The author of the article is a liberal grifter who writes self help books. He also wrote a book called "Canceled: Inside YouTube Cancel Culture" where he complains about cancel culture and defends people like "Jordan Peterson, Sam Harris, Andrew Doyle, JK Rowling and others"
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07VLND4R8
Here's a bunch of other essays he wrote whining about cancel culture
https://therewiredsoul.substack.com/p/cancel-culture-exists-and-so-does
https://therewiredsoul.substack.com/p/cancel-culture-and-the-myth-of-pure
https://therewiredsoul.substack.com/p/my-conspiracy-theory-about-andrewHere's an essay he wrote in support of NFTs
https://therewiredsoul.substack.com/p/what-nobody-seems-to-understand-aboutHere's an essay he wrote in support of means testing student loan forgiveness
https://therewiredsoul.substack.com/p/the-great-debate-over-student-loanHere's an essay he wrote complaining about "defund the police"
https://therewiredsoul.substack.com/p/the-terrible-branding-of-defund-theHere's an essay he wrote praising Andrew Yang and blaming workers for getting replaced by automation
https://therewiredsoul.substack.com/p/want-to-keep-your-job-be-better-thanHere's an essay he wrote saying that there's no true definition to socialism. Seriously this guy is a major liberal.
https://therewiredsoul.substack.com/p/how-to-be-a-bad-leftist-progressiveHere's articles he wrote promoting hustle culture, making a youtube channel and "flipping lego sets on ebay"
https://www.businessinsider.com/personal-finance/quiet-quit-make-thousands-side-hustles-2022-9
https://www.businessinsider.com/personal-finance/flipping-legos-ebay-side-hustle-2022-7
https://www.businessinsider.com/side-hustles-make-extra-income-holiday-season-buy-gifts-2021-12Here's an article he wrote against providing safe injection sites
https://www.newsweek.com/safe-injection-sites-like-new-yorks-are-huge-mistake-opinion-1654525Here's an article he wrote saying he lost money investing in stocks but he recommend people do it anyway. "you don't lose money if you don't sell"
https://www.businessinsider.com/personal-finance/reasons-not-worried-about-stock-market-drop-2022-5Here's an article he wrote saying he lost $3000 on crypto and that people should still buy crypto
https://www.businessinsider.com/personal-finance/lost-money-following-bad-investing-advice-youtube-2022-6doing the "as a recovering addict" bit in that safe injection site article is really repulsive lmao like you were an alcoholic bro. unless we're living under prohibition and you were forced to drink bathtub liquor with toxic chemicals it's not the same thing in the slightest. like the science is not ambiguous on this, if you're against safe injection programs, you are for killing people with addictions.
I was going to ask how this was a dunk until I started reading it and saw that the author calls out Piker for saying he's not an academic while having a bachelor's degree lmao. I know multiple people with bachelor degrees who aren't academics and don't ever claim to be one, and I know people with bachelor degrees who claim they're academics when they're straight up not lol. fuck, I have a bachelor's degree and I'm just like a pretend academic when no one else is around. Then the whole Peter Singer thing and the fucking Maslow hierarchy of needs , what the fuck. I'm sorry but it's just "I'm a 19 year old college student and I understand how the world really is" vibes lmao. I used to be that college kid.
I do think Hasan probably wouldn't be as famous as he is if he wasn't pretty handsome and the nephew of the Young Turks guy, so yeah I guess nepotism, but I can't take this seriously. It absolutely fucking sucks that people can buy multimillion dollar houses in LA just making money as a streamer while people working actually necessary jobs are struggling to pay rent, and there's undoubtedly things you can criticize him for from the left. I don't get twitch and it does weird me out that (likely young) people think he's some sort of revolutionary just for streaming himself talking or reacting to other videos or whatever. But has he ever claimed to be a Marxist? Or a communist, or anything like that? You can just say you think he sucks without trying to shoehorn your undergrad ethics and sociology terms into it lol.
nephew of the Young Turks guy,
It all makes so much more sense now.
He doesn't just "have a bachelor's". He graduated cum laude with a double major from an elite university, Rutgers. Maybe to you that's not an academic, but it sure looks like it to the rest of us. He also benefited from nepotism, which our elites also consider a sacred institution.
"Being an academic" requires you to have a doctorate or at least be teaching on your way to a doctorate. Quite literally having a doctorate means that you are qualified to teach your subject within academia, thus rendering you an academic. Mind, this is not academic shit, this is pedantic nerd shit.
I'm not a huge fan of either academics or Hasan, but him not calling himself an academic despite having gone to an elite institution is absolutely the correct take. Which is the problem with Hasan, where most of his takes are good despite his nepotism, overwhelming wealth and completely useless job.
If the choice for 'Marxism' is between Hasan and whatever person wrote this essay, I'm sorry but I am choosing Hasan because at least Hasan isn't doing stupid misrepresentation of arguments (most of the time, his clip on TJ was pretty cringe). Fortunately, this isn't some sort of binary and there can be nuance where both of Hasan and articles ranting about Hasan are cringe.
That’s just straight up not what “being an academic” means tho.
“Academic” is an occupation. It usually requires a certain level of education (usually a doctorate or being in the process of getting a doctorate) but primarily it’s a job description for people who get paid to teach at Universities (or other academic institutions) and publish papers in academic journals.
Yeah man, learning basic definitions and stuff is only for the academic elites. We proles only know how to place square peg in round hole.
Oh, is that what is happening here? Go complain to a homeless person about how Hasan is an elite academic and not a real anti-capitalist, I'm really sure they will care.
The distinction between a college professor and someone who got good grades in college is not a fine one.
ok now I can't tell if you posted this to dunk on the writer or Piker lol. but I'll assume you're trying to dunk on Piker. graduated cum laude (on financial aid because I'm poor) and I was not a good student, all you need to do is get a B average, it's not some special thing. to me that just sounds like he had enough money to go to a good school. I used to work with a total dip shit who went to Columbia just because his dad is some pharmaceutical executive and could afford it. just having rich parents and going to a good school doesn't make you an academic. and I'm not saying Piker didn't benefit from nepotism I literally said he wouldn't be famous if it wasn't for his uncle and his good looks lmao, but this whole piece is just "I hate this nominally leftish rich guy so let me use my new college classes to justify it". I think he sucks too but I don't need to bring up Singer or Maslow to justify it
I don't think "having a college degree" = "being an academic".
Like, I always thought being an academic meant your job was in academia. Teaching in college/university, doing research at those places, writing grant proposals for academic research purposes.
our elites
I was going to tell you to define this term but I can see you're already banned, lol
Getting good grades does not make you more of an academic
Suspicious article incoherently trashing one of the few genuine radicalizing pipelines of the western left
You don't write an article like this about Hasan, you write it about the likes of Vaush, Destiny or all the other actual faux-"leftists" out there
One the positive signs going for Hasan is that he naturally earns the ire and hatred of these backbiting LA and Seattle clickbait pseudo-left types, the kind of people who think writing an article about streamers is a worthwhile political exercise, people who are quite obviously poisonous to any real left organizing
I dunno, this is why we can have critical support. I am critical on some of his stances/behavior like being wealthy or engaging in reactionary behavior, but I do support his part in being a better access point to leftism than many other online figures. Do I think he's problematic sometimes? Yes. Do I think he's someone to criticize first? No.
most of his takes good
he regularly talks about nepotism and how he benefited from it
podcasts and youtube channel are cooperatively owned as far as i get itsplitting up the personal finances of one mid level e-celeb isnt going to bring about socialism if you really want to put him on the list of exploitative rich guys hes not going to be very far up
literally every small business owner is worseShades of people whining that Chapo doesn't use their filthy lucre to fund the revolution, despite being told over and over again that they get their money from thousands of people chipping in 5$ a month who would stop paying if Chapo stopped producing.
Lmao, OP created his account 3 days ago and 2/3 of their posts are about randomly attacking socdems.
Totally not a purist wrecker.
I mean attacking socdems is fine, they're class collaborationist shitheads who deserve it and then some
Just don't attack the socdems who have half their body in the socialist door, especially over dumb shit that doesn't matter
However this person is under some pretty big misunderstanding about what Marxism is about.
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.
Somehow they created this strawman that thinks making money is fine as long as you don't exploit people and attributed that as some sort of Marxist basis.
Maybe it is not a strawman and some people actually think like this but the point is using the Marxist label to describe this goes against his whole argument as he keeps repeating this "Marxist morality problem", socialists and communists are more likely to read something like this and instantly look away in horror.
IMO it doesn't take much to correct this, the argument should be that it is not the act of making money itself that is bad, but how this is used to defend someone with other questionable background and character flaws. As they said there is plenty to argue about the morality and utility of 7 figure homes in questionable cities, sports cars.
For me there is a clear and obvious line where you cross between "normal" people and just scumbag capitalist behaviour even if you are not a capitalist. I think things like excessive air travel, owning too many properties/being a landlord, buying and using excessively wasteful products like private jets/yatchs/sports cars etc. These things IMO are clearly harmful to society and the environment and I don't give a shit if you earned your money in a lottery, found a 50 million blank check on the ground, or own a slave factory in South East Asia. The behavior is equally harmful no matter what.
But still the biggest argument in favor of Hasan is that despite everything we are not his audience and if you want to be strictly utilitarian then maybe having such a popular figure is slightly more beneficial than not. I don't consume his content so I'm not invested either way but it is sad this is the best we can do.
i'd say to dunk on the substack dork but OP seems to agree with them and not know what "an academic" means
