During his senior year of college in 2013, Piker interned for The Young Turks (TYT), a progressive news show and network co-founded by his uncle, Cenk Uygur. After graduating, Piker was hired by the network's ad sales and business department. He asked to host the show when a fill-in was needed and later became a host and producer.[5][14]
In 2016, Piker created and hosted The Breakdown, a TYT Network video series which aired on Facebook and presented left-leaning political analyses targeted, at the time, at millennial supporters of presidential candidate Bernie Sanders.[15][14] The show was nominated for "Best Web Series" at the 10th Shorty Awards in 2018.[16] Piker also contributed political content to HuffPost from 2016 to 2018.[17][18]
Piker created and hosted another TYT series in 2019, Agitprop with Hasan Piker.[19] In January 2020, he announced his departure from TYT and his intention to focus on his career as a Twitch streamer.[20]
Twitch
Piker started streaming on Twitch in March 2018 while working at TYT.[4] Piker has said he shifted his attention from Facebook to Twitch in order to reach a younger audience and because of what he felt was a preponderance of right-wing commentators on YouTube and a lack of leftist representation among streamers.[3][21][22] He became a popular left-wing political commentator, and was invited to appear on KTTV's The Issue Is and the political podcast Chapo Trap House.[3][23][24] His YouTube channel features highlights of his streams, and in 2022 reached over 1,000,000 subscribers.[25] Piker also streams gameplay and commentary of video games on his Twitch channel.[20][26][27] Sometimes Piker will role-play as "Hank Pecker", a caricature of a right-wing redneck.[28][29]
Dispute with Dan Crenshaw, 9/11 comments, and temporary ban
In the same stream, Piker criticized American foreign policy and made controversial comments relating to the September 11, 2001, attacks, including "America deserved 9/11."[32][33] His statements caused outrage on social media and were covered by Fox News and various other media outlets. Crenshaw said that Piker's comments were a "disgusting defense of the 9/11 terrorist attacks against Americans." In response, Piker described his comments as satirical and cited American foreign policy as promoting conditions to make an event like 9/11 possible, but acknowledged that he should have used "more precise" language.[5][33] Twitch banned Piker for one week due to the comments.[32]
2020 United States presidential election, January 6 attack and 2024 United States presidential election
On October 19, 2020, U.S. Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez collaborated with Piker and fellow Twitch streamer Pokimane to organize a stream of the Representative playing the popular multiplayer game Among Us for the "Get out the vote" initiative for the upcoming presidential election.[20][34] The stream aired the following day, featuring both Ocasio-Cortez and U.S. Representative Ilhan Omar playing the game with Piker and other popular Twitch streamers, reaching a total concurrent viewership of almost 700,000.[35][36][37]
During the first 2020 United States presidential debate on September 29, Piker had over 125,000 viewers watching his commentary of the broadcast, the highest viewership of the debate on Twitch.[38] Piker's stream covering the results of the 2020 United States presidential election peaked at 230,000 concurrent viewers and was the sixth most-watched source of election coverage across YouTube and Twitch, comprising 4.9% of the market share.[39][40][41][42] He was the most watched Twitch streamer during the election week; his 80 hours of streams were viewed for a cumulative 6.8 million hours by an average of 75,000 concurrent viewers.[4][43][44] Piker's stream reached a new high of 231,000 viewers during the January 6 United States Capitol attack.[45] Piker's 2024 election night coverage stream had 7.5 million total viewers.[46]
2021 temporary ban for using "cracker" and later activities
On December 13, 2021, Piker was banned from Twitch for one week for using the racial epithet "cracker" repeatedly on stream. Piker argued the term should not be considered a slur against white people since a person using it is "powerless" and "doing it as someone who has been historically oppressed blowing off steam."[47][48] He further contended "cracker" is not a slur in the same way as other terms, stating that "It's something I've talked about so many times because it's like white boys love fucking saying, 'Cracker is the same as the n-word,' It's really stupid. The etymology of the word is different. ... It comes from 'whip cracker.' So the power is still in the hands of the white person in that situation, whereas the n-word is dehumanizing."[49][50] An August 2023 paper in New Media & Society criticized Twitch for punishing Piker while epithets aimed minority groups were prevalent on the platform. The paper also criticized the subsequent commentary defending Twitch's decision as falsely equating "cracker" with other racial epithets.[51]
Coverage of 2023 Israel-Hamas War
Piker has regularly spoken about the Israel–Hamas war by advocating for Palestinians and criticizing the Israeli government.[52][53]
In January 2024, Piker interviewed a Yemeni self-proclaimed "pirate" who had filmed himself on board the Galaxy Leader, a Bahamas-flagged ship that has been held captive by Houthi militants since November 2023.[54]
In November 2024, congressman Ritchie Torres criticized Twitch for alleged "amplification of antisemitism", specifically calling for an investigation into Piker.[52] Piker defended himself, arguing that he did not criticize Jewish people as a whole and was only anti-Zionist.[52][53][55] A campaign by pro-Israeli advocates, including the streamer Destiny, pressured advertisers to leave Twitch due to the platforming of alleged antisemitism, including Piker's political commentary of the conflict.[52][53] Both the pressure campaign and Ritchie Torres posted clips of Piker's channel they alleged to be antisemitic. Piker refuted the charge, arguing the clips were taken out of context.[52][53][55] Because of the controversy, some advertisers have pulled advertisements.[55]
Since 2021, Piker has hosted the podcast Fear& (formerly Fear&Malding) alongside his friend and fellow Twitch streamer, Will Neff.[64] Streamers QTCinderella and AustinShow would later join the podcast as co-hosts in 2023.[65] From September 26, 2021, to October 12, 2023, Piker co-hosted the left-leaning political podcast Leftovers with co-host Ethan Klein.[64][66] On November 8, 2021, Piker released a line of union-made merchandise called Ideologie and donated a portion of the proceedings to strike funds in which he raised over $180,000.[67][68][69]
Piker has been described as Twitch's "de facto political commentator" who uses an unabashedly ideological framing.[77] Outlets dedicated to video game culture and youth culture have covered Piker's streams positively. In particular, journalists have noted his ability to "combine information and entertainment,"[14][77] and to approach left-wing political coverage in a way that is relatable and accessible to Twitch viewers, who may feel out of touch with cable news.[39][78][79][56] Some authors also cite Piker's vulgar, animated style of expression and his physical appearance as notable factors behind his popularity.[14][78][80]
In July 2024, Alex Mahadevan of the Poynter Institute for Media Studies, a nonpartisan nonprofit organization, cited Piker as an example of the "online chattering class" who do not hold themselves to journalistic ethics, in contrast to their peers in traditional media.[81] A September 2024 article in the academic journal Digital Journalism discussed a similar theme, characterizing Piker as emblematic of an emerging "Newsfluencers" class (influencers who mainly cover news) that has a tendency towards "problematic behavior" such as maintaining journalistic objectivity.[80] In April 2024, the same journal noted that Piker is familiar with journalistic mechanics such as sourcing, framing, and objectivity, but rejects these as methods used for "manufacturing consent for elites".[77] Instead, Piker mainly sources his information from social media, often supplied to him by his audience.[77] Following the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Piker apologized for insisting in the prelude that Russia would not attack. "[I] didn't think a regional power would act so irrationally. I've admitted my mistakes. I got things wrong," stated Piker.[56] The Washington Post has also categorized Piker as a news-based influencer who does not feel bound to journalistic objectivity.[56]
Gaming website Kotaku selected Piker as one of their "Gamers of the Year" for 2020, citing him as a major figure in the mainstreaming of political commentary on Twitch, a platform which in the past was seen as discouraging to political discussion.[44][79][83] Piker won a Streamy in the News category at the 10th annual awards in 2020 and was nominated again in the same category for the 2021 event.[84][85] In 2022, Piker was nominated in the categories News, Just Chatting, and Streamer of the Year, winning the News award for the second time and being nominated for three consecutive years.[86][87] At the event, he also presented the Creator of the Year award alongside Avani Gregg, which was won by MrBeast for the third year in a row.[88] At the 2023 Streamer Awards, Piker was nominated for Best Just Chatting Streamer and Streamer of the Year, winning the former.[89][90]
^Stavvy's World (July 22, 2024). Stavvy's World #86 - Hasan Piker | Full Episode. Event occurs at 12:24. Retrieved September 19, 2024 – via YouTube. Halkias: By the way, I was doing a little research ... your family immigrated from where, Hasan? Piker: Oh my god ... my mother's side is all the way from Kudüs, so they have like Arabic descent – and y'know Turkish, Arabic, Kurdish, all that stuff. My father's side on the other hand, is from Selanik and Crete. Halkias: I don't know about Selanik, they say something else on the internet ... "his father's family emigrated to Turkey from Drama, Greece." Piker: Wait, that's not correct. Halkias: (laughs) Well, that's what the internet says. So, whatever part of him that of him that's successful, that's the Greek part, folks. And the backstabbing, conniving, uh.. other stuff, Turk. (laughs) Piker: I don't know why it says Drama ... my grandfather that I'm named after ... is from Selanik and then my grandmother is from Crete. So we hit the mainland and the islands, y'know what I mean? We got it all.
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