Hasan Piker, a leftwing commentator with a huge online following, has attracted criticism after buying an expensive new home. But shouldn’t the left be concentrating on other things, such as getting into power?
Hasan Piker, AKA Hasan the Hun, AKA “woke bae”, has bought a house. If you’re extremely online then you’ll know exactly what this means and already have a strong opinion about it. If you are a normal, well-adjusted, human being then you will have no idea what I’m talking about. So, in brief: Piker is a 30-year-old dude who has gained a massive following through leftwing political commentary on the streaming service Twitch. Spending several hours a day ranting about politics on the internet hasn’t just earned him more than a million followers, it’s also made him a lot of money: Piker has just bought a $2.7m (£1.9m) house with a swimming pool in West Hollywood. Cue screams of “class traitor” and “hypocrite!”
Piker’s new pad has drawn a lot of criticism from fans who think he has betrayed his socialist values. It has also drawn predictable ire from the rightwing media, who have used the story to try to prove socialists don’t have any values. There is nothing conservatives love more than an opportunity to write a story along the lines of “FRAUD: self-proclaimed socialist buys something!” They seem to think that you can’t possibly critique capitalism if you own any sort of property. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, for example has been criticised by rightwing commentators for owning a nice jacket and a Tesla; Bernie Sanders has been slammed for owning three houses; Patrisse Cullors, a co-founder of Black Lives Matter and self-described Marxist, has been dubbed a hypocrite for buying multiple houses.
