Hasan Piker calls it an everyday benchmark: “Imagine boarding a bus and you have 30 seconds to clarify any online phenomena unfolded to the bus driver without them turning to you and saying, ‘Get off the fucking bus.’” The vast majority of online discourse, regardless of how intense, fails the test, he contends – including an incident last weekend, when someone on a Dublin street asked to take a picture with Piker, then held up a picture of his dog and shouted “Free Kaya!” Forget the bus driver; trying to explain the meaning of that specific event could easily take the rest of this article.
Piker finds himself in this liminal zone increasingly these days. Until fairly recently, the 34-year-old was familiar primarily to the very online, especially Americans in their 20s and 30s, largely thanks to his dominant presence on the streaming platform Twitch. But following the last presidential election, Piker has transformed into an sought-after voice in “offline circles” for his views on the beleaguered political left, and especially that inordinately discussed demographic, young men.
Unsurprisingly, this also makes Piker a prime villain of the political right. To his detractors there is a lot to criticize: his outspoken political stances; his cultural background; his allegiances with left-wing politicians. But they also resent the fact that Piker – tall, muscular, fashionable and handsome – defies typical lefty stereotypes. He has leveraged his physique in revealing magazine spreads or social media posts.
“To be frank, I had no idea that this is what I was going to be doing,” says Piker. “For instance, if someone were to ask me, did you ever think that you’d become a Twitch streamer? I’d be like, what is Twitch?”
It’s the morning and he’s preparing to start his regular late morning show. He usually streams live for seven to eight hours consecutively, talking off the cuff about the news, pop culture, his personal life, playing video games, reacting to memes and media clips, and responding to the constant stream of comments from viewers.
Establishing himself on Twitch, which is primarily for streaming video games, was a deliberate decision, Piker explains. His media career started out with The Young Turks, the left-leaning online news network. His parents are Turkish immigrants, and he was raised between New Jersey and Istanbul before studying political science. He eventually hosted his own show on the network in 2016 but in 2018 he chose to go solo on Twitch, to provide an alternative to what he saw as overwhelmingly rightwing, and often divisive views that infested the space.
“You can find ideological diversity amongst the gamers, amongst the developers, amongst the consumers, but sadly, the market for political expression in this hobby is so heavily dominated by the right,” he says.
This is the fundamental problem with the American left in general, says Piker: they’ve ceded so many battlegrounds to the right. “You absolutely have to market your ideas … but they just completely gave up on all notion of marketing or branding.”
Piker is consistently sharply critical of past administrations on his show, particularly on foreign policy, but he is not a loyal member of the dominant center-left party. His own politics are broadly social democrat and “compassion-driven”, he clarifies. “My viewpoint is actually the normal position in most of the world.”
One of the dangers of Piker’s type of informal, relatable commentary is that he’ll occasionally go too far, which gives his opponents ammunition. He has been temporarily banned from Twitch several times for deemed offensive content. Most notoriously, in 2019, in the context of a wider critique, he made a comment about a national tragedy that was amplified by conservative media outlets. Piker later expressed regret and said the language was inappropriate.
Similarly, Piker’s outspoken support for Palestinian rights and criticism of certain government actions have led to allegations of bias, which he strongly rejects. He has also been mocked for expressing admiration for a different major global power, after a trip there.
“I have no issues getting attacked by people on the right. I relish when my enemies hate me,” he says. “It is what it is.”
The hate increasingly risks to spill offline, however. On one occasion, Piker was detained by US border agents on his re-entry from a trip. They interrogated him about his political opinions before releasing him. “I think they did it because they know who I am,” he said.
These levels of enmity help explain the “Free Kaya!” incident in Dublin. It started with a Twitch stream where his dog, Kaya, made a noise suddenly. Online detractors jumped to the conclusion that Piker was harming the animal, sparking a meme-fueled controversy dubbed “collargate.” Even a prominent animal rights organization put out a statement. This led to the surprise encounter by a random in Dublin.
Piker handled the situation in his stride. Online, though, the encounter was edited from his live stream and disseminated with his reply edited out. “They wanted to make it look like I was shocked,” he said.
This illustrates the difference between the offline and online worlds, he says: “It’s very hard to maintain a very negative energy in the real world and not coming across as hysterical and odd. Interactions on the internet foster this environment where you can be as aggressive as you want.”
That Dublin encounter was fairly low stakes. In the US, he feels less safe. The fatal shooting of a right-wing commentator served as a harrowing example of where this online hate can end up. Piker watched the event unfold in real time on his stream.
Piker continues to do real-life streams in the US. “I can’t let fear guide my life. I’ve gotten death threats for over a decade,” he says. Unhealthy one-sided fan dynamics come with the territory, he acknowledges.
Having been prescient about a recent election, how does Piker view the next few years? “Things change quite rapidly, but if you look at the avenues where there is some glimmer of hope, it’s the progressive candidates that are actually truly galvanising the public,” he says. He points to the progressive “wing”.
“We have to lean into that, because I feel like it’s a matter of life or death at this point,” he adds. “So I will do everything in my power to try and avoid a worse alternative.”
The American left could perhaps do with someone like Piker. But it seems unlikely as if Piker is tempted in mainstream political office. He makes occasional media appearances, but he’s not tempted further into traditional media, he says. “Viewers is moving in my direction, and away from legacy publishers.”
And on top of that, he clearly finds it fulfilling: “I find a lot of emotional fulfilment in what I do.” As he’s talking, he’s got one eye on the clock. Another marathon live stream is about to begin, and he’s eager to get started.
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