From Hank to Hasan
In 2018, I was at the end of my second attempt at getting a higher education degree and beginning to form the idea that staying in my homeland would never be ideal for my goals. At a time when money was scarce for anything beyond paying the rent on an apartment close to my workplace, the bills for that apartment, and the occasional weekend outing, my leisure options were quite limited.
I had already been watching Twitch since 2010, but mostly as background noise while I played games, studied, or worked. In 2016, things began to change when I discovered the political commentators who were on the platform.
I have to admit that my entry point into this realm was the most disgusting gusano in the United States. At least he was the one who opened the doors of streaming for Hasan, and consequently made me discover the young Turk through his streams, with terrible gameplay and little knack for commentary in general.
Little by little, things got better for Hasan and worse for me. I left the job I had after an anxiety/panic crisis and had to move back to my parentsā house as a consequence. I tried to find a job in another state and, because I had finished college at an institution of very little prestige, they all but laughed in my face during the interview.
Meanwhile, the man of big ideas and little head kept gaining an audience, progressing in his job at his uncleās company, and becoming much more at ease in front of the cameras. Because of the time zone, I was able to follow the streams from the very beginning almost to the end, without having to lose too much sleep. And soon I witnessed many of the arcs Hasan went through, including his ābreakupā with that gusano, which would eventually happen because no one can put up with that person for much more than a few years.
Then came the pandemic while I was piecing together the idea of leaving the country. And there I was watching Hasanās stream, day after day, with a few comments here and there read by him and even praised once in a while.
I left my country. I crossed the entire Atlantic Ocean to do so. An orphan in totally unknown lands. Few things were familiar to me besides a single friend who helped me then and still helps me today in my journey, and Hasanās stream, which now started much later. That meant I could no longer watch the āprogrammingā from beginning to end.
As the masterās degree intensified, with an exchange program in the middle and then the dissertation, there was no longer space for Twitch streams in my day. But I admit I felt very happy whenever I saw some random person on campus or even in the street watching a highlight from his stream on YouTube, or even watching the stream live in the middle of a square.
It has now been about three years since the last time I opened Twitch to watch Hasan ā in this case, only his chair, because he was on one of his breaks to eat kilos and kilos of chicken. My interactions are limited to a few highlights that appear on my YouTube homepage and, earlier today, my wife saying she saw him mentioned in some random Instagram post.
It is very strange to see all of this happen. I am no trendsetter, and I never imagined that Hasan Piker would one day reach such a scale. I think of a clip I saw a few days ago from an interview of his with Yanis Varoufakis, another figure for whom I have great admiration, where Yanis turned the tables and asked, āWhen are you going to leave your house and actually enter political life?ā
I only imagined that such exposure would come with that turn of the key. Something that would happen only after, who knows, 10 or 15 years, and under very special circumstances which, considering the world we live in, would also be tragic. But no. They wanted to elevate this gentleman to the position of spokesperson for the American āfar leftā much earlier than I had expected. And I would not be surprised if even he himself was not exactly expecting this to happen.
The issue, in my view, is that this also reveals the enormous poverty of the left, not only in the US but in the rest of the world as well. Why would a streamer with an average audience of 30,000 people be elevated to such prominence?
Yes, I know there is an incentive on both the Democratic and Republican sides to silence his voice at any cost. It is no wonder I very much hope he is moving around with as much security as possible whenever he dares leave the house. But the ādangerā he represents is truly tiny compared to what the US government is currently doing inside and outside the country.
Many will blame the Israeli lobby, and I do not deny their point. There is a lot of money involved in this sphere for everything to be put at risk by a streamer with an audience that is not even that vast, but is very loyal and increasingly militant. And if that militancy continues to grow in strength ā which is an almost natural path when you have on screen a force-aggregator like Hasan ā it will become increasingly unavoidable.
However, would it not be better to ākillā Hasan and his ideas by going in the opposite direction?
Answering myself, and considering what I think about the āother sideā of the coin: I believe not. And that leaves me reasonably hopeful.
The idea that the far right should be fought by ignoring it is not new. We cannot and need not give exposure to such ideas, because they spread, and the result is the ruin of society and democracy.
However, thinking that movements like this die by suffocation is a total illusion. The secret is precisely that they are organic in some way, and feed naturally on things as they are, like plants undergoing photosynthesis.
It is not as though Hasanās popularity were fed by the ether or by the universe. But it is not something āforcedā like much of the discourse that both Democrats and Republicans see as palatable. And on the Democratic side, the issue is even worse, because all the talk of moderation, good manners, and institutionalism is going down the drain thanks to the inaction brought about by this extremely procedural approach to any kind of politics when that politics aims to improve the lives of the population.
So the mediaās option is indeed limited. Damned if they do, damned if they donāt. No man can withstand it.
And so figures like Hasan are elevated into common discourse. Yes, in part the objective is achieved: opinion polls show that those who know Hasan are largely against him, although this is highly influenced by the framing of him as an extremist.
And considering American politics... he is an extremist. He may be on the āgoodā side of the coin, but the extremism is there. An extremism which, in my view, is entirely necessary not only in the present times but in political practice itself.
Therefore, I do not believe that this current news cycle will be the āpeakā of the āfar-leftā streamer, whose reach has clearly not yet reached its ceiling. While I am worried about Hasan as a figure with so much exposure and the inherent risks this brings ā risks he seems well aware of ā say good things, say bad things, just keep talking about me.
The next question here is whether his strength will make any difference in the coming electoral races. Because the battles he has chosen to support are very difficult, and his exposure may very well hurt many of the candidates at his side far more than it helps them. But that exposure also helps Hasan and his community become ever larger and more influential.
It is a win-win scenario. The battles may not be won right now, but the war is long.