Hasan Piker Works for Billionaires (NOT CLICKBAIT)

Hasan Piker, arguably the most influential socialist in America, is repped by a billionaire-funded global private equity firm.

I don’t write this to drag Hasan. I’m simply sharing to demonstrate how everything, even its most vocal critics, are eventually co-opted by capitalism.

Yes, Hasan Piker is represented by WME, a holding company for talent and media agencies owned by Silver Lake, an investment group with $110 billion under management.

Hasan has been instrumental in spreading common sense, leftist ideas to younger people. I’m a fan and have no issue with him or his rhetoric.

But no one’s talking about this so I’m adding it to the National Conversation. Hear ye, hear ye: the country’s leading socialist is in bed with the 12th largest private equity firm in the world.

It’s not just him though. Most of your favorite socialist artists are corporate-backed, which leads me to ask:

How subversive can someone be if they’re actively being supported by the very system they’re trying to dismantle?

Champagne socialists are attempting to make a broken system slightly more bearable. This is a fool’s errand because the definition of broken is that it can’t be fixed. And this is why the ruling class has no problem with Hasan doing what he does.

Even though everything Hasan says is right, it doesn’t matter to the ruling class. He appears on their channels, goes to their parties and is represented by their companies. What he produces benefits them more than it hurts them. 

Any truly subversive actor or organization will exist outside the lavish spectacle of the ruling class. 

Hasan Piker doesn’t need to be repped by WME, but he chooses to be because the alternative is much harder: creating his own infrastructure to run his media empire. 

That’s organizing. Community-building. That’s giving jobs to working-class people in a socialist environment. That would be subversive.  

Hasan doesn’t do that. Instead, he outsources his own campaign against capitalism…to capitalists.

And they happily amplify the voice of this hot, charismatic, anti-authoritarian figure because he’s just a single voice in a vortex of noise. Why would they feel threatened by another person shouting into the void, offering nothing but vague platitudes as a solution?

The real harm reduction would be changing the means of production *drops mic*.

When I was 16 years old, I attended the bat mitzvah of a distant cousin.

I had just adopted the anger that comes with finding out much of the mass suffering happening in the world is completely unnecessary.

So when I encountered my coolest lesbian aunt at this bat mitzvah, I was sure she would encourage me in my newfound anti-capitalist agenda.

I approached her with my semi-rehearsed rant about how everything’s rigged and to my surprise, she just scoffed at me, accusing me of being a complainer with no alternative solution.

And she was right. 

So for the next 15 years, I pondered and stewed and went about my life, eventually growing tired of observing all the ways capitalism lets us down.

“Yes, it’s not a good. And…?” My aunt’s voice echoed in my subconscious as I endured the day-to-day grind of late stage capitalism.  

Inequality, racism, war, Obama, Bernie. By the time I was in my late 20’s, it all started to feel like a circus. A distraction. A never-ending parade of bullshit to dazzle us while the ruling class pushes the boot down harder on our necks.

I began to realize there’s no way out through shouting or electoral politics. And in fact, those things deplete the energy necessary for actual change more than they help.

The only way out is to literally opt out and live differently. 

I began to think about what people weren’t talking about

I figured whatever wasn’t part of the national conversation was excluded because it truly threatens the status quo.

Outside of the noise, exist the answers.

The power of community, rest, and the futility of trying to make something inherently evil good.

The biggest threat to capital isn’t a handsome streamer posing for Vanity Fair.

It’s normal people consciously resting from their imposed labor and coming together in community.

When you do that, you realize, in your bones, the futility of trying to fix something that doesn’t want to be fixed. 

When you finally give yourself enough time to relax into yourself, you realize everything is fine by default and the ruling class manufactures problems to control us. 

And then the only reasonable course of action is to start building something outside capitalism. 

A break up with capitalism

We’re all angry. We were fed lies by the people who were supposed to take care of us. We’ve watched love ones suffer chronic pain and mental anguish needlessly. 

Ranting about it feels good in the moment but when you’re done, you’re a little bit older, a little bit more bitter and nothing’s changed. 

So I propose we take that energy and put it into collective action. 

I propose we break up with capitalism. 

And as in any break up, you win it not by degrading your ex. You win it by leaving them behind and living your best life. 

Our ex won’t change and the more we accept that, the quicker we can move on.

Shouting into the void is playing into the capitalists’ hand

They want us hoarse so we eventually lose our voice.

They want to enrich the loudest ones so that they become sedated with material comfort. 

The one thing they don’t want us to live together, outside their reach. 

Anger is fuel. 

Thank you, cool lesbian aunt, for teaching me that there’s talking shit and there’s doing shit.

And now I’m done talking.