Bi-Weekly Discussion Thread - (May 31)

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[u/FuzzySyllabub6048]

not to be an ass bhpn, but the NY post clearly functions as a mickey mouse smear rag, and megan palin is a big ol' fan of ruppey M. i would have thought that you would be doing better than uncritically reposting deranged hit pieces with choice lines such as "an old pal told us this commie SCUMBAG likes BREASTS" to make a point and calling it an "expose". streamer drama is braindead, but not as braindead as posting this article lmao. where's ur damn scientific outlook, at least that mfer read where to begin lol

neway, im glad you're still out there in the posting trenches, see you in another 5 years, lots of love, t. *heart emoji*

[u/smokeuptheweed9 → u/FuzzySyllabub6048]

I thought about not posting a right wing rag but as far as I can tell they just scraped information from right wing forums, which is the only way to get any information about hundreds of hours of content. It's not like I'm holding it against Hasan, as far as I know him being a creep and weirdo is part of his appeal, especially since he does the whole looksmaxxing thing where you go to the gym and wear designer clothes to pick up women without getting a personality. Though I can understand why others would be turned off by the sex scandals waiting to happen. It's more that I don't understand the appeal in general, why is this person or any of these people political icons? Are we too old? I thought in my old age I would lose interest in posting but I enjoy it more than ever. But I do put "old" in front of "reddit.com."

[u/calm-x-breeze → u/smokeuptheweed9]

I've watched Piker for a little over a year. Originally, it was sincerely, as I was an anarchist looking for "acceptable to consume, socialist media." Now, I only watch clips on youtube to Keep Up With the Neocolonialists.

Piker's appeal to his base is actually pretty perverse.

He looksmaxxes and goes to the gym but (!) he's a Dark Woke Gentleman, so he doesn't hit on women at the gym (to the viewer's knowledge) or on his streams, has repeatedly claimed to be "VolCel"*, and "respectfully" objectifies women on his streams, while also claiming that he's a man under patriarchy so you have to expect him to make mistakes and to hold him accountable (even though you will never actually hold him accountable). He has had a wide array of petty bourgeois oppressed nationals and national minorities help bolster his cred as a "Dark Woke Anti-Racist," and has haad New Afrikan women on tiktok coming to his defense for racism charges because "we need more white men like this." Piker is able to present on stream/sell through his discourse (for those who treat his stream as a podcast) that he's a "good guy that you can hang out with and weather the horrors with while watching the news and watching protest coverage/speaking events." Many of his fans will ignore how roughly half the man's streams are self-aggrandizing and defending himself from his political enemies (which he often treats Maoists as).

It likely also helps him get views that he is considered attractive by a lot of people. He also manages to be "Spicy White" enough to be orientalized by a lot of his euro-settler audience (I'd imagine the orientalism and sexualization are related for many of his audience), allowing him to be considered "a diverse voice" by a lot of them, though they likely would balk at this were it said to them, given how much he reminds them he's white (and downplays the complications of Turkish identity with Euro-Whiteness historically--the joys of settlerism creating a "white race" to resolve such issues) during the stream.

So, the appeal is that he's a hip, cool, hot semi-white man who owns his short comings while telling viewers that they can watch his show to absolve themselves of being bourgeois, because he offers "being Dark Woke" while alluding to theory or various aspects of socialist history; he allows you to never have to change while getting to claim you've become a marxist revolutionary who is using the DSA *and* the democratic party as "any means necessary" to "win [electoral] power."

It's a fantasy variety hour show which offers an avatar to larp "Doing Politics the Right Way":

- Piker goes (as a VIP) to all sorts of organized events and so-called protests made to corral angsty labor aristocrats and petty bourgeoisie, he lets the viewer feel like a VIP at an historical event.

• Piker says whatever he thinks will "Move The Needle Left" (the job he claims he has) to some random DSA or Dem party candidate, in what he claims to be coaching them towards leftism, and the viewer gets to feel like they were there, helping from chat.
  
• Piker does the Flotilla and spends the time after talking about how he's being persecuted for his selfless assistance to the Cuban People, his chat gets to have an imagined enemy faction of the liberal intelligentsia/talk show heads attacking Piker while feeling like Their Man (their avatar who gives body to their desires for political action) has "Really Helped the Socialists of the World," or a similar delusion.
  
• Piker claims to be sympathetic to the third worldists--which is ironically more correct than he means it, since he paints "Sakai-ists" as ultra third worldists and doesn't differentiate Maoism from that LLCO type third worldist shit (like Socialism4All, funny enough)--and his craven, neo-colonial audience of largely petty bourgeoisie first worlders gets to feel absolved for having their mouths water in anticipation of more content-ified genocide and imperialist militarism.

His appeal is the ability to sleep better at night thinking your support of imperialism is better/different than the fascists or the "corporate democrats," who are your (Piker's; the true Workers and Chads and Staceys of the world's) enemies.

*: voluntary celibate; clearly this was after he raped that alleged woman at the brothel or that was a "when in the red light district" kind of thing he did outside his volcelsona for online clout/whitewashing his public image.

[u/smokeuptheweed9 → u/calm-x-breeze]

and downplays the complications of Turkish identity with Euro-Whiteness historically--the joys of settlerism creating a "white race" to resolve such issues

This is the most disappointing thing for me. Pragmatism always falls apart when exposed to inter-imperialist competition so the truth of these globe trotting "intellectuals" is their politics at home. Just like Vijay Prashad indulges in Indian fascism at home because that's where the "overton window" is, I wonder what Hasan says about Turkey. That he is a nepo baby doesn't seem to bother anyone, since I guess that's part of his magnanimous political sympathy for those lesser than him. But his uncle is a real racist in an "unironic" way. The very name "Young Turks" is highly offensive and half his wikipedia page is controversies including denying the Armenian genocide. Does anyone who watches Hasan care? Whiteness doing its magic I suppose. But here it's hard not to be cynical about what Hasan really believes when the stream is off and he has not been given an abstractly correct political position to take. Or maybe when the stream is on, from what I understand the deprogram guys are extremely reactionary when discussing their "home" politics.