Hasan Piker: How Nepotism Created a Faux Anti-Capitalist
therewiredsoul.substack.com
Hasan Piker is one of the biggest streamers on Twitch, which is quite the accomplishment because the platform was originally for gamers, but he does political commentary. With over 2.2 million followers on Twitch, 1.1 million on Twitter, and 1 million on YouTube, he has quite the influence. He’s a hardcore “eat the rich” type pro-socialist leftist, but he’s not who he appears to be.
  • Thylacine [any]@hexbear.netEnglish
    0·
    2 years ago

    I was going to ask how this was a dunk until I started reading it and saw that the author calls out Piker for saying he’s not an academic while having a bachelor’s degree lmao. I know multiple people with bachelor degrees who aren’t academics and don’t ever claim to be one, and I know people with bachelor degrees who claim they’re academics when they’re straight up not lol. fuck, I have a bachelor’s degree and I’m just like a pretend academic when no one else is around. Then the whole Peter Singer thing and the fucking Maslow hierarchy of needs , what the fuck. I’m sorry but it’s just “I’m a 19 year old college student and I understand how the world really is” vibes lmao. I used to be that college kid.

    I do think Hasan probably wouldn’t be as famous as he is if he wasn’t pretty handsome and the nephew of the Young Turks guy, so yeah I guess nepotism, but I can’t take this seriously. It absolutely fucking sucks that people can buy multimillion dollar houses in LA just making money as a streamer while people working actually necessary jobs are struggling to pay rent, and there’s undoubtedly things you can criticize him for from the left. I don’t get twitch and it does weird me out that (likely young) people think he’s some sort of revolutionary just for streaming himself talking or reacting to other videos or whatever. But has he ever claimed to be a Marxist? Or a communist, or anything like that? You can just say you think he sucks without trying to shoehorn your undergrad ethics and sociology terms into it lol.

    • frontal [none/use name]@hexbear.netOPEnglish
      0·
      2 years ago

      He doesn’t just “have a bachelor’s”. He graduated cum laude with a double major from an elite university, Rutgers. Maybe to you that’s not an academic, but it sure looks like it to the rest of us. He also benefited from nepotism, which our elites also consider a sacred institution.

      • Civility [none/use name]@hexbear.netEnglish
        1·
        2 years ago

        That’s just straight up not what “being an academic” means tho.

        “Academic” is an occupation. It usually requires a certain level of education (usually a doctorate or being in the process of getting a doctorate) but primarily it’s a job description for people who get paid to teach at Universities (or other academic institutions) and publish papers in academic journals.