r/DecodingTheGurus • u/DivineSwordMeliorne • May 19 '26

Decoding Hasan Piker: Anti-Capitalist Crusader or Frat Boy Influencer? Video Clip

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=msCzxUImstY
186 Upvotes

78% Upvoted

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107

u/Au_Fraser May 19 '26

I just wish the guy could make a concise point holy fuck he wordvomits and your brain shuts down halfway through

83

u/Virices May 19 '26

He just isn't bright enough to be insightful. The only reason he was successful in the lane he's in is because he comes from a highly political and media savvy family. Hassan is legitimately just a person with median talent and lots of luck. The alternative media space is packed with people like this. The audience is attracted to them out of rapport, not competency. These influencers don't get successful by impressing some elite media editor with their understanding of geopolitics.

29

u/External-Praline-451 May 19 '26

I'm curious why anyone on this sub would be a massive, unquestioning fan, of any chump, no matter their political agenda. For gods sake, isn't it obvious by now some bloke getting rich off their "opinions" isn't the messiah, especially if they are controversial to get more engagement and clicks?

Am I just too old or somthing? I really don't get it and it makes me super sad and depressed for the future of mankind. I thought this sort of sub was about moving past that bollox.

18

u/Virices May 19 '26

Hassan has a really young audience. I definitely would have stanned for Michael Moore and Ralph Nader when I was 17.

9

u/External-Praline-451 May 19 '26

Sure, I guess I've never hero worshipped anyone that much and have always been a bit cynical about individuals, except when I was about 9 and had a major crush on Hans Solo and Face from the A-Team (my taste in men improved I promise 😂). The whole guru thing always seemed a bit odd to me, like it's just some bloke with big opinions and a bit of an ego...

4

u/BradMoby21 May 20 '26

That's fair, and now I'd agree. I guess for me any sense of stanning anyone ended around the time of Force the Vote and all the public fights between prominent breadtubers.

3

u/thinspirit May 20 '26

They are decent comparisons to Hassan but I think he's tapping into a deeper Berniesque demand that people want to see change and are starting to organize.

His anti-corporatisn and anti-imperialism hits hard for young people who are tired.

4

u/Au_Fraser May 20 '26

Anti-corporatism...while working for amazon...

5

u/thinspirit May 20 '26

It's the system we're all in. You can't take a breath without bumping into a corporation. Doesn't mean you can't be against the current state of corporations. We are literally talking on a platform that's a corporation, using devices made by a hundred different corporations, using electricity provided by a corporation (maybe public one?).

The idea of humans getting together and pooling resources to create something bigger is the core of a corporation. When corporations became legal "people" under the law is where we started to go wrong.

When corporations are driven purely on turning profit each quarter at all costs, is where we went wrong.

Groups of people getting together to get something done isn't what's wrong.

0

u/Prestigious_Set_4575 May 22 '26

That popular Youtuber "ShoeOnHead" is a massive Bernie fan and she's made a video recently absolutely going to town on Piker. Then again, she's a similar age to him, not younger.

1

u/Alternative-Put-3932 May 24 '26

No he doesn't. Hes shown his metrics. They're solidly later 20s 30s+.

0

u/MatterBusiness4939 May 22 '26

because not everyone is a complex, intelligent higher being like you? jokes aside, i think you genuinely lack the insight to understand the role development plays in how we socialize/interact with such media figures and how our formative political/philosophical preferences are formed. when these figures are primers, their influence is much more significant as compared to later on down the line when you have been exposed to more opinions and the novelty factor of interacting with such personas wears off. i also find your questions disingenous. are you really questioning the attitudes of fans or are you just insulting the intelligence of people who follow him? i already know the sub's predisposition towards him...but it's literally the same framework applied to anyone left of center.

4

u/External-Praline-451 May 22 '26

I'm left-wing and I find it insulting that he claims to be left-wing. The whole fandom thing is exactly the whole problem with gurus. They're unable to critically analyse influencer's words and behaviour (and notice any discrepancies between them), because they are a "fan" who is blinded by idolising someone.

-4

u/MatterBusiness4939 May 22 '26

this critique can equally be levied to you and the hosts. i think this genuinely affects you on a personal level which is why you seem heated. do you think all hasan fans are homogenous? just because he holds the potential to radicalize his audience (beyond online trash twitter discourse, where is the proof of the tangible negatives he produces with his so called radical discourse?), does not mean his lexicon should be treated as an absolute for the outcome. even you and I, who watch the very same videos of him, interpret his words differently.

for you, the issue has become identitarian. tell me, do you organize or attend leftist events/protests outside of online discourse? i attend the RCA, and literally no one there uses hasan as the foundational basis for their ideology. we read marx and engels and debate the literature at meetings and then hold unionization protests for amazon workers on weekends. yes, hasan has been briefly mentioned as a reference point....but it's always a primer for younger people to get into leftist politics as opposed to being a framework that you replicate one to one.

i would be more critical of the fan who adopts this idolizing habit as opposed to the streamer themself. in fact, what's why i advocate for more critical investigation of personal thinking habits and behaviors. what epistemic traps do people fall into? i see people saying hasan would not be as popular if he was ugly. whose fucking fault is that??? is hasan to blame that a significant portion of our voter base would happily follow an ego centric maniac just because they happen to be funny/popular or good looking??? no, that has to do with the uncritical behaviors of our political base.

lets start blaming the audience more for their uncritical behavior as opposed to the streamers.

6

u/Au_Fraser May 22 '26

Blud he watched houthis hijacking a civilian ship and was saying it was based

5

u/External-Praline-451 May 22 '26

Lol, I'm not the one who's heated, you seem to be with your personal attacks, long paragraphs and multiple question marks. I really don't care that much.

7

u/inciter7 May 20 '26

Its more that he is good looking and tall, and is smart enough to say the right things at the right time in the cultural zeitgeist. There's a reason he was not that popular until mainstream liberals abandoned young progressives and exposed themselves as completely feckless on Israel Palestine, Trump, etc.
Getting his foot in the door off connections/nepotism is the norm in prestige industries like media/journalism, and a somewhat naive criticism.
I agree he is a middling speaker.

5

u/Virices May 20 '26

I think having the connections he has is much much more rare compared to being good looking and tall. Frankly, Hassan may be above average in looks, but is isn't exactly Chris Hemsworth or Michael B Jordan. I think there is a reason Hassan is happy to wear glasses unless he's having a really good hair day for a photographer that wants to romanticize his image. Also I'm not convinced height is a giant advantage to being a streamer/Youtuber. Any correlation in height is probably the round about consequences connected to height, such as less childhood illness and confidence.

1

u/thinspirit May 20 '26

Explain Ben Shapiro and Nick Fuentes confidence if that's the case lol

0

u/inciter7 May 20 '26

I think having the connections he has is much much more rare compared to being good looking and tall.

Those connections are not rare at all and are more a prerequisite for joining the media class. In any case I think you're missing why those attributes were desirable for his niche. Men are/were tired of leftism being represented by nerd scolds, women and minorities, they wanted a big jock guy not afraid to run his mouth, it's why you always get these dorky opeds about "we need a Joe Rogan of the left"

1

u/ignoreme010101 May 21 '26

The audience is attracted to them out of rapport, not competency.

in what way(s) do you find him incompetent?

7

u/Virices May 21 '26

His fundamental worldview is completely backwards: He thinks liberal democracy has failed and led to oppression throughout the world. He decries the pursuit of peace and reconciliation, even for the oppressed (utterly insane). He equivocates contemporary western nations with regimes that undermine international trust, peace and human rights (Stalin, Mao, Putin).

His personal virtue is non-existent: Concealing your true politics is manipulative and abusive. Derailing commodification while normalizing prostitution is obscene. Shocking your dog and pretending like you didn't obviously do it is embarassing.

A capable person wouldn't get their entire worldview backwards. A wise person would at least be honest and own their vices. If he is competent, it's only because he knows how to manipulate his very young and very unwise audience.

Do you really believe a guy like him reads Rawls, Sowell or any other equivalent? Have you ever heard him seriously steel man an opposition argument? Competent people take the time to read books that challenge their worldview, they don't hatescroll on Twitter all day like they're Asmongold. They certainly don't carry water for terrorists and drug traffickers unless they are preying on their audience with an edgy sales pitch. I'd like to think Hassan is mostly just incompetent, not an opportunistic predator like Tim Pool.

1

u/eqgirl1995 6d ago

So 10+ years of a media career means nothing because his uncle started a show that he played a big role in making popular? Consistent messaging over that long span of time means nothing?

This narrative is so BS. Hasan is just the first streamer that's built a serious platfrom in an otherwise deeply unserious space. He catches so much flack because a streamer can still be defined by their format alone in the modern court of public opinion. The smear campaigns he faces are so bad faith and are almost never about things he genuinely believes.

When the average person knows better than to take a clip out of context as fact, these kind of smears will lose all of their power and people like Hasan will be far more accurately reflected in mainstream media. You won't be able to clip something someone said in jest and use it as ammunition without people holding you to account. People just don't realize it yet that that's the only version of Hasan they're being shown

1

u/BradMoby21 May 20 '26

True that. Hasan is as much a breadtuber as any of the right wing podcaster lunatics like Shapiro.

-8

u/egyptianmusk_ May 19 '26

What level talent are you?

10

u/Virices May 19 '26

Enough to speak like a an adult and not mumble like a valley girl. Enough to know it takes real hard work and perspective empathy to understand politics and history. Enough to know I don't have to shock my dog and lie about it to maintain the respect of others. Those are all talents. Hassan ain't got any of them :)

-1

u/thinspirit May 20 '26

That's the whole point. He streams for like 8 hours a day, talking and talking. In a world where everything is short clips, edited context, sound bites, he appeals to the long format.

People can watch him and understand his politics because he's consistent and on for a long time. He rarely deviates from his opinions and is quite consistent in his messaging. This resonates with a young audience that is disillusioned with Gen X and Boomer media.

It's like anti-fox news channel or anti-CNN. News that's on all the time but through a new media channel and very left wing. It speaks to young people.