Hasan Doğan Piker (born July 25, 1991), also known as HasanAbi, is a Turkish-American YouTuber, Twitch streamer, and a self-admitted propagandist[1]. He is known for his far-left political commentary and appearing on his uncle Cenk Uygur's web-show The Young Turks. He is one of the most viewed streamers of all time on Twitch, where he primarily reacts to YouTube videos and news relating to U.S. and world politics.
Along with Ethan Klein, Hasan was formerly the co-host of a political left-wing podcast called Leftovers. This podcast entered an indefinite hiatus in October 2023 due to Hasan and Ethan's strong disagreements over the Israel-Hamas war, in which Hasan supports Palestine, and Ethan, who is Jewish, denounced war crimes on both sides. In November 2023, Ethan confirmed that the hiatus was permanent and Leftovers was over.
Content[]
Hasan's first videos were vlogs where he would give his political takes, and he would often criticize conservatives. Having grown up in Turkey under the regime of President Erdogan, he is heavily against conservatism, and considers himself a socialist. He is in favor of single-payer healthcare, intersectional feminism, Palestine, the Green New Deal, social justice, LGBT rights, gun control. He stands firmly against racism, Islamophobia, war, and economic austerity. He supported Bernie Sanders in the 2016 and 2020 elections.
In his old vlogs, he would frequently make responses to Ben Shapiro, Jordan B Peterson and supporters of Donald J Trump, as well as host conversations with fellow left wing YouTubers such as Philosophy Tube[2]. A year after his first video, he began making reaction videos, and to this day, his reaction videos make up most of his content, though he usually reacts on Twitch.
Collaborations[]
He has appeared as a guest on the podcast, SomeOrdinaryPodcast, hosted by SomeOrdinaryGamers, Oompaville, and Nux Taku. He was also friends with Ethan Klein until October 2023, first appearing as a guest on the H3 Podcast before becoming the co-host of Leftovers.
He played Among Us with Rep. Alexandria Ocasio Cortez in 2020 as part of a Twitch stream meant to encourage young voters to support her.
Personal Life[]
He was born in New Jersey, though he grew up in Turkey, to an American mother and a Turkish father. In Turkey, he was bullied for having liberal and political views. He later moved to the USA and attended the University of Miami, during which he worked as a club promoter. After two semesters with a 2.9 GPA, he transferred to Rutgers University, where he graduated cum laude with a dual degree in political science and communication studies in 2013. During his senior years, he joined his uncle's network The Young Turks (at first it was to fill in spaces but later he became a regular) where he created and hosted another TYT series in 2019 called Agitprop with Hasan Piker. In January 2020, he announced his departure from TYT to focus on his own YouTube career, having garnered fame and notoriety for being one of the few streamers who gave left wing commentary while streaming (at the time, most gaming streamers were either apolitical or leaning on the right side of the political spectrum).
He has a brother.
Hasan stated that he is a cultural Muslim.[3]
Controversies[]
Artemis Brothel[]
Hasan received controversy for soliciting prostitutes at Artemis, a German brothel that was raided by police in 2017 after being accused of trafficking minors and forcing them to work at the brothel. Those accusations were later deemed defamatory by a German court. The city of Berlin was forced to pay €250,000 in a settlement to the brothel, the brothel then used the funds to pay women detained by the police and donated some to charity.[4]
Controversial remarks[]
Hasan has a history of making controversial remarks, such as saying that "America deserved 9/11", while reacting to an interview with Rep. Dan Crenshaw, a veteran of the Iraq War who lost one of his eyes in an explosion caused by an IED. Hasan also praised the Mujahadeen soldier who planted the IED, calling him 'brave'.[5] His uncle brought him onto his show to explain[6].
When Brittany Venti was sexually harassed by e-sports journalist Rod Breslau aka "Slasher", Hasan defended Slasher despite the evidence of his behavior, and called Brittany "alt-right" in an attempt to discredit her allegations.[7]
Hasan also accused Internet Historian of being "alt-right", although he does not make videos on politics.[8]
Buying a Mansion[]
In August of 2021, Hasan purchased a Los Angeles home valued at $2.74 million.[9] This was seen as hypocritical by figures and publications from the left and right sides of the political spectrum alike, due to Hasan's anti-capitalist stance and advocacy for violence against rich people and property owners. Hasan pushed back on this criticism numerous times stating "socialism is not a poverty cult"[10] He has also criticized other rich people for buying large houses[11]. Some people drew comparisons to Neekolul, another leftist content creator who used their internet fame to buy a mansion, calling Hasan a "grifter".
Advocacy for violence against landlords[]
Hasan has also advocated for violence against opponents of his ideology, including landlords, who he has said should be murdered in the streets.[12] Despite this, his own mother is a landlord, something he has praised her for in the past but tries to hide from his audience.[13]
"Reaction" content[]
Hasan became infamous for his "reaction" streams in which he broadcasted other people's YouTube videos to Twitch. During these streams he often leaves the room without pausing the video he is reacting to, letting them continue to play for his audience while he is gone. Many people whose videos were used by him without being credited, most notably Jay Exci, have called him out on Twitter for this practice. Hasan blocked Jay on Twitter for calling him out[14], then accused her of being a Neo-Nazi for uploading a video criticizing him and appearing on Ethan Ralph's stream to discuss it.
In 2021, MooLer uploaded a video titled "Hasan Piker: Man of Steal"[15], a 56 minute compilation of Hasan letting videos play in the background while he doesn't watch them.
In 2022, DarkViperAU wrote an essay about how he believes reaction content is morally wrong. Hasan responded to this by calling DarkViperAU ugly for wearing a tank top, insulting his mental and creative capabilities, and accusing him of living in a basement since he records videos in a dark room. Referring to DarkViperAU, Hasan said "these motherfuckers don't know how to make good content". This quote was especially controversial because Hasan is known for making reaction content, a type of content that does not involve creative abilities.[16] Hasan responds to the criticism of him being a bad person for react content in a YouTube video description saying "Is react content "Bad" content? Should I be canceled for doing react content on Twitch? No."[17]
Nicki Minaj[]
After rapper Nicki Minaj reposted a video of Tucker Carlson talking about her vaccine stance, Hasan responded by calling Tucker a white nationalist. Nicki responded to him in a now deleted tweet[18]. While live on stream, Hasan drafted a response to Nicki that Tucker "would not let her to the bus, let alone the back of it" referring to bus segregation. His chat then told him not to post the response and he erased it. He was then accused of racism by Nicki's fans on Twitter[19].
Temporary ban from Twitch for racism against white people[]
In December 2021, Hasan's chat moderators were banned by Twitch for using the word "cracker", which is a slur that is used against white people referring to the "crack" of a slave owner's whip. Hasan became extremely angry at this, and repeatedly used the word towards white people live on stream, resulting in a 7 day ban from Twitch[20].
Feud with Twomad[]
On December 27, 2021, Hasan made a tweet where he showed screenshots of two news articles; in the first one, the CEO of Delta Airlines asked the CDC to cut quarantine time for breakthrough of Covid-19 cases, and the second, the CDC doing exactly that[21]. Twomad replied to the tweet criticizing Hasan for accusing the CEO of trying to get Covid-19 restrictions lifted early, reminding him that many epidemiologists had already agreed to it. Hasan replied by saying that healthcare quarantine working time was already cut by 5 hours prior to the announcement, that new data was never released by the CDC and that governors influenced by commerce had said the same thing[22]. He then began replying vitriolically to Twomad's tweets, at one point even saying "have fun getting covid at applebees mf"[23]. Twomad replied by stating that the government changes decisions all the time, and telling Hasan to chill it with the misinformation. Twomad then made another tweet at Hasan that said "You're doing the same thing the Trump supporters did when they called it a 'plandemic'. They said the CDC and fauci were in the pockets of big pharma, and look where that got us, first to get the vaccines, and close to dead last in vaccination rates in the developed world LOOOOL"[24].
Hasan responded again, critizing Twomad for implying that Trump supporters were in favor of covid restrictions, and challenging Twomad to come debate him on his stream. Twomad told him that he was comparing how him and Trump supporters were suggesting the CDC was comprised by private businesses, and ended the tweet by suggesting Hasan "ask his uncle for a new job", to which Hasan responded by calling him a coward and a "groyper neckbeard"[25]. Ethan Klein defended Hasan and called Twomad "Destiny", although later he said he didn't want to fight him.
Hasan later claimed that Twomad "begged" him in DMs to come on stream 10 times only to later refuse. In reality, Twomad was actually sitting in Hasan's Discord server for several hours waiting for a link to join the stream while Hasan was busy "reacting" to MasterChef episodes; for the whole stream, Hasan deliberately ignored Twomad, and anyone who typed the word "Twomad" in his chat was automatically timed out.[26][27]
Opposition to Ukraine[]
Shortly before the invasion of Ukraine by Russian forces, Hasan accused Ukraine of being run by Neo-Nazis and said that Putin invading Crimea in 2014 was "a completely justifiable f**king act", which led to accusations of him supporting Russian imperialism.[28] When confronted, he accused people of misconstruing his words during his "heated moment."[29][30]
Feud with Adin Ross[]
On April 30, YouTuber Internet Anarchist tweeted how Adin Ross falsely accused the channel of copyright violations and sought help for the abuse against smaller creators. This tweet was later celebrated by Ross on his stream where he refused to look at the whole fiasco as anything other than a success on his part.[31]
Hasan took the opportunity to speak his mind on his take on the “face” of Kick. He is known for his lenient attitude towards copyright issues. The streamer with over 1 million followers on YouTube does not always bring the fight to other creators who use Hasan’s content snippets as part of their own videos. As a testament to his genuine dislike of Ross, Hasan went the length to claim that he would actually fund the legal fees for anyone who might decide to take appropriate measures against Adin. On his stream on YouTube from May 1, 2023, Hasan didn’t hold back and said, “I will literally personally pay the legal fees of other f*cking Instagram models and people who now hate Adin Ross, who have appeared on his stream, to sue him for every f*cking dime he has if he keeps this dumb sh*t up.”[32]
Hasan also thought that this action of Ross opens up whole new avenues for random content creators coming across a way to take legal action against Ross. He believed that it was stupid on Ross’ part to let third-party guests get a chance to take harsh measures against himself. Most fans, including Reddit users on r/LivestreamFail, seem to agree with Hasan and support taking legal action against Ross. While things could’ve stopped there, Adin had also put up posts on June 7, suggesting HasanAbi “kill” himself while Hasan’s pal Jake Lucky should be “stoaned to death“. Although Adin wasn’t so explicit with his language and merely wrote down “kys“, the Twitter community didn’t simply let go trying to conclude what he really meant to say. Even though these posts quickly disappeared from Twitter, fans had enough time to make sure evidence was preserved. Although almost all of these posts were made from an alternative account, fans didn’t take much time to figure out who is running the account. Ross kept behind the digital veils to make more remarks towards Hasan regarding the latter’s social and political views and beliefs.[33][34]
While the intensity of the copyright drama did fade out a bit, the streamers didn’t really get out of each other’s heads. In a post on Twitter on June 8 from Ross’ alt account, he is chilling out with his friend Bruce, apparently celebrating Hasan getting banned from Kick, a competitor to the streaming platform Twitch. In the video, Ross mentioned Hasan’s friend Mizkif, who also received a ban from the up-and-coming streaming platform. This set the perfect premise for Hasan to once again spill his guts on how he feels about Kick’s star boy. As a response to Ross’ 8th June video, claiming how he exerted his authoritative powers to get HasanAbi banned from Kick, Hasan explained he doesn’t have a strong motivation to join any platform where Ross is a member. Hasan explains that Ross is desperately trying to get his attention by mocking Hasan’s political and social views as an “agenda“.[35]
Fans didn’t miss out on the hint and were fast enough to do the math. They deduced that the Pride sneering post made by Ross’ alt account, made public earlier on June 8, was the latest in the series of head slaps that finally managed to get a direct reaction out of Hasan. Hasan explicitly accepted him being okay with the label of “liberal”, but referring to Ross allegedly having streamed porno to children, he emphasizes why that kind of behaviour is plain old repelling. While Hasan couldn’t highlight his indifference towards his ban from Kick, it is pretty evident that the agitation is real.[36]
2023 Union Square Riot[]
In August 2023, Kai Cenat organized a fan meetup at Union Square in New York City without obtaining a permit to do so legally. In the days leading up to the meetup, Kai had announced that he would be giving away valuable items such as gaming consoles, gaming computers, gaming chairs, microphones, and webcams. On the day of the meetup, thousands of Kai's fans converged on Union Square and began rioting, destroying property, and assaulting police officers. Over 60 arrests were made, including Kai himself, who was charged with two crimes: unlawful assembly, and inciting a riot.[37][38][39] When Hasan was reacting to this news, he defended Kai and the rioters, accusing anyone who criticized them of being racist against black people. Hasan also mocked a shopkeeper who had his business sabotaged by the rioters and dismissed his concerns as "being upset about Doritos being stolen".
Call for assassination of Tom Cotton[]
On April 15 2024, Republican Senator Tom Cotton posted a tweet encouraging people who were faced with roads blocked by pro-Hamas protestors to "take matters into their own hands".[40] The next day, Hasan quote retweeted it with an illustrated diagram of the homemade shotgun that was used to assassinate former Prime Minister of Japan Shinzo Abe, whose death Hasan had previously celebrated.[40] This tweet led to Hasan trending on Twitter, with many people across the political spectrum interpreting his tweet as a thinly-veiled call for a sitting U.S. Senator to be assassinated. Hasan's tweet was later removed and he was suspended from Twitter for 12 hours for violating their policy against coded incitement of violence.
Asmongold Drama[]
HasanAbi criticized Asmongold TV, calling him a "hypocrite" after the Ava Tyson allegations, stating: "[Asmongold] literally every day watches a loli Vtuber describe all of the latest and greatest in the gamergate world." Hasan questioned how Asmongold could claim, “This loli sh**’s weird and gross” while still consuming content made by a “loli Vtuber” on a “daily basis.” Asmongold responded, “I’ve looked at Rev’s videos before, yeah.”[41][42] Asmongold further stated that from what he had seen, Rev had never “sexualized the avatar at all in any capacity” and claimed he would consider it “wrong” if it were ever to happen.[41] “So, it’s not really hypocritical,” Asmongold said, before pointing out that he had never even brought up Ava’s controversy with the loli artist in his original video, as he “didn’t even know who that was.”[41]
Trivia[]
- Brittany Venti nicknames him "Nephew" (because he is Cenk Uygur's nephew)
- In 2013, Hasan hosted a pick-up artist show on The Young Turks called 'BroTip' where he taught college boys how to score dates with women. The show has since been removed from TYT's public archives.[43][44][45]
- He received the nickname "Lasanabi" after his feud with Sneako and FreshandFit.
Channel milestones[]
Note: The following dates are according to Social Blade. Dates may vary by one or two days due to differences in time zones.
Subscriber milestones[]
- 1 million subscribers: August 11, 2022
Gallery[]
References[]
- ↑ https://youtu.be/2bA6Iif8-cY?si=EI3w3P7XV9AkvRj6&t=128
- ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GfjWSYRCb0I
- ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bn0PgNbcUPo
- ↑ Berlin pays brothel €250,000 compensation over police raid, DW 06/10/2023, accessed June 13 2024
- ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lKQGvVsRpaE
- ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lKQGvVsRpaE
- ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZrHdg_ezsH4
- ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O03tBY8B6gw
- ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TRS_7yB0Ejc
- ↑ HasanAbi Reacts to Tim Pool's Comments on Hasan's $3 Million House by JustAnotherHasanAbiClipChannel in English. YouTube. Aug 20, 2021.
- ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TRS_7yB0Ejc
- ↑ https://video.twimg.com/ext_tw_video/1600368306204073984/pu/vid/1280x720/Qhlj-X9DO5eF8MaS.mp4?tag=12
- ↑ https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FjWhVXCWIAAbnQS?format=jpg&name=medium
- ↑ https://web.archive.org/web/20220209182535/https://twitter.com/JayExci/status/1491477984674516998
- ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rjUh38xhxng
- ↑ https://youtu.be/va1zPshj5f0?si=OyP4SFHoWkWWhUr4
- ↑ https://youtu.be/iACauuOlTWk?si=gIdYE0Azb2bHxTuc
- ↑ Archive of the tweet by Forbes, accessed June 13 2024
- ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3XUlhHqYFWM
- ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UOHYlh6PPVM
- ↑ https://youtu.be/K9jkfvmmP_U?t=60
- ↑ https://youtu.be/K9jkfvmmP_U?t=105
- ↑ https://youtu.be/K9jkfvmmP_U?t=140
- ↑ https://twitter.com/twomad/status/1476281642675101700
- ↑ https://youtu.be/K9jkfvmmP_U?t=243
- ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zhCQcFNH4cE
- ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-xwgjQxWgiw
- ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HPaHRTi49Ow
- ↑ https://web.archive.org/web/20220327034815/https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FO0LYHRWQAEIwgb?format=jpg&name=medium
- ↑ https://web.archive.org/web/20220327124958/https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FO0LYNRXEAcFbhi?format=jpg&name=small
- ↑ https://twitter.com/internetanarch/status/1652705470132666369?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1652705470132666369%7Ctwgr%5E87904f25eb1e32e8068ee3de172b0d23722b666a%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.essentiallysports.com%2Fesports-news-adin-ross-vs-hasanabi-banter-explained%2F
- ↑ Hasanabi Is SUING Adin Ross
- ↑ https://twitter.com/KEEMSTAR/status/1666564114271854592?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1666564114271854592%7Ctwgr%5E87904f25eb1e32e8068ee3de172b0d23722b666a%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.essentiallysports.com%2Fesports-news-adin-ross-vs-hasanabi-banter-explained%2F
- ↑ https://twitter.com/DramaAlert/status/1666908189260906503?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1666908189260906503%7Ctwgr%5E87904f25eb1e32e8068ee3de172b0d23722b666a%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.essentiallysports.com%2Fesports-news-adin-ross-vs-hasanabi-banter-explained%2F
- ↑ WHAT IS ADIN ROSS DOING
- ↑ Adin Ross vs HasanAbi Banter Explained
- ↑ https://abc7ny.com/union-square-crowds-kai-cenat-twitch/13599469/
- ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zjvj7RKbCFA
- ↑ https://abcnews.go.com/US/influencer-charged-after-chaos-erupts-new-york-citys/story?id=102030037
- ↑ 40.0 40.1 https://twitter.com/TomCottonAR/status/1780039918737121502?t=OOJxNFVXgZenjZZuxUWLrw&s=19
- ↑ 41.0 41.1 41.2 https://www.dexerto.com/twitch/asmongold-hits-back-at-hasan-after-being-called-a-hypocrite-amid-ava-tyson-scandal-2841615/
- ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U8qXsBLHIV8
- ↑ https://64.media.tumblr.com/9fa40cfbda21bc55b3958b1932f1adc5/7bb903fb081915f3-0b/s500x750/f1646f691e45e5b3a864adf8f5fe56453b8c2c61.pnj
- ↑ https://64.media.tumblr.com/7d86e401fa4825b26acb5dba402fe327/7bb903fb081915f3-53/s640x960/1bb5ea2a97607852dc60a802513b03ebe0e382c7.jpg
- ↑ https://video.twimg.com/ext_tw_video/1579958565099524096/pu/vid/640x360/3r19P0nOt8VBYu1e.mp4?tag=12
