Hasan Piker: How Nepotism Created a Faux Anti-Capitalist

Hasan Piker is one of the biggest streamers on Twitch, which is quite the accomplishment because the platform was originally for gamers, but he does political commentary. With over 2.2 million followers on Twitch, 1.1 million on Twitter, and 1 million on YouTube, he has quite the influence. He’s a hardcore “eat the rich” type pro-socialist leftist, but he’s not who he appears to be.

He’s come under fire quite a few times for the amount of wealth he has, and each time this happens, he not only has justifications locked and loaded, but his millions of followers are quick to come to his defense.

The excuses and reasoning used to justify Hasan’s enormous amounts of wealth completely contradict what he says and the moral high ground he takes. Today, I wanted to break that down and explain how nepotism created this faux anti-capitalist.

Although it’s rarely discussed or acknowledged, to take a political position is to take a moral position. Yes, even right-wing conservatives believe they’re moral exemplars.

To be a socialist or social Democrat, you’re taking a clear moral stance. I’ve personally been in this camp since learning about Bernie Sanders years ago and realized he stands for everything I believe in. As a whole, here’s an incomplete, abbreviated list of some things we believe in:

• People should make a living wage

• Healthcare is a human right

• College should be free, or at least far less expensive

• There should be a true equality of opportunity

I don’t think Hasan would disagree with much from this list, but what’s often left out of the conversation when it comes to Hasan Piker is wealth hoarding. Again, we’re discussing taking a moral stance politically, so, do we believe we live in a fair and equal society when a small portion of people have far more wealth than so many other people in this country?

Now, before any Hasan Piker stans freak out, I challenge you to stick with me until the end here. This isn’t about Hasan Piker having money; this is about Hasan believing he has a right to the moral high ground by simply saying we should tax the rich more.

By the end of this, I’ll show you how Hasan’s actions don’t align with his words, and it’s similar to the right-wing free speech absolutists who block everyone who disagrees with them. Sure, you can say we need to have more conversations with people we disagree with, but if you block anyone who disagrees with you, are you actually walking the walk?

In Hasan’s case, if you’re an anti-capitalist hoarding wealth, do your actions align with your words?

The reality is that Hasan is extremely disconnected from the working class who he claims to be fighting for. I’ll have more to say about anti-capitalism and morality soon, but first, we need to understand how Hasan became disconnected. Was he originally connected to the plight of the working class and lose his way? Or is he someone who was never connected in the first place?

There’s No Equality with Nepotism

Nepotism is a hot topic, and you need look no further than YouTube to see how many people have become interested in it. Simply put, nepotism is when people in power favor people close to them, like friends or family, by giving them jobs or opportunity.

Remember, a core tenet of anti-capitalism and socialism is true equality of opportunity. In a society where nepotism exists on such a large scale, this form of equality is not possible.

We’re sold on the idea that America is a meritocracy. We’re told that if you work hard and improve your skills, you’ll reach the top of the ladder and live the American dream. We’re told that capitalism is the best system because it’s a meritocracy where you can start from the bottom and work your way to the top.

One of the most cited studies on what it takes to succeed in America and become wealthy comes from Georgetown University. The study is titled Born to Win, Schooled to Lose Why Equally Talented Students Don’t Get Equal Chances to Be All They Can Be. And you can probably already guess where this is headed.

Their summary puts it nice and succinctly:

The American Dream promises that individual talent will be rewarded, regardless of where one comes from or who one’s parents are. But the reality of what transpires along America’s K-12-to-career pipeline reveals a sorting of America’s most talented youth by affluence—not merit. Among the affluent, a kindergartner with test scores in the bottom half has a 7 in 10 chance of reaching high SES among his or her peers as a young adult, while a disadvantaged kindergartner with top-half test scores only has a 3 in 10 chance.

This study shows that the top predictor of wealth in the United States isn’t how smart you are or how hard you work, but it’s about the family you’re born into.

Although Hasan claims to be an anti-capitalist, you can easily see the contradictions here. Although Hasan and his followers believe they’re anti-capitalist, when the excuses for Hasan come out, you can see that they too have been brainwashed by this neoliberal idea that we’re living in a meritocracy.

While doing research for this, I came across one of Hasan’s videos titled “Hasan reacts to a ‘Hater’”, and this short, 8.5-minute video is extremely telling, and I’m going to reference it more than once.

As you can see in the video, he says, “None of those people are academic, including myself.”

I’m a college dropout, and if you’re non-college educated like myself, you know there is a major lack of opportunity when you don’t have a college degree in this country. A recent study shows that on average, there’s a pay gap of $22,000 per year between those with a high school degree and a college degree. In fact, the overall return on investment for a college degree is nearly $1,000,000 over a lifetime.

If you’re familiar with my work, you know I’m a natural skeptic. So, when Hasan said he’s not academic, I was instantly skeptical. Like I said in my recent video about strategic ignorance, these things take 2-seconds to look up.

Wikipedia always has an “Early Life” section, and it often outlines a person’s education. On Hasan’s Wiki page, it says he:

• Attended the University of Miami

• Transferred to Rutgers University

• Graduated cum laude

• Had a double major in political science and communication studies

I don’t know about you, but that seems pretty academic to me. If I were to be charitable to Hasan, I’d say he interprets being “an academic” as someone who publishes research. But, in the context of the video he’s responding to, she’s clearly discussing the educated elite rhetoric that he uses.

People in the working class don’t decide to skip college for no reason. Those of us who don’t come from a privileged background are well aware about how many more opportunities you get by going to college. The problem is that since we’re the underclass, we can’t afford it, so we need to roll the dice.

What we’re seeing with Hasan Piker is cognitive dissonance turning into what psychologists call dissonance reduction. Dissonance reduction is “the process by which a person reduces the uncomfortable psychological state that results from inconsistency among elements of a cognitive system”.

Being the progressive socialist that Hasan is, he has to ignore his privilege to make it make sense. So, rather than understand this woman’s criticisms of his educated elite rhetoric, he chooses to use his own definition of “academic”.

But, after graduating cum laude with a double major from a top-tier college, what did Hasan do next?

In 2013, Hasan joined The Young Turks, which is one of the largest independent media channels in the world. It was 2013, so Hasan hadn’t even graduated from college yet when he joined.

Now, you may be asking how Hasan managed to get this job. Was it from his hard work in college and advanced intelligence like meritocracy tells us? No. It was nepotism.

Hasan Piker was hired by the co-founder of The Young Turks, Cenk Uygur, and Cenk is Hasan’s uncle.

Now, I think it’s important to discuss why nepotism is such a massive issue that stifles equality in the United States. Aside from what you’re told about meritocracy and success, this is a zero-sum game: for someone to win, someone else has to lose. That’s how capitalism works.

Privilege and nepotism create an unfair example at every level of our lives. Colleges have a limited number of spots, so for someone to get a position, someone else has to be turned down. Jobs have a limited number of open positions as well, so to get a job means that someone else did not get that job.

Something the nepotism babies of Hollywood say to reduce their own dissonance is to argue that there are so many nepotism babies that it creates a competitive atmosphere. Sorry, but a bunch of rich kids coming from famous families is not a fair competition because there are countless people who come from nothing and will never get their foot in the door.

So, to watch Hasan sit back and say, “I’m not an academic” is completely disregarding the advantages he’s experienced and the privilege he comes from. It shows that his disconnection isn’t a connection that was lost; it was never there. Much like an Elon Musk, his mind tells him that he’s worked hard to earn his wealth, so he deserves it. And the myth of meritocracy wins once again.

Marxism has a Morality Problem

I cannot begin to tell you how happy I am to finally address this. Every time I see someone explain that Marxism is about how workers are exploited, I want to massage my face with sandpaper. I’d rather watch Tucker Carlson for 24 hours straight pretending he’s not a racist than listen to fellow leftists tell me that wealth hoarding is cool as long as you’re not exploiting labor.

I would rather helplessly watch as my cat throws up in a terrible place while I’m in a Zoom meeting than witness leftists believe the exploitation of labor is the only moral topic we should consider.

This is such a cop-out that allows wealthy, privileged people like Hasan Piker to get away with whatever he wants. The idea that as long as you’re not exploiting labor, all is well and good is ridiculous. Until people who believe in Marxism recognize this, we’ll never solve any of the problems we see with capitalism.

To understand where I’m coming from, we need to talk about something called effective altruism. Effective altruism is a philosophy that comes from a man the name of Peter Singer. I won’t get into all of the details of effective altruism (I covered it recently in a Substack post already), but you should really read his books as well as books by William MacAskill to learn more. In short, effective altruism is about doing the most good that we can do.

When I learned about effective altruism, I had an experience that many people do when they learn about it.

Peter Singer has this thought experiment:

He has you imagine that you’re walking, minding your own business near a shallow pond. You look over, and you notice that a child has fallen into the pond and appears to be drowning. To wade in and pull the child out would be easy, but let’s say saving the child would ruin a $100 piece of clothing you have on.

He then has us ask if we have a moral obligation to save the child’s life.

Well, do you?

Singer then asks if it matters how far away the child is if you could save that child’s life if it were equally within your means to save that child’s life for $100. If it’s of no danger to yourself and no great cost, do you still have a moral obligation to save the child?

That right there messed me up.

The point Peter Singer is making is that on a daily basis, we spend on ourselves when it costs so little to help another human being.

Before you get all crazy with me, just know that I personally believe there are limits to this thing, but it makes us start asking some important questions.

The most important question is this: with so much suffering in this world, how much money is enough?

As you may know, I spend money on things like my sweet lego collection. But this thought experiment has made me pause before making purchases.

Follow me @bootbricks on Instagram if you’re into sweet lego pics

But Peter Singer’s thought experiment reminds me of what happens to newcomers when they get sober in 12-step programs. Once you know there’s a better way of living, it messes up your buzz forever.

Hopefully, now you can see where I’m going with this and why it’s a little ridiculous for Hasan to believe he has some sort of moral high ground while he lives a lavish lifestyle.

Again, Marxism is more than just about the exploitation of labor. We need to start asking, “How much wealth does one person actually need?” If equality is about fairness, how much does someone like Hasan actually deserve when so much of his current situation is based on privilege and nepotism?

In 2021, Hasan came under fire for buying a $2.7 million home in West Hollywood. One article describes it as, “… [being in a] centrally located Beverly Grove neighborhood. A secured and tightly hedged if otherwise bland and featureless courtyard fronts the roughly 3,800-square-foot pan-Mediterranean style residence that was built in 2014 with white stucco walls and a red tile roof. Arguably, only the exposed wooden eaves give the five-bedroom and 5.5-bath home a smidgen of authentic architectural character.”

I think it’s safe to say that we progressives argue that the rich have far more than they need. Hasan is a Twitch streamer, which means he can do his job anywhere with an internet connection and a room to do it in. So, why does he need a 3,800 square-foot house in one of the most expensive states?

Now, this is where Hasan’s stans come out in full force. This is when questions come up like, “Well how much should his home cost?” and “Is he not allowed to have a big house?”. They also bring up the fact that Hasan bought a big home so his family could live with him.

I’ll be the first to admit that these are all fair questions as well as a good point about doing something kind for his family.

But going back to Peter Singer’s thought experiment of the drowning child, it kind of screws up your buzz again.

I live in Las Vegas, and it’s nowhere near the cheapest place to live, but after doing a quick Zillow search, I could buy some pretty nice 5-bedroom houses over 3,800 square feet for less than half the price of what Hasan spent. Seeing as how Hasan can do his job from anywhere, we have to acknowledge the fact that he chooses to live in one of the most expensive places.

Take a moment to ask yourself how much good he could do for others if he made another choice. How much additional money would he have to help others if he lived in a different city or even a different state?

Since Hasan is a self-proclaimed anti-capitalist, I don’t think these questions are out of line.

This is when we get into the much tougher questions that Hasan defenders have: How much money should he give away? And more importantly, how do I know he’s not giving away massive amounts of wealth?

Much like the other questions, these are extremely valid. These are difficult questions to answer, and I don’t have those answers. In order to even get close to the answers, we need to approach the questions from a different angle. We need to return to the question of, “With so many people suffering, how much does one person or family actually need?”

From here, we can start with the question of, “How much money should someone give away?” I think a good reference point is to start with Maslow’s hierarchy of needs.

Our basic needs are food, water, warmth, rest, security, and safety. So, in order to survive, we need to be able to feed ourselves and have a roof over our heads. After that, we have our psychological needs, which is our relationships with friends and family. This helps us maintain our sanity and not spiral into a depression.

I think it’s safe to say that after meeting all of these needs, the rest is a luxury.

So, what are the luxury items on this hierarchy of needs? Next up, is prestige and a feeling of accomplishment. I’ve recently discussed the sociological theory of conspicuous consumption, which is “the practice by consumers of using goods of a higher quality or in greater quantity than might be considered necessary in practical terms.”

Basically, after our basic needs or met, we then spend our money to convey status.

Hasan presents himself as an anti-capitalist, but so much of capitalism is based on social signaling via status displays. The rich are those who buy what they don’t need simply to prove where they are in the status hierarchy. So, when Hasan buys a $2.7 million house when he could live somewhere much cheaper, how much different is he than the rich he claims to be against?

Going back to Maslow’s hierarchy of needs and Peter Singer, how can we defend a man who says he’s fighting for the good of all while he buys things he doesn’t need? Meanwhile, there are so many in the United States alone who can’t even meet the base level of Maslow’s pyramid.

The next question is was how do I know that he’s not giving away a ton of his wealth?

Well, now that we’ve approached this question from the angle of, “How much does a person actually need?”, the one thing we do know is that Hasan isn’t giving away nearly as much as he could.

This also brings up an interesting moral dilemma that we should all take into consideration. Giving away your wealth is another form of social and status signaling. If a person flaunts how much money they give away, it’s no longer seen as altruistic. But, if they don’t say how much money they give away, it’s assumed they’re not doing it.

I respect the fact that people like Hasan are put into a lose/lose situation.

By now, you’ve probably asked, “Well, how much money are you giving away, Chris?”, and I’m in a similar moral dilemma. If you’d like to know how I decide how much money to give to charity, leave a comment, and I’m more than happy to discuss my process to find a balance between my needs and the needs of others.

But now, I want to return back to the argument from Marxists that it’s simply about eliminating the exploitation of labor. I really want to drive the point home that Marxism has a moral problem when we forget the major issue involving wealth hoarding. To do this, I’ve crafted a little thought experiment involving Jeff Bezos.

Jeff Bezos is an extreme example that allows us to really highlight the lack of morality with this type of Marxist thinking. Why? Because Jeff Bezos has more money than he could possibly spend in a lifetime.

Not only is Bezos one of the richest men alive, due to all of the attention on the unionization efforts of Amazon employees, many of us know that a lot of his wealth comes from labor exploitation. Since Hasan and I agree that labor exploitation is bad, let’s imagine something incredible happens tomorrow.

Imagine that tomorrow, Jeff Bezos wakes up in the morning after having an Ebenezer Scrooge experience the previous night. He decides he’s going to change his ways, and from this day forward, he’s no longer going to exploit his workers. Starting tomorrow, his workers will get to keep their surplus labor, giving them a massive wage increase. The workplace also becomes democratized and they vote on how much their leader Jeff Bezos should make as a salary.

Pretty cool, right?

But, although Jeff Bezos is no longer exploiting his workers, he still has more money than he could spend in a lifetime. Or, let’s say his workers are so grateful to Bezos’ change in heart that they still let him keep a fat salary. And don’t forget about all of his investments that are making money while he sleeps.

Meanwhile, why Jeff Bezos has more money than God, hundreds of thousands of Americans are homeless. People are starving to death and using GoFundme as a way to pay their medical bills.

Would any rational person say that Jeff Bezos is the pinnacle of morality while still hoarding all of that wealth?

Of course not.

So, if it’s still wrong for Bezos to hoard all of that wealth despite the fact that he’s no longer exploiting workers, how can you argue that Hasan’s massive amount of wealth is okay?

When Hasan was trending after buying his multimillion dollar home, his primary argument was, “Then tax me!” I cannot tell you how lame of an argument this is, but people fall for it. What a weak excuse to hoard your wealth as well.

You need to be forced to help others? As anti-capitalist and pro-taxation I am, this is exactly why conservatives hate this idea. They don’t believe you should be forced to help others.

If Hasan was the upstanding beacon of Marxist morality he presents himself as, why does he need to be forced to redistribute his wealth?

This man came from privilege and benefited from nepotism. In a truly equal society, he would not be in the position he is right now where he’s amassed so much wealth. And since this is already long enough, I’ll spare you the conversation about the privilege and success that comes along with being conventionally attractive. But just know, that’s played a massive role in his success as well.

But due to Hasan’s constant need to reduce his dissonance, he’s been able to dodge this glaring flaw in his moral compass.

Is Hasan a Debate Bro?

I debated on including this last section, but I feel it needs to be said because it further solidifies the point the Hasan is disconnected from the working class.

Going back to Hasan’s reaction to his alleged “hater”, he’s able to dismiss all of this woman’s arguments by saying, “I’m not who she’s talking about.”

Much like believing Marxism is simply about labor exploitation, Hasan misses the broader point this young woman is making. It’s easy to recognize by simply watching her video without Hasan reacting to it:

@mishalema#greenscreenvideo hasan piker pls stand up #foryou #foryoupage #fyp

Tiktok failed to load.

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Hasan’s entire reaction to hear was a straw man argument attempting to rebut a point that she was not making. Her argument wasn’t “Hasan is a debate bro”, her argument was, “Similar to the alt-right pipeline, Hasan has a similar community of toxic people cheering on bloodsport.”

Hasan is playing a game of semantics here to avoid what she’s saying. He’s saying, “I don’t debate people as a core aspect of my content, therefore I’m not a debate bro and do not have any of the same characteristics.”

She says, “For so many white male conservatives, their journey to the alt-right started with content like that. ‘Feminist gets owned’. ‘Feminist theory gets destroyed’. Content around dominance over political ideology rather than social issues that the ideology is actually based off of.”

You don’t need to be a die-hard fan of Hasan who spends hours a day watching his streams to see the similarities. Just look at his channel. He’s the equivalent of a leftist Ben Shapiro. Hasan uses his privileged, educated background to dominate his political opponents and belittle them.

If you don’t feel like watching his videos, just scroll through his Twitter feed for two minutes:

hasanabi @hasanthehun

american republicans running defense for a genocidal empire, saying it was a civilizing force to its subjects is hilarious since, our founding in the us is kind of built around that idea of emancipation. (even though we did the same shit to others)

Jason Campbell @JasonSCampbell

Charlie Kirk claims "British colonialism actually made the world decent," adding "British colonialism was the most benign global empire ever" https://t.co/kdQzfHKI4h

hasanabi @hasanthehun

biden will say some tepid shit about how the republicans are going crazy, the republican media apparatus will claim he's screaming white genocide, then the liberal media will do this. wonderful stuff.

Rt. Hon Tyler Dinucci MP @TylerDinucci

We have a fundamentally broken media. Good lord. https://t.co/D2K6uMX750

hasanabi @hasanthehun

planning a fitcheck stream where i get 2 fashion powerhouses (@jk_wyling + secret) to -roast my absolute worst historical fits -figure out “hasanabicore” -judge the chats fits, community fitcheck (will set up submissions for this) also @emmalangevin is making me goth soon.

He’s the educated bro dude of the left, and for the life of me, I can’t see how people manage to have this blindspot. His rhetoric and argument style is no different than manosphere bros spewing a toxic masculine vibe, except he’s wrapped in a leftist outlook.

This is what that TikToker was saying, and it’s nothing new. FD Signifier and Noah Samsen have brought this up as well as many others when it comes to debate bros. In his video on Vaush, Noah Samsen showed how Vaush has created a toxic audience that attacks the people they claim to be fighting for.

Can you honestly tell me that with Hasan’s dominant style that he has a compassionate honest who isn’t spewing hateful garbage across the internet with people they disagree with?

Hasan’s educated elite background of privilege allows him to use academic lingo that doesn’t connect with the lower class, and I think that’s a factor in why he’s successful. These people watch him and think, “A guy with the stereotypical high school jock physique and attitude but says big words and is a leftists? Right on!”

Don’t be fooled because he’s not ashamed to wear a dress. My senior year in high school when I was a football-playing toxic masculine jock, I too wore a dress with my teammates as we did a cheer routine. Just because I wore a dress, it didn’t mean I wasn’t a self-interested d-bag.

So, what did we learn today?

Being anti-capitalist and a Marxist is more than just getting rid of labor exploitation. We also learned that nepotism creates a society that can never be truly equal, and those who benefit from nepotism and privilege will always refuse to acknowledge it.

Most importantly, we learned that to take a political stance is to take a moral stance. You shouldn’t have to be forced by the government to redistribute your wealth.

Part of me wants to suggest that Hasan knows that in our capitalist society where money rules over politics, he never has to worry about his taxes going up. I wouldn’t be surprised if deep down he knows he’ll never be taxed, so he can say, “Tax me” all day long while hoarding his wealth. Meanwhile, there are millions of people in America working 10x harder than him that can’t afford to pay his bills.

There’s something to be said about the fact that Hasan is spreading awareness about various issues and potentially creating more voters. But when you’re talking the talk but not walking the walk of making a more equal society, does that even really matter? Or is it just a hollow form of virtue signaling?

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