Some call him teflon hasan because no internet bullshit ever sticks to him. We have seen generations of breadtubers come and go during his career (which is only a few years to be fair) but absolutely NUTHING can stop this man. Hasan is the kind of guy who could shoot a person on 5th avenue and get away with it. Hasan could have been caught red handed on Epstein island and walked away with more twitch subscribers than he had the day before. He is the face of the modern left. He could call for red brigades to descend on the streets of New York or Washington, but he doesn’t. Because hasan is also a bonafide leftist theorist, for you see hasan has made a incomprehensible calculation in his head that buying Ferraris and Hollywood mansions for himself is more important to the leftist cause than calling for any direct action. Genius really, we already see the fruits of his labor as his brash spending habits have caused a complete collapse of the Israeli Zionist terrorists, Palestine is winning because of hasan, the left is winning, you are winning, that is unless you don’t donate your entire life savings to hasan in his twitch streams as an epic act of praxis. He might even say your name, probably not, but self sacrifice is the greatest virtue you can ever have unless your name is HASANABI FUCKING PIKER! DO YOU KNOW WHO HIS UNCLE IS?! DO YOU CHUD!?

  • hotcouchguy [he/him]@hexbear.net
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    9 months ago

    Everyone knows Communism is when you have no money, but it’s also important to have no fame. No media or social media presence. Every Twitter follower you gain makes you less communist. That’s why I, the one true leftist, exclusively make bad posts here in the sub-basement of the internet.

    • M68040 [they/them]@hexbear.net
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      9 months ago

      No everything has to be serious at all times and we cannot find any humor in the absurdity of hell world. The last time I smiled was on August 19th, 1991. I wear a dirty ushanka at all times, do not shave, and only take cold sponge baths because hot running water is bourgeoisie decadence. Every day at exactly noon I have the same meal of an expired Maoist MRE I store in a pit covered in old issues of a revolutionary newspaper. I sleep in a bed made of flags from every failed revolution so that they are never forgotten. In the evenings I stare at a picture of vodka by candlelight, but I do not allow myself to drink because there is nothing to celebrate. Every local org has banned me after I attempted to split it by assassinating the leadership. There is no plumbing in my house I shit in a brass bucket with a picture of Gonzalo and Deng french kissing in the bottom of it. My house is actually an overturned T34 in an abandoned junkyard in Wisconsin. I have a single friend in this world and it is a tapeworm named Bordiga that I met after ingesting spoiled borscht on 9/11 in the ruins of building 7 (I blew it up after finding that a nominally leftist NGO inside of it wasn’t sufficiently anti-imperialist, the attacks on the world trade center were a perfect revolutionary moment for me to enact direct praxis against liberalism). My source of income is various MLM schemes in the former soviet bloc that have been running for so long no one remembers who I am, they just keep sending money. I have not paid taxes since McGovern lost the Democratic nomination for president and my faith in electoralism died more brutally than my childhood dog after it got into an entire jar of tylenol. I own 29 fully automatic rusted kalashnikovs and three crates of ammunition entirely incompatible with them or any other firearms I own. My double PHD in marxist economics and 18th century Swiss philosophy (required to understand Engels) sits over the fireplace of my home, my fireplace is a salvaged drum from a 1950s washing machine that was recalled for locking children inside of it. I chose that washing machine model on purpose because I am anti-natalist. During the latest BLM protests I firebombed a Nikes outlet in the middle of a peaceful candlelit vigil. William F Buckley and I wrote hatemail to one another for 47 years until my final letter gave him an aneurysm. The only water I drink is from puddles. George Lucas and I dropped acid together during an MKULTRA southern baptist summer camp and he went on to write the movie Willow about our time together. The best way to test whether an electrical wire is live is to drool on it and shrimp salad is racist. You can make an IED out of potassium and the instructions are online thanks to Timothy McVey, who was actually a committed antifascist communist slandered by the deep state as part of operation condor. Every time a liberal files a restraining order against me, I carve a mark into the wall. I am running out of walls. When Amerika finally collapses I will be ready to lead the revolution. I am very smart and people like being around me.

  • tactical_trans_karen [she/her, comrade/them]@hexbear.net
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    9 months ago

    Communism isn’t a poverty cult, Hasan hasn’t done anything egregious and he spreads the good word as well as combating lib shit talking points. He presents the news from the left perspective and there’s a major need for that.

    • WhatDoYouMeanPodcast [comrade/them]@hexbear.net
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      9 months ago

      The organized core of leftism in America got bombed out and violently suppressed. There’s not really a labor movement that he’s letting down by being a millionaire. I can imagine a late stage communism where someone is capable of working enough to warrant a million dollars in entitlement to luxury products. I don’t imagine there is a leftist movement that can tell him what to do with his money that he made creating entertainment slop. Especially not when the voices get mixed in with people who rattle sabers about “socialism vuvuzela no iphone”

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    9 months ago

    He sort of is in that all the neoliberal streamers that say “Hasan must go” end up caving their own careers in like Keffals and Vaush recently did. It’s only a matter of time before Destiny oversteps once again

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      9 months ago

      You don’t have to dig that hard. Destiny first got streamer famous when he made a (CW: sexual violence)

      spoiler

      Rape

      joke that went viral while streaming SC2.

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        9 months ago

        He seems to go in and out. There’s a wave of popularity and then he says some dumb shit that causes his relevance to fall back before the cycle continues again. There’s a cap to how popular he can get because of how toxic of a person he is.

        I don’t think he’ll ever reach Hasan levels with how much of a brand risk he is while also being a shit person that very few outside of the political realm want to collaborate with

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    Credit where credit is due, his content educating people on Palestine helped keep me sane in the early months of the genocide, whereas I was otherwise completely surrounded by Hasbara propaganda.

    His views on the Russia/Ukraine war are off point, but for the most part I think he’s a really great entry point into leftism for the zoomers.

    I still don’t understand why people watch other people stream themselves playing video games though, dafuq?

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      deleted by creator

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      It can be nice to watch some quick, uncut moment-to-moment gameplay of something. (to get a feel for a game) Plus, if you play games somewhat seriously, you can learn stuff by watching pros. Now, with that said, I agree that just watching hours upon hours of gameplay is not what I do, but I’m sure some people enjoy it

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    9 months ago

    People: give money to Hasan

    Hasan: spends the money

    People: wojak-nooo

    Ultimately, Hasan’s money comes from you, the viewer. If you want your money to go to charities instead of to Ferrari, donate to charities instead of to Hasan.

    • Aquilae [he/him, they/them]@hexbear.net
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      9 months ago

      Idc what he spends his money on tbh as long as it’s not actively harming people (aside from the inevitable ‘passive harm’ so to speak from “no ethical consumption under capitalism”); I care if he pulls people to the left in a space that lacks actual leftist voices. And that he seems to do quite well.

      Does the ‘passive harm’ from his consumption practices outweigh the benefit of how much he pulls people to the left? Idk and I don’t think anyone should care enough to do empirical research on that and find out.

    • Ultimately, Hasan’s money comes from you, the viewer. If you want your money to go to charities instead of to Ferrari, donate to charities instead of to Hasan.

      On the other hand, fine

      On the critical side of things, this doesn’t sound too far from bourgeois justification of their own wealth…

      • wopazoo [he/him]@hexbear.net
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        9 months ago

        Whenever you donate to Hasan, you show that you prefer Hasan saying your name out loud over saving the lives of children, and I think that says a whole lot more about you than about Hasan.

        As an aside, Hasan’s money comes from voluntary and optional viewer donations, not from the exploitation of labor. Nobody is being forced to give their money to Hasan. Withholding your money from Hasan does not mean that you will starve. Hasan’s stream is free to watch and always has been free.

        Nobody donates to Hasan with the expectation that the money will go to charities unless it is a charity stream. The normal expectation is that Hasan will spend the money on his own lifestyle, which includes buying a nice house and luxury cars, because he has a high income from having a large audience.

        Stop complaining about Hasan not living in a barrel and giving away all his money to charities. Saying that suffering is necessary to live a morally good life reeks of Christian morality.

        Hasan is clearly not in it for the money. In recent months, he has sacrificed half his viewerbase by continuing to report on Israel’s genocide in Gaza when this is an unpopular thing to do. He has taken a direct hit to his income (and thus his lifestyle) in order to do what is right. Have you done the same? If not, on what legs do you stand on to criticize him?

        • CountryBreakfast@lemmygrad.ml
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          9 months ago

          Whenever you donate to Hasan, you show that you prefer Hasan saying your name out loud over saving the lives of children, and I think that says a whole lot more about you than about Hasan.

          I agree that his supporters are useless

          Stop complaining about Hasan not living in a barrel and giving away all his money to charities. Saying that suffering is necessary to live a morally good life reeks of Christian morality.

          This is a strawman. But it also misunderstands that combating imperialism will require a willingness to make sacrifices. If the millionaires among us can’t show that, then would does that tell us about our movements? Let me repeat, if the fucking millionaries that get rich off of an addictive corporate platform that targets youths can’t live up to this, then what does it say about “socialists” in the core? We always get wrecked by sheepdogs and populists because we don’t ask these questions. We just justify everything.

          • wopazoo [he/him]@hexbear.net
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            9 months ago

            Did you even read my entire comment?

            To repeat for your benefit:

            Hasan is clearly not in it for the money. In recent months, he has sacrificed half his viewerbase by continuing to report on Israel’s genocide in Gaza when this is an unpopular thing to do. He has taken a direct hit to his income (and thus his lifestyle) in order to do what is right. Have you done the same? If not, on what legs do you stand on to criticize him?

            By losing half his viewers, Hasan loses half his income. Have you sacrificed half your income to support Palestinians in Gaza, who are facing genocide?

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              9 months ago

              This is not a sacrifice for Palestine. It is civil religious self harm. Hasan, along with the entire left, is doing nothing to stop genocide in Palestine. Speaking out on Twitch is not activism. This isnt anti imperialism, it is identity profile building in the context of an addictive corporate platform.

              • wopazoo [he/him]@hexbear.net
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                9 months ago

                If reporting on Israel’s genocide in Gaza isn’t activism, then what is? Do you have to fly over to Gaza and fight for Hamas?

                Hasanabi Piker has done more for Palestine than you ever have.

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                  I think you mean Hasan has benifited more from the conflict in Palestine than I have. His actions are liberal antics that his followers endorse. So what? He is not leading us towards anti imperialism, he is solidifying left wing coalitions that will largely only be able to benifit the global north. Saying Israel is bad isn’t revolutionary, it’s fucking obvious. But that’s what he is about, low hanging fruit and the spectacle around it.

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                9 months ago

                He fundraised over a million dollars for Palestine in the wake of October 7th, including donating at least $75,000 himself.

                • CountryBreakfast@lemmygrad.ml
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                  9 months ago

                  His ethical value is tied to his wealth and power? What happened to building movements instead of discursive posturing and purchasing morality? This is not revolutionary, it is liberalism.

        • I’m sorry, that was an off-handed remark of mine… (I don’t mean to come off as necessarily Christian moralist)

          For me, what I thought you said before was just like the argument of individualist liberal consumerist argument “the bourgeoisie are only making these products because of you” but obviously it seems the circumstances are vastly different

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      9 months ago

      I don’t give him money, I don’t even watch him. The point stands: can’t he spend the money in better ways?

      Whatever. I don’t really think about him that much and I prefer to keep it that way.

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        9 months ago

        Do you give money to Hasan, hoping that he does not spend the money?

        Are you seriously arguing that giving money to Hasan so that he can say your name out loud is the same thing as a casino?

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      9 months ago

      From each according to their abilities to each according to their needs.

      The charge against Hasan has always been that he’s not contributing enough according to his own abilities. I would argue that most major streamers, podcasters, and Youtubers aren’t really doing enough either. Obviously, you can’t compare how much they contribute versus how much average workers with 9-5 jobs contribute because workers with 9-5 jobs are too busy working and having their income eaten by rent and other expenses. But for a millionaire like Hasan, he needs to do more than stream. But every time someone makes this simple observation, he always has his fanboys and stans malding in the comments.

      Imagine simping for a millionaire lmao

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        9 months ago

        tbh he’s a twitch streamer. i think people overestimate his actual power. down here we call internet celebrities ‘sub-celebrities’ for a reason. the guy can signal boost some unionization effort here and there, but he can’t even compare to a Trump or an Arnold and get elected, much less call the red brigades.

        • AssortedBiscuits [they/them]@hexbear.net
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          This is related to what I mean by not contributing enough. They pull 6-figure salaries to be sub-celebrities as you say. Does someone need to be paid $120k/yr to signal boost a unionization drive? Union stewards, the people who are actually in charge of organizing workers, aren’t paid that much. For $120k/yr, you can get a Twitch stream e-celebrity or two union stewards. I think there’s still a place for streamers and podcasters, but for how much money they pull, they aren’t that effective.

          It’s like how electorialism is a dead end. It’s not so much the act of voting itself or even time spend canvasing, but the entire political consultant class that feeds off of campaign donations while contributing fuck all. So much money that was donated by naive people during Sanders’ campaign went into the pockets of some useless political consultant. Like, they were better off spending that money on a pack of smokes and giving it to the first homeless person they see.

          Now if the major streamer donates a substantial part of their income to an org, then that $120k/yr would go towards subsidizing the streamer plus another organizer, so you would be comparing streamer + organizer vs two organizers, which is a harder to make a judgment call on which is more effective compared with one streamer vs two organizers. And of course, if the streamer is part of an org like how The Red Nation the podcast is part of The Red Nation the org, then the equation completely changes.

          • CarmineCatboy2 [he/him]@hexbear.net
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            For $120k/yr, you can get a Twitch stream e-celebrity or two union stewards.

            I think that the quality shared between the Red Nation podcast and Union stewardship is that neither is founded on a react youtuber’s popularity.

            Unions are organizations centered around organized labor, and that’s where union stewards draw a stipend. The Red Nation podcast seems to be an actual political movement. Hasan the twitch streamer is a guy entertaining people online. He draws an exceptional amount of money from it, but he’s just another influencer online. Those types tend to wither in the real world.

            Hasan happens to entertain people in a way that makes them amenable or at least aware of left of center discourse. That creates a hope or an expectation for more. But an entertainer is likely what he’ll always be. Hasan could take half of his earnings and pay people to be a political movement called the Hasan Unionizers but that would just be pretense and a boost for his own brand as an influencer. Nothing more.

            The way I see it he does the good his position in society enables him to. That is to say that while boosting leftist voices, discourse, and donating money to unionizers and orgs won’t bring about social change, its a part of it. Entertainers like him are a force multiplier. Rather than expecting Hasan to successfully leverage his twitch streamer react career into a political career, one should likely seek local orgs and help boost the people he’s given his voice to. You know, support the actual politicians and labor leaders.

            Look at the right. Their grifters don’t all get elected or seek office. Instead of trying to get every Crowder out there to head a TERF org or to enter senate, the right wing audiences will boost those voices that do seek power. Media people have their role to play, and that’s no more than Hasan will likely ever be.

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    9 months ago

    Would you rather have a communist anti us empire streamer on twitch with millions of viewers or would you rather have no politically left streamers that are very popular. Those are the options and I think the former is better than the later.

    • CountryBreakfast@lemmygrad.ml
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      He is only anti empire in the most vulgar sense possible. I don’t give a shit who is streaming. These platforms shouldn’t exist.

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          No one is pretending it doesn’t exist. I’m saying it isn’t a space to build revolution and never will be. We deal with the world as it is, but we don’t have to drink poison just because it’s in our glass.

          • ToxicDivinity [comrade/them]@hexbear.net
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            9 months ago

            it isn’t a space to build revolution and never will be.

            True but I’m in the us of a there is no space anywhere for building a revolution but maybe I’m just a doomer

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              I think you can admit this without being a doomer. Also I think there are some cool things going on they just don’t involve the metropolitan working class or broad society generally. There is reason to not be a “doomer” but if your standard is the military destruction of the US in the next 5 years (which is a fair thing to want) then that will of course be unlikely.

              Look into movements that are trying to build community sovereignty. Especially food sovereignty. I like these because they will build things that we will need to survive and potentially can enable something bigger in the long run. Food sovereignty and Land Back are basically the only land reform movements that exist and I feel that communists here forget about them too often.

              I think comrades need to be part of something constructive as we take on the frustration of articulating anti-imperialism.

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    9 months ago

    I get he’s “our guy”, but monetizing parasociality is a slightly more ethical form of grifting at best.

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      I’ve watched Hasan for around 4 years. He used to not run ads at all. Then Amazon forced him to start running ads. He told people to use ad blockers. Amazon told him that he wasn’t allowed to say ad blocker. Then Amazon forces him to run 3 minutes of ads per hour instead of 1 minute per hour. Hasan is contracted by Amazon and Amazon controls certain aspects of the stream. Amazon also takes a huge portion of the money that Hasan receives.

      However, Hasan can’t change platforms because he would lose his whole audience. If you had a channel on twitch and you decided that you wanted to stream in a different way, you would also lose the majority of your audience. You can’t self host a stream; we don’t live in the 2000s anymore; most people don’t want to make an account on a self hosted website; the internet is centralized now. If you moved your channel to youtube or other corporate owned site, you would just have a different corporation trying to squeeze profits out of you and still lose half your audience in the switch. So Hasan has to stay with twitch and twitch forces him to do certain things because as like every other employers, they want to extract surplus value.

      Also, he allows his fans to monetize clips from his twitch stream on youtube. He has an official youtube channel which is run by his editors and he has said that all of the money from the youtube channel goes to those editors. Then there’s like 50+ other channels which are fan run youtube channels, which get payed just for uploading editted clips from his stream. Youtube has tried to take down his fan channels several times and Hasan has gone out of his way to keep his fan’s channels up so that his fans could make money from reuploading clips of his stream.

      Complaining that Hasan gets payed money for being a journalist and news commentator is a real “you complain about capitalism and yet you exist” moment. He provides good news coverage. I’ve never given him money. I don’t have a twitch account. I block ads. Watching the stream is free.

      I’ve posted on Hexbear that I think Hasan has good news coverage since I joined hexbear 3 years ago. People told me that he wasn’t a real Marxist, that he had bad opinions, or that they prefer to watch some fringe weirdos on tik tok who said Hasan is bad. They never actually watched his streams because even as far back as 2018-2019 Hasan was openly speaking in favor of Marxism. He went on chapo is 2019. From 2020-2021, he would still talk about Marxism but with more vague terminology because he was trying (and succeeding) at converting liberals into being Marxist. Lately he’s again openly telling people that he’s a Marxist and his audience has been shrinking because of it. Telling people that you’re a Marxist doesn’t make money, if his intention was to maximize his money, why is he telling people he’s a Marxist now?

      Before the Oct 7 Al-Aqsa Flood, Hasan was averaging 30k-40k live viewers. His average live viewership is now around 20k. Since doing coverage on the war in Gaza in support of Palestinians, calling for a ceasefire, for the past 4 months, Hasan has lost nearly half of his live viewers. He went from being a top 10 streamer on twitch to rank #30. If Hasan’s purpose was “monetizing parasociality”, why would he spend the last 4 months doing coverage in support of Palestinians which lost almost half of his live audience? Hasan’s news coverage is a reflection of the correct Marxist perspective, even when it loses viewers. Calling for a ceasefire in Gaza loses viewers but Hasan does it anyway because it is the right thing to do.

      • MrPiss [he/him]@hexbear.net
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        Agreed, Hasan is basically the best we can get outside of YouTube weirdos who do hour long video essays with 20k views at most. He’s not going to be perfect but he’s going to be better than 99% of other content creators. Honestly I don’t know what people want or expect to get out of the modern internet.

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    9 months ago

    Hasan’s pretty good when talking about anti-American Empire in the abstract, but he whiffs a lot in practice.

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    9 months ago

    The funniest running gag is all the people who come on his stream commenting how small his “mansion” actaully is, apparently it’s just a normal sized villa in West Hollywood and not a Fresh Prince sized mansion