The Hasan Piker Event Horizon
A raucous Twitch streamer has become the center of American left-wing politics, to the point of overshadowing a potential World War. Why are the Media class so scared of him?
For the uninitiated, Hasan Piker is a very specific form of content creator. Early on, he wedged himself into the one niche he knew he could adequately fill – the dudebro's Leftist, streaming on Twitch for a reliable 6-7 days a week, around about the same time, and usually, monitoring whatever situation is abound in Trump's World Order, giving shrewd commentary from his perspective. In doing this, he has genuinely and repeatedly contributed to a leftward shift in young men and young people around the world. I'm afraid this isn't up for debate.
He is also different from a lot of his peers, especially his right-wing peers, as he is actually a Political Science and Communications graduate. This is what he studied, this is his expertise, and, though I find his methods clumsy sometimes (the side effect of 6-8-hour streaming days), his actual, graduate-level expertise, and the intervening years of experience, have made him well equipped to be what many are trying to shoehorn him into – "the Joe Rogan of the Left". I'd equate him more to a Tucker Carlson – educated and on a mission – but that's just me.
Because of this efficacy, many left-wing candidates running for election in the USA have teamed up with Piker, sparred with him, communed with him, marched with him, and just generally been around him. This is terrifying for many, both in the mainstream media and in the halls of power, because Piker, who identifies as being on the left, on paper, is very much a socialist – not a "Democratic" socialist, like, a real Socialist. People can debate the label however they want – he is not friendly to the Capitalist aims of the Democratic Party, let's put it that way.
This doesn't deter Piker from picking the most efficient route for the alleviation of suffering now – he very much campaigns with DSA candidates, and looks for any way he can support anyone to beat any form of Republican policy or person. However, if Piker is allowed to grow in influence on the left, that spells the end of multiple groups of people – the Democratic Consultant class, the Democratic Party as a whole, potentially, and traditional Journalism and journalistic "access" avenues alongside. The collaboration between the media and the political class to decide what information is heard and how it is interpreted would be further ripped and damaged.
So what about The Event Horizon?
The old Islamophobia shorthand stopped working sometime in the past two years, and I can't pinpoint when. Old Media did not get the memo - they're still trying to bet on most people seeing an ethnic looking guy and getting scared. They mispronounce his name and seem not to make full salient points of criticism; instead, they bring up fuzzy buzzwords out of context, like 9/11 and Hamas, unexamined, and kind of hope your Islamophobia connects the dots from there.
The problem is – and don't hate me for this – Hasan Piker is hot.
Since the days of Woke Bae, Piker has used the fact that he's abnormally attractive for political gain, deftly using the attention to redivert back to his political aims on the Left. This completely bricks Old Media, who were kind of hoping your hatred would override your sense that pretty people are inherently always righteous.
This is the same Event Horizon we witnessed being crossed with Zohran Mamdani last year – people just aren't scared of Islam, Muslims, or Arabs generally the way they used to be. Whether it's the glitzy Gulf PR campaigns, or the number of SWANA actors in major leading roles in Hollywood, or just social media exposing everyone to everyone else, the trick doesn't work anymore.
The smears of Piker's platform utilise normie fears to pull pseudo-ragebaitey "heated streamer moments" into the professional realm in an attempt, much like the Adpocalypse, to end Independent media altogether. Trying to make an edge case out of Piker, especially when he's both hot and popular, is not going to work – and it seems like the attempts are going down so badly that they're actually promoting Piker to a whole new realm of people.
Ironically, the only Old!Media guy who seems to understand this is aforementioned Tucker Carlson, who now seems to want to defend Islam, cynically, based on shared faith in god, and has gone completely independent with his own platform. I suggest anyone wanting a career in journalism past 2030 put the blatant and unexamined Islamophobia down and start a show on YouTube.
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