He previously worked as a
broadcast journalist and
producer at The Young Turks and as a columnist at HuffPost. He streams on
Twitch, where he discusses politics, news, social issues, current events, plays a variety of video games, and discusses controversial topics, often from a
socialist perspective.[3]
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][12]
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.[2][12] The show was nominated for "Best Web Series" at the
10th Shorty Awards in 2018.[13] Piker also contributed political content to HuffPost from 2016 to 2018.[14][15]
Piker created and hosted another TYT series in 2019, Agitprop with Hasan Piker.[16] In January 2020, he announced his departure from TYT and his intention to focus on his career as a Twitch streamer.[17]
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][18][19] He became a popular
left-wing political commentator, invited to appear on
Fox News's The Issue Is and the political podcast Chapo Trap House.[3][20][21] His YouTube channel features highlights of his streams, and in 2022 reached over 1,000,000 subscribers.[22] Piker also streams gameplay and commentary of video games on his Twitch channel.[17][23][24] Sometimes Piker will
role-play as "Hank Pecker", a caricature of a right-wing
redneck.[25][26]
Dispute with Dan Crenshaw and 9/11 comments
During a Twitch stream on August 20, 2019, Piker criticized
U.S. RepresentativeDan Crenshaw, a
SEAL Team 3 veteran who served in
Afghanistan, for his support of
American military interventionism overseas. Piker said of Crenshaw, "What the fuck is wrong with this dude? Didn’t he go to war and like, literally lose his eye because some
mujahideen, a brave fucking soldier, fucked his eye-hole with their dick?"[27][28][29] 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."[29][30] 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." The Young Turks host and Piker's uncle Cenk Uygur called them "very offensive," and invited Piker to appear on TYT to apologize.[31] Piker has defended 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][30][32] Twitch banned Piker for one week due to the comments.[33]
Collaboration with U.S. representatives
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.[17][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]
Coverage of the 2020 U.S. presidential debate
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]
Usage of the word "cracker"
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 since a person using it is "powerless" and "doing it as someone who has been historically oppressed blowing off steam."[46][47] He further contended "cracker" is not a slur in the same way as other racial slurs, 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."[48][49] However, the exact history and etymology of the word is still debated.[50]
Since 2021, Piker has hosted the podcast Fear& (formerly Fear&
Malding) alongside his friend and fellow Twitch streamer,
Will Neff.[63] Streamers
QTCinderella and
AustinShow would later join the podcast as co-hosts in 2023.[64] From September 26, 2021, to October 12, 2023, Piker co-hosted the
left-leaning political podcast Leftovers with co-host
Ethan Klein.[63][65] After an episode on the 2023 Israeli-Hamas war, the show went on permanent hiatus.[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]
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,"[74] 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][77][78][51] Some authors also cite Piker's vulgar, animated style of expression and his physical appearance as notable factors behind his popularity.[74][77]
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][78][79] 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.[80][81] 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.[82][83] 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.[84] At the 2023
Streamer Awards, Piker was nominated for Best Just Chatting Streamer and Streamer of the Year, winning the former.[85][86]
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.[87] In the aftermath, he was criticized by the
Anti-Defamation League for having "justified the atrocities of
October 7" and conducting the interview after "he [...] defended the Houthis' actions, expressed support for terrorism against the State of Israel and shared propaganda from Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ)."[88][needs update]
In August 2021, Piker purchased a $2.7 million house in
West Hollywood,
California.[90] The purchase was criticized online by people who felt that his lavish lifestyle seemed to be in opposition to his views as a socialist.[91][92][93][94] Similar criticism was aired in February 2022 after it emerged that Piker had purchased a
Porsche Taycan.[95] Piker has also been criticized after a large-scale information leak from Twitch, which included the financial earnings of Piker among many other streamers. He responded by stating that his earnings have always been transparent, as his subscriber count has continuously been prominently displayed on screen.[96]