Twitch to politics: Hasan Piker on Gaza and the US right-wing
The Take
Al Jazeera
4.7 • 748 Ratings
🗓️ 19 August 2025
⏱️ 25 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
With nearly three million Twitch followers, Hasan Piker is one of the internet’s biggest political streamers. He blends humor, culture, and masculinity talk with sharp political commentary, drawing young men away from the US alt-right. And on Gaza, he has become one of the loudest US voices for Palestine.
In this episode:
- Hasan Piker (@hasanthehun), Online Streamer & Political Commentator
Episode credits:
This episode was produced by Tracie Hunte, Sonia Bhagat, and Chloe K. Li with Phillip Lanos, Spencer Cline, Melanie Marich, Julia Muldavin, Kisaa Zehra, Farhan Rafid, and our host, Malika Bilal. It was edited by Sarí el-Khalili.
Our sound designer is Alex Roldan. Our video editors are Hisham Abu Salah and Mohannad al-Melhem. Alexandra Locke is The Take’s executive producer. Ney Alvarez is Al Jazeera’s head of audio.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Al Jazeera Podcasts. |
| 0:07.0 | Today, the online streamer speaking out on Gaza and the alt-right pipeline. |
| 0:16.0 | I want to make America a better place. I want America to truly achieve its potential that I know it has, |
| 0:22.9 | that I believed it had when I first moved here when I was 18 years old. |
| 0:27.9 | So I just keep pushing. |
| 0:30.4 | Who is Hassan Piker? |
| 0:32.3 | And why is he making waves? |
| 0:36.1 | I'm Malika Bilal and this is The Take. |
| 0:45.3 | My name is Hassan Doan Piker or Hassan Doan Piquet. |
| 0:51.3 | I am a Turkish-American political commentator, and I talk about politics on Twitch at |
| 0:57.1 | Twitch.tv.tv slash Hassanabi, and I have my live streams rebroadcast to the YouTube in shorter |
| 1:05.1 | formats at Hassan D. Piker on YouTube. |
| 1:09.6 | Hassan, welcome to The Take. It is really good to have you here. |
| 1:13.1 | So on paper, you present as the kind of guy that the internet might slot into the right-wing |
| 1:20.5 | gym bro category, eight hours of live streaming on Twitch, gaming marathons, intense workout routines, creatine tubs, adoration by legions of mostly young men. |
| 1:33.6 | But there is a plot twist. |
| 1:36.6 | How do you describe who you are and what you do? |
| 1:40.2 | I describe what I do as just straightforward news commentary or walking people through the journey of understanding the world, going through the experience of consuming news media. |
| 1:56.4 | I am very progressive. I'm not shy about calling myself a socialist. And so I guess on that front, |
| 2:05.5 | despite the way I look, the things that I believe and the things that I'm saying, I guess, |
| 2:11.2 | don't correspond to the stereotypical bro type person. But my goal is to hopefully change that, to show the world that, |
| 2:20.5 | yeah, no, I mean, there are guys out there who like to work out, who enjoy these things, |
... |
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