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The dude who consistently opposes the use of the word "tankie" and considers us good for the left is probably gonna have some good positions underneath what he does to be popular.
Exactly this. He's not "hiding his power level", he's playing a role. The role is media personality that explains Marxism to the masses in a digestible way, and applies a general left perspective to current events. He mainly does news commentary, and in a world where news media doesn't investigate or think critically, it's a valuable vector for propaganda.
The Hasan hater cohort here wants Hasan to parrot our party line to a T.
If you want Marxist theory explained to you in a video format, Hakim and JT Chapman already do a much better job of that. Does Hasan understand the culture of AES countries well enough to present their history or political systems as effectively as Luna Oi, Lady Izdihar, or Yugopnik? Will he provide a more informed economic analysis than Michael Hudson or Richard Wolff? Is he going to be more detailed than Ben Norton at covering current affairs from an anti-imperialist perspective? Can he put together a news program as good as Breakthrough News?
No!
His niche is covering current events in an interactive and humorous way in order to break normies of their anti-AES and anti-communist brainworms.
His audience is mostly people who have been fed nothing but western propaganda their entire lives, usually cloaked in advocacy for free healthcare, vague anti-warism, and opposition to overt racism.
The bits of idealistic liberalism he often regurgitates serve as the peanut butter required for baby leftists in the west to swallow the pills that end up shattering their naïve worldview.
Hasan understands that if you only run defense for socialist countries, libs will immediately dismiss what you have to say as "shilling for authoritarianism" and never consider the rest of your message.
His content is simply not for us. He is shitposting in a strategic way that lets him build a big audience and walk it down the road towards Marxism. Elevating him to be the voice of the vanguard is artificially caps the pipeline. Us being critical of him supports his role by making him appear relatively nuanced to those libs. Eventually they will outgrow his content and join our ranks.
Leftists need a meta-organizing strategy lmao. This is the most "loose binding coalition"-ass set of ideologies that just turns into a damn circular firing squad at any given moment.
Want to feed the homeless? Cool FNB and your local PSL efforts can collab, stay 30 feet apart, maybe some go-betweens can coordinate resource sharing, but this constant bickering and shitting on each other is beyond enervating and "aesthetic online leftism" is nothing but a gift to the pedophile-porky class.
The thing about "solidarity" is it's easier to feel connected to people from mutual approbation and caring. Western Leftism (especially online) is the opposite. But the West is largely a set of countries who would prefer some Amazon wage-slave run over the neighbor's pet dog to get their package five seconds sooner, so who fucking cares. Burn it to the ground.
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If you want Marxist theory explained to you in a video format, Hakim and JT Chapman already do a much better job of that. Does Hasan understand the culture of AES countries well enough to present their history or political systems as effectively as Luna Oi, Lady Izdihar, or Yugopnik? Will he provide a more informed economic analysis than Michael Hudson or Richard Wolff? Is he going to be more detailed than Ben Norton at covering current affairs from an anti-imperialist perspective? Can he put together a news program as good as Breakthrough News?
a lot of these names are new to me; which platforms do you follow them on?
You can find all of them on youtube, JT Chapman runs the Second thought channel and Ben Norton runs Geopolitical Economy Report, all the others can be found by simply typing the names/pseudonyms given by the above comment.
The Hasan hater cohort
I have him on for hours a day and it's not out of animosity. I give him credit and indeed have in this thread, writing all critics off as "haters" is extremely parasocial behavior.
The bits of idealistic liberalism he often regurgitates serve as the peanut butter required for baby leftists in the west to swallow the pills that end up shattering their naïve worldview.
And this is garbage. Communists disdain to hide their aims and your idea about how left-radicalization works -- besides being condescending to the point of misanthropy -- is completely failing to appreciate the fundamental differences between Marxists and the irony-poisoned, nihilistic freaks on the extreme right, for whom recruitment based on lies makes more sense.
Hasan understands that if you only run defense for socialist countries, libs will immediately dismiss what you have to say as "shilling for authoritarianism" and never consider the rest of your message.
This isn't the problem and if being a hardline socialist remotely resembles this in your view, then your mindset is totally backwards. I don't give a shit about him not cheerleading for whichever country hard enough, that's such a terminally online view of what politics is, I care about him misrepresenting Marxist theory and thereby hampering people's political education beyond receiving a laundry list of berniecrat and antizionist talking points.
Us being critical of him supports his role
Then what are you even complaining about? I'm helping him, right?
writing all critics off as "haters" is extremely parasocial behavior.
detractors, people who dont like him, overzealous critics, whatever you want to call it. "haters" is succinct.
Communists disdain to hide their aims and your idea about how left-radicalization works
When you read the letter and not the spirit of the text. Indeed, we do not hide our aims: to build a stateless, classless, moneyless society. One of my aims is not to get myself socially ostracized for giving my real opinions on the DPRK before I've had time to let people understand that I am a kind, rational, well-adjusted person. The rapport you lose is more valuable than being honest for honesty's sake. You do not have exclusive control over the conversation, nor are people required to hear you out or talk to you again. These are basic social skills, you speak to your audience, present phrasing favorable to their ideals, and find common ground.
Seriously, have you actually talked to your reactionary or turbolib peers IRL about this stuff? You out here quoting one line from a pamphlet released in 1848 and treating it like scripture. Oppose book worship.
I don't give a shit about him not cheerleading for whichever country hard enough, that's such a terminally online view of what politics is, I care about him misrepresenting Marxist theory and thereby hampering people's political education beyond receiving a laundry list of berniecrat and antizionist talking points.
I don't know where you live, but here in the imperial core, people's political education is that Stalin killed a quadrillion people and that you get immediately executed for watching western movies in the DPRK. This is inseparable in their minds from your ideology. But yeah, these people would most certainly engage meaningfully with Marxist theory without addressing that...unless you plan on peanut butter pilling them by not naming what belief system your ideas originate from?
Clearing the minefields that come up in every conversation about socialism is a major assist in us being able to proliferate our views. Again, Hasan is not an expert in Marxism, why do you expect him to do your work for you? Do you really think him giving an overview of demcent or the mass line with these brainworms still intact would have any utility?
You are the one who comes across as terminally online. What if we had all entertainers recite our holy scripture in their performances? Surely, that would result in socialism being built and not cause people to watch other shit.
Then what are you even complaining about? I'm helping him, right?
I'm trying to have a polite discussion about a popular media figure's effect on the public consciousness. Did I say something to set you off? I have no idea why you are being so antagonistic.
I think you're both assuming antagonism because tone is lost in text.
You both have really good points imo. At the end of the day I'll err on the side of taking whatever small wins we can get. I was radicalized the through some inane and stupid stuff, literally anti-capitalist memes on Reddit. And if there's someone out there saying capitalism is bad and the US is an evil empire, that's a strength I want to build on.
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media personality that explains Marxism to the masses in a digestible way
If that's his role then, given how badly he misrepresents theory, he should pack it in. Seriously, twisting Lenin to justify voting democrat? That's pretty egregious.
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it's making a lot of libs mad too, which is funny, cause i thought this was a democracy
By not caving immediately he is forcing them to look goofy for continuing to make hay out of these theatrics years out from the election
And to his credit, whether intended or not, he is helping to prevent the whitewashing of Gruesome ahead of any major prominence regarding an election, and making the libs that made a big to-do about how they would vote for Newsome defend why they hate the homeless too
It’s good slop, a bunch of liberal hand wringers tried to make the press by scolding him and instead our jumbo hunk mascot said “no u” and it made them look bad
Just like how the liberal believes in abstract rights, not concrete rights, they only believe in the concept of democracy. A politician having to earn your vote is a proposterous idea to them.
He also didn't endorse Kamala (though he admitted months later that he did vote for her)
I think he would've endorsed her with even a promise of a crumb of decent policy, but alas, she had nothing to offer.
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He's a decent indication for the political climate in the idk what to call them, I guess, Leftist spaces with Anti-Capitalist sentiment. His goals seem to be to grow as much as possible, while maintaining a outwards facing anti-imperialist persona. It's most likely genuine.
His main flaws, from what I've seen, is he's not well educated on Marxism besides the foundational texts and whatever he watches on stream or learns from his friends. But then again I'm not in his position idk how much room he has to move. From what I've heard of him he wants to serve as an entry point for the lumpenproletariat Americans who then get radicalized further.
Of course the elephant in the room here and the big question is: Who is this 3rd space people are supposed to be moving towards in the radicalization pipeline? PSL? All of this radicalization will have been for naught when a populist can just sweep up the chaos, with appealing messages.
I hope this doesn't start a struggle session, but I don't really understand this instances thing against posting Hasan stuff.
I see him as just sort of there. He's not like, massively annoying and as far as I know there are worse streamers out there.
Is it just because streamer slop is super online and annoying or did he do something shitty I don't know about? Don't really follow him outside of the occasional clip.
AFAIK he hasn't done anything egregious. Some definitely don't like him for political reasons, but I think the thinking here is to avoid focusing so much on individuals or celebrities, and Hasan is just the most visible leftist personality among gen Z and millennials. But we should talk about him from time to time, he is very influential and IMO has fantastic politics compared to other political commentators with an audience his size
he's not radical enough for some of us. i think it's probably not possible for someone in his position to be as radical as we'd want because someone outwardly that radical wouldn't ever get to that position, so i don't get being mad about it either.
Yeah I’ve never really understood that criticism. We need the entryway to be less imposing if we want guests.
Every time I see a title like this take for granted that I know who this is, instead of being like "Hasan Piker (3M follower twitch news streamer)", the way you would for like, the chief editor of a major newspaper, or the mayor of a third rate city, I think everyone on this site needs to touch grass.
i think a portion of it is people who have a weird parasocial relationship with him who get weirdly confrontational and combative if they perceive someone disparaging him even slightly. i also feel like these same people probably emphasize and get invested in the streamer/twitch drama aspect of what he does that i think generally is off putting to probably most people.
i know in the past he has directly commented on stream about these people and i for some reason have a memory of him calling them "little gremlins."
I'll admit I got pretty annoyed with people who were out there parrotting that stupid electric collar story. I do watch Hasan YouTube videos, I find majority report really tedious and liberal. But like sometimes I want to hear the news from a non insane perspective.
i think i worded it a bit poorly, i didn't have an outright lie like Kayagate in my mind when i wrote that. rather i was referring to the people who get disproportionately hostile over the mildest thing because they're taking someone not liking Hasan as much as them personally. there's probably a better way to phrase it but i cant think of it at the moment
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plugging the comm that I made for discussing celebrities and trends !popularculture@hexbear.net
Ya this sounds good for that comm
Whether or not you agree with his positions or approach, he has been very consistent. I think this is overall a good thing. He does hear people to his left, he isn't ignorant, and he even platforms those viewpoints to his audience when he interacts or denounces them.
I was surprised by his answer. Probably part of the reason why he’s now openly saying he wouldn’t vote for gavin is because he wants dems to understand that their only option for winning the election is to move to the left, and not already make them feel safe with going for Newson so early on.
I’m annoyed that I’m already confronted with this endlessly frustrating discussion but I suppose it’s good that Hasan is now combatting this bad ’harm reduction’ narrative.
Our big wet apolitical streamer; Hank Pecker
at least one slop streamer has to have a spine in the USA and not be a sellout
In 2040 he will finally see the value in the immortal science and we will achieve communism within a year.
I know this is a joke, but he is literally the face of "chinamaxxing" in the US and fully believes in the immortal science. He also recognizes his position as someone who has the largest left of liberal platform in the US and intends to preserve it while offering clear outlets to his left (such as "no, there is no reason to commit to voting for Gavin newsom 2 years ahead of the election cycle" as a veryyy basic starting point).
He does get stuck in "there is no alternative to the democrats and I can't even imagine one"-land though, that's the biggest flaw. Even in that case its along the lines of "even if I'm stuck with them, I don't need to be nice to them or promote them uncritically". For those wondering, he has also offered criticism of Zohran on stream as well for many of the things you see on Hexbear, although he is less incisive with it.
I am offering this not as a "Stan" or anything, but to inform others who (rightfully) ignore streamer content but may be curious about where a prominent American socialist media figure stands.
I don't think he believes in the immortal science but he does adhere to defending AES (and the global south in general) and that is better than like 80% of Western leftists. He's about as good as you could expect from a streamer with any significant following.
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Yeah, I don't think he has demonstrated conviction really (we'll see what he says sooner to the election), but I was definitely pleasantly surprised by his recent comment.
Gonna explain my thought process here. I recognized about a decade ago that I spent SO MUCH time being deeply invested in other people's lives. People who barely knew who I was, or not at all. Family members, old friends -- It felt like keeping up. It was entertainment, something I spent a lot of time thinking about. I think about a time I was at a restaurant and someone said "Did you hear about what happened with Snookie?" except with my own local celebrities.
Well eventually this backfired massively and I had a very significant mental health episode about it, and went through a purge where I stopped following or invensting time people who I had little to no reciprocal relationship with. Honestly, this helped with my feelings of isolation and loneliness significantly.
Paired with my beliefs in anti-hierarchy and generally being anti-celebrity (anti-spectacle,) Hasan is just some guy. His followers and influence aren't significant in my mind. Sure we would have a lot in common, but at the end of the day he's just a person that I do not know. Chances are he wouldn't humor me at all since he's basically a celebrity.
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this post was submitted on 13 Feb 2026
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