Bonus Sample: “Joe Rogan of The Left” Glazes China

Conspirituality

Derek Beres, Matthew Remski, Julian Walker

Social Sciences, Society & Culture, Philosophy, Science

4.2 • 2K Ratings

🗓️ 8 December 2025

⏱️ 5 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Listen to the full episode here Hasan Piker just spent two weeks in The People’s Republic of China. The famous streamer is often invoked as being a potential “Joe Rogan of The Left,” who might bring young voters, especially working class men, back into the Democratic Party. But Piker’s livestreams from China raise controversial questions. Is he whitewashing Chinese human rights abuses? Was he paid by their government to propagandize his combined 5 million viewers? How else to explain first-class plane tickets, ultra-luxury hotel rooms, privileged access to forbidden Western social media, and carefully avoiding criticisms of the authoritarian state while waxing poetic about their country and Mao Zedong? Julian digs into Piker’s politics in the context of China’s tumultuous history. First stop: Tiananmen Square. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	I've already become Chinese in my heart, in my soul, in my mind, in my conscience.
0:07.6	I have already become Chinese. We were already white Chinese in this chat. I've already become
0:11.7	full Chinese. It's fucking sick. Like you have abundance style consumption paired up with a
0:18.0	centrally controlled economy and economic system that has yielded tremendous development
0:22.4	1950s Soviet era building blocks next to the Gucci store. If there was ever a country that
0:28.2	represented, things that I enjoy so much personally. If ever such a country existed, I do not know.
0:32.2	And that was hugely popular Twitch and YouTube personality and prominent leftist political
0:37.1	commentator, Hassan Piker,
0:39.1	who livestreamed his two-week trip to China last month and a whole lot of controversy ensued.
0:44.7	Was Hassan whitewashing Chinese authoritarianism and human rights abuses?
0:49.3	Was he being paid to do propaganda for the Chinese Communist Party to his almost 5 million
0:53.8	combined followers.
0:55.5	How are we to think about him as a potential Joe Rogan of the left in light of all of this
1:00.8	and what does that even mean? But first, there's a striking piece of footage that was viewed
1:07.2	around the world in 1989. Perhaps you're familiar with it. An ominous line of 18 tanks is rolling slowly down a wide and empty street in the morning
1:15.7	haze. Then, a solitary man calmly walks into the frame. He's in dark trousers and a white
1:22.2	shirt. He appears to be carrying shopping bags like he's on his way home from the grocery.
1:27.2	He stops and stands
1:28.8	quietly in front of the first tank. The tank grinds to a halt and then tries to do a little
1:34.4	maneuver to go around him, but the man neatly steps to the side to again block the enormous
1:39.2	metal military vehicles passage. After doing this dance a couple more times, the man puts his two shopping
1:45.4	bags into one hand and steps forward to climb up onto the tank. He inspects the outside,
	...

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