"I’ll be honest, I had no idea that this is what I was going to be doing,” says Piker from his Los Angeles studio. “Like, if someone were to ask me, did you ever think that you’d become a Twitch streamer? I’d be like, what is Twitch? The concept of a YouTube influencer didn’t even exist when I was growing up.” It’s the morning and he’s preparing to start his daily 11am show. He usually broadcasts live for seven or eight hours straight, talking off the cuff about current affairs, lifestyle stories, what he’s up to, playing video games, reacting to memes and media clips, and interacting with the constant stream of messages that scroll by in the top left corner of the screen.
It’s a communal experience; a good hang, you might say. It also sounds exhausting. He has estimated that in 2020 he spent 42% of the entire year livestreaming. “I’ve lowered it to seven hours a day, but sometimes I still do eight. And on top of that, I’ll take Sundays off now.” He’s already running late this morning. As we continue talking, his Twitch chatter begins to fill with “where the hell is he?” posts.
Establishing himself on Twitch, which is primarily a platform for livestreaming video games (and has been owned by Amazon since 2014), was a conscious decision, Piker says. His media career started out with The Young Turks, the progressive online news network co-founded by his maternal uncle, Cenk Uygur. Piker’s parents are Turkish immigrants, and he grew up between New Jersey and Istanbul before studying political science and communication studies at Rutgers University. He graduated to hosting his own show on The Young Turks in 2016 – earning the title “Woke Bae” in the process – but in 2018 he decided to go solo on Twitch, to counterbalance what he saw as the overwhelmingly rightwing, often racist, misogynistic and xenophobic views that infested the space. “There’s a lot of ideological diversity amongst the gamers, amongst the developers, amongst the consumers, but unfortunately, the market for political expression in this hobby is so heavily dominated by the right, and that’s the same for pretty much everything,” he says.
How is a dog abusing twitch streamer's paid pr ad news?
Has Hasan done a single political thing other than larp as a revolutionary at a few Gaza rallies in already very democrat states? Oh wait he has, he has undermined democrats for years leading up to the 2024 elections and got exactly what he wanted with this trump presidency.
The dog abusing conspiracy is just as skizo, as those "hidden subliminal messages in movies" conspiracy theories of the past.
There are many legitimate reasons to criticize Hasan for, but some will just undermine the legitimate critiques.
Shocking your dog is a legitimate reason and there is good evidence that he did it and tried to cover it up.
Its not the worst thing ever. You're right that hes done worse.
Watched all the "evidence" collection videos, all reminded me of those "it has a triangle, so it's made by the illuminati" videos I used to watch to laugh at. Hasan has a quite irrational hatedom, and people will grasp every chance to be angry at him, not to mention his most passionate haters (the right) have learned how to control the narrative.
I didnt need to watch any of the evidence collection videos. I saw the original clip and then the clip where he "showed" the collar. It was pretty obvious he was obscuring the shock part of the collar. If it truely wasnt a shock collar he would have just shown the collar and cleared it up instantly.
He has a lot of haters but that isnt a defense. He also has just as many loyalist fans who rush to defend him.