Hasan Piker's low-EQ problem

His recent homophobic rant doesn't need "more context"

As streamer Hasan Piker’s star has rose over the last few months, stans have criticized people who post clips of his rants as being taken “out of context.” You have to watch the full eight-hour streams, we’re told, to really grok the depth of his brilliance.

I’ve largely stayed silent on Piker because I don’t watch the full streams. I wouldn’t watch anyone talk for eight hours, especially not multiple times per week. Anyone who talks that much for a living is going to include so much filler material and irrelevant information that I wouldn’t even know where to begin. Maybe the writer in me just craves more care, more consideration, and a lot more editing, informationally and emotionally.

I agree with the broader sentiment that clips are often manipulative. I’ve seen Piker clips taken out of context. But that assertion flounders with recent complaints about his chosen candidates getting wiped out during Tuesday’s elections. During one moment, he made a completely asinine statement about public transportation before dropping this gem:

It's just fucking rich liberals who just want homo-fascism in the country, that’s it. They want gay fascism. They want gay techno-fascism.

Given he had just invoked San Francisco, it’s likely Piker was referencing his support for centimillionaire Saikat Chakrabarti’s bid to replace Nancy Pelosi in California’s 11th Congressional District. Chakrabarti placed a distant third with 14.9% of the vote to Connie Chan (28.6%) and Scott Wiener (41.3%). Wiener is a prominent gay politician who has long centered his political activism around LGBTQ+ issues.

For someone so supposedly attuned to the cultural temperature, Piker seems incapable of grasping his surroundings. Using long-contested leftist terms as a wink-wink to his audience doesn’t translate to broader audiences, especially when the supposed goal is to win political power.

This rant comes on the heels of recent polling that found support for gay marriage in America has dropped six points in the last three years.

Then there’s the chronic right-wing movement to make gay marriage illegal. An array of state initiatives are in progress, many picking up steam with the Trump administration in power:

• Republican lawmakers have introduced resolutions in Idaho, Michigan, Montana, North Dakota, and South Dakota, calling for the Supreme Court to overturn Obergefell

• In Missouri, Oklahoma, Tennessee, and Texas, Republican legislators have introduced bills to privilege heterosexual marriages, in some cases through a new institution called "covenant marriage," a new legal category reserved for one man and one woman

• On January 28, a coalition of organizations led by Them Before Us launched the “Greater Than” campaign to push the Supreme Court to overturn Obergefell, framed around children’s rights

• A total of 35 states now have amendments or statutes banning same-sex marriage that would likely go into motion is SCOTUS overturned Obergefell

So maybe it’s not the best time to lob homophobic slurs around because you’re mad that your candidates didn’t win. Yet when his words are repeated back to him, here’s how Piker responded:

Call me old school, but I prefer to be influenced by people whose emotional intelligence has evolved from their teenage years—and I’m sure many teenagers have much greater awareness of their social environment than Piker.

Maybe that’s what happens when you spend your days sitting in front of a screen yelling at the text appearing at breakneck speed before your eyes. You think the little bit of knowledge you’ve acquired has bestowed you with outsized intelligence, a common trend in America’s persistent anti-expert ethos.

Then you step out into the real world and realize the limitations of your influence (or not). Instead of grappling with those boundaries, you return to your multi-million dollar den and the safety of the screen.

Probably makes for good content, to those who can stomach it. In the real world, things land a lot differently.

I hope Piker realizes that at some point, because there are many valid critiques of politics and progressive ideas to be mined from his rants. Democrats’ misguided attempts to condemn him and the UK banning him from entry only fuel his pariah status. Status quo politicians should realize Piker is influential—not as much as his fans think, but it’s not nothing.

I just wish that in their quest to find a “Joe Rogan of the left,” the left didn’t pick another Joe Rogan.