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Can anyone help me understand why Hasan Piker is so popular in leftist political spaces despite his immense privilege? (lemmy.world)

submitted 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) by extremeboredom@lemmy.world to c/asklemmy@lemmy.ml

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This guy's dad is the former VP of a multibillion dollar Turkish conglomerate, as well as the secretary of a government department. Mom and Dad were able to fly to their other home in NJ to give birth so he'd get US citizenship. His uncle is the founder and owner of TYT Media and gave him his media career. He went to Rutgers. He lives in a multimillion dollar mansion in the Hollywood Hills. This is by definition not the kind of person who can be a voice of the People. Saying "I recognize my privilege" over and over, while living his lifestyle, doesn't negate his privilege and complete lack of real-life experience outside of the curated garden of the wealthy. He gets paid obscene amounts of cash to sit in his bedroom and word-vomit for 9 hours a day. Why are his unending opinions taken so seriously? He gives me strong controlled opposition vibes.

Edit: Thank you all for this discussion. I learned a lot.

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[–] communism@lemmy.ml 25 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

I think you have an extremely online view of "leftist political spaces" because I have never even heard this guy's name mentioned in any real life context, and I've been a very politically active communist since I was a teenager.

[–] AnneVolin@lemmy.ml 7 points 2 weeks ago

Yeah the problem with living in capitalist hellworld at the heart of the empire is that you have two separated insular communities of leftists that are knife fighting rings. One in meetings and one on message boards, and they frequently know nothing about each other.

While the meetings communists sometimes eke out wins like Kshama Sawant, they often struggle to connect to the message board communists who really should be their base. Meanwhile both struggle to connect to society at large.

What's really funny is that most meetings communists I know locally essentially think of him in essentially the same way message board communists think of AOC. Most meetings communists cannot stand his level of yadda yadda when pressed on any specifics he often just goes more general and says things like 'I just want everyone to have healthcare bro'.