't read interesting book etc to educate himself about certain issues? Your use of personal attacks remove all your credibility.
compostgoblin 11 points 2 years ago
Is Hasan Piker really the biggest voice on the political left?
compostgoblin 4 points 2 years ago
Maybe I’m the one that’s out of the loop, but I’d consider myself fairly informed and on the left, and I only think I’ve heard him speak once or twice. I don’t watch any streams though, so it could just be that I’m not part of that community
Vanth 9 points 2 years ago
TBH, I don't know much about him and read the first few paragraphs of his Wikipedia page. It says while born in New Jersey, he grew up in Turkey under Erdogan, then back to the US to study poli sci. Seems like growing up under a democracy sliding back into authoritarianism would be relevant experience. Your description of him as a "nepo baby" seems quite incomplete and makes me wonder if your perception of him is charged by emotion rather than fact.
extremeboredom 1 point 2 years ago
His uncle is the owner and founder of TYT Media, and he got his start in media at... TYT. He comes from an immensely wealthy and politically connected family. He has chosen to live in Hollywood, an epicenter of capitalism at its worst.
And thanks for your edit, I think I agree that my perception of him is charged by emotion, but in addition to fact.
extremeboredom 0 points 2 years ago
I'm basically forced to, daily, thanks for your suggestion tho
passiveaggressivesonar 3 points 2 years ago
How about a loud condescending poor who sits in their bedroom playing video games, watching YouTube, reading reddit posts for a living but is super right wing?
Not like there's a litany of journalists, professors and former finance ministers with their work available online to watch or anything
latenightnoir 28 points 2 years ago
I understand where you're coming from, honestly. But I think this is a sort of trauma response on our end (myself included) at this point. I'm not trying to pin mental illnesses on you, I'm nowhere near a licensed head doctor of any kind, I'm saying that we've been kicked and abused so much by the rich, that it's only natural for those of us who broke free of the brainwashing to be on high alert, at least for a while. The continued unfolding of things surely can't help this situation, either.
That being said, as long as he acts in good faith and is sincere and logical in his approach, which so far seems to be true, I'd say we should embrace his participation! As I see it, we need all the voices we can get. We're already arguing semantics amongst ourselves all day long, I think it'd be a shame to let mistrust shatter "our side" without concrete proof of malicious intent.
At the end of the day, the greatest weapon the Right has is the fact that they yell united at everyone else. Let our chorus rival theirs!
extremeboredom 3 points 2 years ago
Thank you for being one of the only commenters to understand my question.
chunkystyles 5 points 2 years ago
This is very dismissive of the other commenters you've responded to who also appear to have understood you quite well. The difference is just that you like this one better.
You rail against someone for their privileges, but can't seem to see past your own biases. We all have biases. It's important to be able to recognize them and try to see past them. Including against privileged allies.
extremeboredom 0 points 2 years ago
"One of" the only ones, not "the" only one. The difference is exactly what I stated, the respondant clearly understood my question. Would you like me to edit each of my other replies, to acknowledge the ones who also understood my question, for consistency's sake? I should probably then reply to each of the ones who didn't understand my question, to make sure and point it out, right? Otherwise I'm being very dismissive?
I've been learning from this discussion, so I'm not sure why you think I'm incapable of seeing my biases.
Here's a question: Is it cool to hoard wealth if you're saying leftist-sounding stuff while you do it?
latenightnoir 5 points 2 years ago
Believe me, I'm keeping an eye on every piece of Leftist media I find, and not just for the purpose of learning. I know Capitalism is very good at repackaging our complaints and critiques and selling them back as dopamine hits, but... there's not much of a choice otherwise. Even the "underground networks' " infrastructure* is owned by someone at this point...
Cowbee 27 points 2 years ago
Hasan occupies a niche within the broad "leftist" umbrella niche within the West. Unlike many breadtubers, he actually doesn't serve as much of a barrier for further leftist movement (see: Vaush, Destiny, etc.). He is privledged, but so was Engels. Hasan certainly is no Engels, but he does serve a useful role in radicalizing liberals towards the Left, like how he vocally combats the nonsense usage of the word "tankie" trendy among liberals these days.
Hasan is a pundit at the end of the day, and isn't bringing about the revolution, and he is definitely more of a USophile than he should be, but he is better than most leftist commentators and helps serve as a conveyor to the left of himself.
extremeboredom 5 points 2 years ago
Thank you for a nuanced reply. When you put it this way, I can see why many listeners find value in his content. I worked another shift today with him constantly droning in the background and I think my opinion is largely being colored by his presentation style, and my own distaste for "streamers" and "react culture" in general, with his aforementioned privilege issues now coming in third.
His comments about people working "real" jobs having an easier time of it than he does certainly rubbed me the wrong way, though, and his response when called out on it was more of the exact same "BROOO WHAT ARE YOU STUPID? THATS NOT WHAT I MEANT! OK!?" that his streams are full of.
communism 26 points 2 years ago
I think you have an extremely online view of "leftist political spaces" because I have never even heard this guy's name mentioned in any real life context, and I've been a very politically active communist since I was a teenager.
AnneVolin 6 points 2 years ago
Yeah the problem with living in capitalist hellworld at the heart of the empire is that you have two separated insular communities of leftists that are knife fighting rings. One in meetings and one on message boards, and they frequently know nothing about each other.
While the meetings communists sometimes eke out wins like Kshama Sawant, they often struggle to connect to the message board communists who really should be their base. Meanwhile both struggle to connect to society at large.
What's really funny is that most meetings communists I know locally essentially think of him in essentially the same way message board communists think of AOC. Most meetings communists cannot stand his level of yadda yadda when pressed on any specifics he often just goes more general and says things like 'I just want everyone to have healthcare bro'.
jaxxed 23 points 2 years ago
You can advocate for hungry people after eating a meal. You can advocate fornsex worker rights even if you are a virgin.
You can't tell people you are "working class" if you're rich. You can't advocate for punishing day people while pretending to be straight.
It is not complicated.
macabrett 22 points 2 years ago
A person's class is defined by their relation to labor, not their wealth. He's not exploiting labor. I'm not sure the people claiming he's a hypocrite for having money understand anything about communist/socialist theory. Engels was famously in a very similar situation.
WanderingVentra 7 points 2 years ago
Plus as far as I know socialists have always been fine with class traitors who join them.
AnneVolin 0 points 2 years ago
A person’s class is defined by their relation to labor, not their wealth.
This is literally not true. Like quite literally, even in socialist history this is not a true statement. Leninism particularly had some very funny hijinks about linking wealth to class.
He’s not exploiting labor.
I don't want to really get into it, but Hasan like every other content creator indirectly exploits the labor that provides the platform that he makes money off of.
Twitch.TV is a stage that is built and maintained by workers working for a Twitch. Those workers are exploited. The stage is a means of production. The artists that use the stage also exploit those workers, because they procure use of the stage. The cool thing about Hasans typical response to this which is the thought terminating cliche of "there is no ethical consumption under capitalism" is that it by definition has a corollary. If there can be no ethical consumption, there can be no ethical production.
Engels was famously in a very similar situation.
Engels' factories were all unionized.
Hasan has literally in 2019 after all the "podcasters don't pay guests drama" that he very well knows of given his friends, had exploited people that did free work for him. There's controversy about whether Hasan actually pays his mods. Most online personalities are not very forthcoming about how they get help with their content/community management and whether that is properly compensated, Hasan included. For a venture that's made $12m over 5 years Hasan 100% should be paying every single person that touches anything related to his work without them having to ask, whether it's hourly, piece work, or full time employment.
Hasan is nowhere near Engels in his understanding and treatment of labor.
I’m not sure the people claiming he’s a hypocrite for having money understand anything about communist/socialist theory.
Most of Hasan's fans and Hasan himself don't have understand anything about communist / socialist theory or history. This thread at large is a perfect encapsulation of this where the history and theory is bent entirely in the defense of one online entertainer in 2024. I say this as a person who occasionally watches (e.g. election night since I dind't want to watch broadcast cable and nobody else good had election live streams).
The real problem here is the deification of Hasan and the comparison of him to Marx or Engels that's done up and down this thread is indicative of the seriousness of the commenters in their understanding of socialism. A lot of these arguments are vibes + socialist bromides, they don't actually do anything beyond surface level reflexive defense. Nobody actually wants to open the Pandora's box here because as the famous tweet said "some of our faves might be implicated".
macabrett 3 points 2 years ago
This is literally not true. Like quite literally, even in socialist history this is not a true statement. Leninism particularly had some very funny hijinks about linking wealth to class.
That's weird, because the class = relation to labor stuff is literally in Socialism: Utopian and Scientific by Frederick Engels
I'm not deifying Hasan, I don't really care about Hasan. I was just correcting an incorrect sentiment in this post that having wealth means you can't be on the side of the working class.
Everything else you said is weird too online gossip so I'll just move on.
AnneVolin 1 point 2 years ago
That’s weird, because the class = relation to labor stuff is literally in Socialism: Utopian and Scientific by Frederick Engels
I would challenge you to actually find such a quote, because such a claim doesn't make a lot of sense in the language of Marxism. Socialism: Utopian and Scientific is effectively a literary review of "how we got here" and such a definition of class excludes classes of feudalism which are covered in that work. Not only that but a peasant's relation to labor is vastly different within the peasant class. Some peasants have a relation to labor in the same way as the bourgeoisie, some the same as the petite bourgeoisie, and some without any real relation to labor at all. And yet peasants are a distinct class according to all modern Marxists.
Kulaks were literally a class according to the Bolsheviks, which was at its clearest defined as a class based more-so on wealth than relation to labor. It wasn't really until Maoism that a more complete understanding of socialist class was developed especially in relation to peasants since communism was mostly developed as a collaboration between educated urban intelligentsia and urban workers.
The difference between the proletarian class and the lumpen proletarian class is generally accepted in modern times not as their relation to labor but their relation to communism(or more specifically class consciousness) itself. Like the problems around the peasants most communism between 1840 ~ 1970 had trouble working through the entirety of the urban landscape, so "normal people" that were difficult to qualify or deemed morally degenerate by various authors were just put into the lumpen space. It wasn't until the Black Panther Party and the Young Lords took a look around and said the normal people around us don't fit into pure "proletarian" definitions. That begged the question of "does this mean that communism is doomed?". As a natural consequence of this these groups that lead the way in the theory and practical organizing spaces to start speaking about working with and activating the lumpen proletariat in earnest rather than casting them off as dregs that could only be useful to counter revolutionary forces.
The last reason this doesn't make sense is that wealth is capital which under a capitalist system is the means of production in and of itself. Marx himself even goes further to say that accumulation of wealth is systemic and has an equilibrium with the accumulation of misery.
"The law that always equilibrates the relative surplus- population, or industrial reserve army, to the extent and energy of accumulation, this law rivets the laborer to capital more firmly than the wedges of Vulcan did Prometheus to the rock. It establishes an accumulation of misery, corresponding with the accumulation of capital. Accumulation of wealth at one pole is, therefore, at the same time accumulation of misery, agony of toil, slavery, ignorance, brutality, mental degradation, at the opposite pole, i.e., on the side of the class that produces its own product in the form of capital (Marx's Capital, p. 661)
Hasan has accumulated much capital, therefore according to Marx has also accumulated much misery because he is not exempt from the systemic nature of capitalism. Hasan very often in response to house gate says "There's no ethical consumption". The corollary here is that there's no ethical production, and there is no ethical accumulation.
Whether your faves are implicated or not Marxism is a sociological system of the poorest, those among us who are wealthy communists should have much more personal sin to grapple with than those who are poor, that is our privilege.
Everything else you said is weird too online gossip so I’ll just move on.
This whole thread is weird too online gossip if you haven't noticed.
I was just correcting an incorrect sentiment in this post that having wealth means you can’t be on the side of the working class.
This is true, however this is actually hard to prove, and denying Hasan's implication in the capitalist system and his accumulation of wealth simply because Hasan is popular is a willful misunderstanding of Marxism. Having in-house conversations is literally how people advance their understandings of Marxism, what's happening in much of this thread is denying those conversations via thought terminating cliches but from the left, because many see this as a "grand posting battle". I'm not advocating that we have to game out a percentage of Hasan good or Hasan bad, I'm arguing that we have to understand Hasan as Marxists warts and all. That understanding is not happening because in this circumstance stan culture is at odds with Marxism.
Lastly it's my view that if Hasan is indeed a "fellow traveler" and someone who people learn "the left"/Marxism/whatever from, he should be showing us this journey himself, instead of steeling himself because of his constant battles with H3 or Destiny or whoever. Otherwise this is just kayfabe.
Hexadecimalkink 21 points 2 years ago
What's with the identity politics man? Does what he says makes sense or not? Don't tell me you won't listen to rich white people when they make sense because they're rich and white.
OurToothbrush 19 points 2 years ago
He sometimes tells his audience to log off and join an org, we get a handful of new recruits occasionally due to the guy.
So he actually is successfully moving people from being socialist sympathizers to actual socialists (you need to be part of an org to be a socialist)
That's all I really know about him, besides some people being thirsty about him.
todd_bonzalez 8 points 2 years ago path: 0 13783114 13788852, hotness: undefined, score: 8, children: 2
AnneVolin 2 points 2 years ago
Let's start with asking the question: how exactly are you an ally? what are the actual parameters of ally ship here? Do you do mutual aid? Do you voulunteer consistently in your community? Do you do organizing? Do you read theory?
Or do you just nod your head when someone says medicare for all or living wage? If so, why do you think you deserve any kind of accolades for simply vaguely agreeing with (and possibly also parroting) sloganeering?
Or do you post on vaguely leftist sites? If so why do you think you deserve any kind of accolades simply for posting, a recreational activity?
What is it that you've done besides call yourself a socialist that practically means something? And why is that worthy of praise?
OurToothbrush 2 points 2 years ago
Telling me that I’m not a Socialist because I’m not a registered member of a Socialist organization doesn’t encourage me to join any organization. It encourages me to dump you and find an actual mutual ally.
"Saying I'm only sympathetic to abolition if I'm not doing abolitionist work doesn't make me want to do abolitionist work"
Okay what will then, do you want a headpat or a handjob or what?
The dumped metaphor is great because in this metaphor you weren't dating to begin with. You were just admiring.
But seriously if someone questioning your commitment when you aren't committed makes you react with fleeing somewhere else that is on you.
Stop saying stupid exclusionary things about your left-wing allies if you want to actually have a movement capable of change.
If you're not in the movement you are not a socialist. The movement is a real, organized thing, not just vibes.
yardy_sardley 14 points 2 years ago
In case you're actually, seriously asking and not just trolling, having privilege and success under capitalism does not disqualify a person from being a leftist. You can't really criticize a person for participating in a system where if you don't participate, you starve.
He's using his influence to organize the working class and advocate for collective action, which is the one tool workers have in the fight against their own exploitation. Even if you don't like him personally or don't think he's part of the working class, he is a very strong ally and has undeniably strengthened the movement.
AnneVolin 7 points 2 years ago
He’s using his influence to organize the working class and advocate for collective action, which is the one tool workers have in the fight against their own exploitation.
Posting and streaming (which is just video posting) is not "organizing the working class and advocating for collective action". The closest he gets to this is fundraisers, but the buck pretty much stops there.
Money is important sure, but that's not what organizing is. If fundraising is organizing than the Democratic Party should be Bolsheviks.
Going on stream to tell the people who decompress from their shitty McDonalds shifts that they should organize as they say hell yeah man and go back to the work the next day without doing anything isn't organizing, it's not advocacy, it's entertainment.
extremeboredom 4 points 2 years ago
Shame that seriously asking is so hard to distinguish from trolling at this point. For the record, I am a leftist, working a shitty physical job, who has to listen to this guy all day because of my coworkers. I am literally the archetype of the struggling worker class. I don't need him or any other millionaire to tell me about the working class.
macAttack 5 points 2 years ago
But there are working class people who like his message (the people you work w/). So clearly, he is saying something of interest. I disagree w/ him on a handful of issues, but don't think that disqualifies him from being helpful in the fight for equality. The same goes for the likes of JB Pritzker for example. That doesn't mean they're my ideal candidates but any port in a storm. Turning away useful allies while we wait for a perfect representation seems like a way to alienate some people because they "aren't like us" when it comes to their financial situation even if they agree on social and fiscal ideas.
AnneVolin 1 point 2 years ago
Shame that seriously asking is so hard to distinguish from trolling at this point.
Common-L among left-ish Lemmy instances when you start noticing the paint chipping off of their golden idols.
davel 14 points 2 years ago
I don’t know Piker from a hole in the ground. This sure sounds like a red flag, and I think The Young Turks are hacks. Nonetheless, bourgeois class traitors are a thing, Engels & Mao being a prime examples.
Not knowing Piker’s particulars, I can only speak at the 30,000 foot view: Western “leftist” spaces have largely been captured by US imperialism since the end of WWII.
extremeboredom 3 points 2 years ago
Thank you for an intelligent response! I will read up on the links you shared.
UltraGiGaGigantic 13 points 2 years ago
The revolution will not have a channel on youtube.
thoughtcrime 2 points 2 years ago
I was going to comment the same ö
TheOubliette 12 points 2 years ago
Embrace petty bourgeouis class traitors and don't fetishize the working class.
sp3tr4l 10 points 2 years ago
He's more conventionally attractive, confident, charismatic, muscular, well dressed, and less of a drama king/queen than most other leftist influencers his age, and he speaks in more Gen Z lingo/vocabulary than other left wing influencers (who are often older) with similar knowledge levels and political stances.
Oh, and he is already popular, on a platform where people love to exist in one-sided, parasocial relationships.
... Sorry if this bursts your bubble, but even most self described leftists basically operate by the same fundamental popularity / favorability dynamics that middle or high schoolers do, whether concsiously or subconsciously.
Churbleyimyam 9 points 2 years ago
Never heard of him.
inb4_FoundTheVegan 9 points 2 years ago
My partner watches him a lot and while personally dislike Hasans loud yelly bro style I've never heard an opinion from him that I disagreed with.
Duamerthrax 8 points 2 years ago
I've never listened to him for more than a few seconds. He gives me shyster vibes and I don't need a pundit to tell me everything is shit.
WarpedMirrage 8 points 2 years ago
I'll state this: I know of this person in name only.
He's a hypocrite. It's as simple as that. His popularity is probably derived from the novelty of a member of the upper class agreeing with the lower classes and his ability to entertain them. It gives those that belong to the lower class hope of change being enacted by those with capital. The Wikipedia page states he brought a $2.7 million USD mansion. He has access to capital, and what does he do? Asks others to donate to 'worthy' causes whilst accruing more capital for his own vested, personal vanity projects?
From what I've read he is not an ally. He's an entertainer. The capitalist system is able to create products that espouse anti-capitalist ideas. This is just another such product. It's not controlled opposition. It's just an individual who's found himself the owner of a sought after product. Just another capitalist.
Fidel_Cashflow 7 points 2 years ago
I’ll state this: I know of this person in name only.
surely THIS is a solid base to work off of when forming an opinion of somebody
He has access to capital, and what does he do? Asks others to donate to ‘worthy’ causes whilst accruing more capital for his own vested, personal vanity projects?
a recent donation drive run by his community for Palestinian aid raised $840,000, with at least $75,000 coming directly from his pocket. Another previous donation drive last October raised $1,236,473.25, with another $50,000 coming directly from Hasan.
WarpedMirrage 0 points 2 years ago
My sentiment does not change. That's akin to pocket change if he makes around $200,000 USD a month on twitch...
Consumption of luxury products and the defense of them is not something I support. Buying a mansion is antithetical to my views on socialism. An acceptable use of a mansion is to tear it down and build affordable apartments for the working people. Even then that'd be suspect, as you'd be able to build more dwellings on cheaper land... It would be more of a publicity stunt than an acceptable use of capital.
This character might say "the right things" but he does not do them. Why is he even working for Amazon? He could be streaming on peertube or build infrastructure to stream without binding himself to such an exploitative company.
He's human. It's not easy say the right things and do the right things. I don't give it much thought. He's not of interest to me, but I think it's quite obvious why communists might not like him.
AnneVolin 14 points 2 years ago
Lol this is a misuse of statistics to make it look like Hasan isn't rich. The median US net worth is roughly $200,000. That means 50% of people have less than $200k of net worth, and remember it's not real money. It means liquidating all of your assets.
Hasan makes the median net worth of an American in one month on Twitch subs alone (from the Twitch leaks where he was the 13th most paid on the site at ~$200k and that's just one of his income streams). Which means he makes the average US net worth in 5. Using just his house price as his "net worth" is laughable.
Using the Twitch leaks numbers, Hasan bought his house in 2021. Twitch leaks were about 2019-2022. If he makes $200k since 2019 (which is a low estimate because his line go up), he's made $12,000,000 off of Twitch alone. He can arguably buy 4 of that same house cash and carry.
I get it, he's a cool guy, but are we really gonna pretend here that he's living some life comparable to normal people when he's made $12 million in 5 years? He's certainly better than most of his peers (other rich people) since you could argue there's minimal direct exploitation (indirect exploitation is a whole other argument, and given that people hate nuance I'm not gonna bother to make it), but let's not pretend he's living the same type of life.
slacktoid 7 points 2 years ago
Hes good at breaking down media. Gets involved on community organizing. Does good propaganda.
People are free to like who they like and make up their own minds. Why you hating? Who made you thought police?
extremeboredom -7 points 2 years ago
I guess his ubiquity annoys me when he strikes me as hypocritical. Thought police? That's just a weird thing to say. Why am I "hating?" Nobody hates the Left more than the Left.
slacktoid 8 points 2 years ago
I like that he's focusing on the relationship between labor and the means of production and its not about being poor or rich per se.
Exactly why the infighting when we have bigger fish to fry.
extremeboredom -6 points 2 years ago
Fair enough. Guess I'll delete before the hive attacks in full.
MrBobDobalina 9 points 2 years ago
Don't delete. There is no hive. Let the opinions and discussion happen, read them all, see if anything sways you. If not that's fine, if it does that's fine too. You asked, hear the answers
slacktoid 6 points 2 years ago
No.. Its a good discussion.. Maybe add an edit or a caveat... I do feel there are a few people out there who don't like him for the reasons you stated. But end of the day bigger fish to fry. As long as we keep that in mind it's all good to me.
agent_nycto 6 points 2 years ago
What's your cut off? At what financial point is someone allowed to take part in trying to fix a broken system?
If it's only people who don't benefit from the system who are allowed to fight against it, should white people not try to fight the system? Cis? Straight? Able bodied? Able minded? Are only poor trans lesbians with two types of disabilities allowed to try to fight the system?
I don't know the guy from Adam and I'm not gonna say he's not well off, and I get that it seems sketch, but he's at least doing something with his money other than sitting on it trying to get richer.
AnneVolin 5 points 2 years ago
Because he's cool to a certain type of person and those people are vaguely leftist (just like Hasan is vaguely leftist).
That cool factor and the parasocial relationships protect him a lot in places like this where some of the more knowledgeable users will actually dunk on his sources like Ettingermentum when they do/say stupid shit. It's incredibly funny to see.
Honestly that's pretty much it.
socsa 3 points 2 years ago
You will struggle to get serious answers here. But many leftists crave validation more than they crave good ideas. Not all of them, mind you, but on places like ML anyone outside the orthodoxy inevitably just gets shouted down.
SocialMediaRefugee 2 points 2 years ago
Obsessing over "privilege" smells like jealousy
corsicanguppy 0 points 2 years ago
Net worth isn't a thing except for the aristocratic right. There, privilege implies belonging; and when coupled with egocentric decisions is basically their entire theme.
TheFonz -1 points 2 years ago
His class shouldn't matter ultimately.
However, his superficial and putrid understanding of anything regarding politics or the world in infuriating. At one point he was simping hard for Russia's invasion of Ukraine repeating verbatim rt talking points.
I loathe this man more than I hate Joe Rogan. Joe is an imbecile, through and through. Hasan, on the other hand, supposedly has a poli Sci degree. He knows what he's doing and it's disgusting
Edit : I don't have time to go into every fact check of the mountain of lies he spews. The guy has never opened a book in his life and spends all day reading Twitter. Some great intellectual.
Willymac does a good breakdown on yt:
Ukrainians react to Hasan (yt) :
He's such a joke
DrDickHandler -4 points 2 years ago
Oh screw off with this bullshit. So pathetic.
extremeboredom 5 points 2 years ago
Thanks for your contribution to the discussion, very insightful.
DrDickHandler -8 points 2 years ago
These are bot account folks. There's been a surge of attacks against Hasan by the right and russian propaganda machine. They are opening the flood gates to undermine all the remaining progressive influencers.
AnneVolin 4 points 2 years ago
Evil Russia is botting on lemmy dot ml to reach a smidgen of the 60K MAU who are mostly already deluded nerds into not supporting Hasan on twitch dot tv a site of 240M MAU for geopolitical reasons of 20 dimensional chess.
extremeboredom 2 points 2 years ago
That's a new one, I've never been accused of being a bot for having an unpopular viewpoint before! You're just full of surprises, aren't you?
IDKWhatUsernametoPutHereLolol -13 points 2 years ago path: 0 13767013, hotness: undefined, score: -13, children: 5
davel 7 points 2 years ago
Edit to add: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hasan_Piker
As of 2024, Piker is the most subscribed political commentator and has the nineteenth-most subscribed channels of all time on the streaming platform Twitch.
His father Mehmet Behçet Piker is a political scientist and economist who served on the Board of Directors (and as Vice-President) of Sabancı Holding, and who is a founding member of the Future Party in Turkey. His mother Ülker Sedef Piker (née Uygur) is an art and architectural historian teaching at the New Jersey Institute of Technology. His uncle Cenk Uygur is a political commentator and co-founder of The Young Turks news network.
During the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Piker, in partnership with CARE, raised over $200,000 for Ukrainian relief funds while playing Elden Ring, with an average of over 70,000 people watching his coverage of the conflict.
Twitch information: Followers: 2.7 million
YouTube information: Subscribers: 1.43 million
So he comes from money and is raking in buttloads from his social media presence. He has no need for Russian funding. Either provide evidence or don’t talk nonsense.
IDKWhatUsernametoPutHereLolol -7 points 2 years ago path: 0 13767013 13767327 13767854, hotness: undefined, score: -7, children: 3
AnneVolin 2 points 2 years ago
Remember how libs were rehabbing GWB but then GWB never endorsed, and they got really mad?
We all know why!!!! It's because GWB is a Russian asset, why else would he invite Putin to a high school in Crawford Texas unless Putin had compromat dizinformatsiya on him in 2001. DO NOT LOOK UP WHEN PUTIN BECAME PRESIDENT THAT IS NOT RELEVANT!!! COMPOMAT! DISINFORMATSIYA!
AntiOutsideAktion 1 point 2 years ago
bender quote
thanks for using Leebra!
go to feed...
I can give you my two cents. Currently, there aren't many left leaning pundits, and I won't look a gift horse in the mouth. His privilege means nothing if he's actually being a good progressive advocate. Also, he's actually talking about the things the left populace actually care about. Controlled opposition wouldn't look like him to me. They'd be more like the Democrat party, trying to copitulate with the right. He's been fairly consistent with his messaging of workers rights, lgbtq rights, womens rights, and the atrocities happening in Gaza. His income from streaming is incidental, and isn't a problem in and of itself. In fact, it lets him be independent and not beholden to corporate media. It's hard enough to afford bills working a regular job. The vast majority of regular jobs take all your time, leaving none for anything else, much less being a left leaning advocate online. I'm assuming you'd rather a full-time employee take his place, but how would someone like that be able to be effective in their advocacy?
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