Hasan Piker

Hasan Piker is a 33-year-old leftist political streamer with 2.7 million Twitch followers and 1.4 million YouTube subscribers. His channel, which focuses on current events, is intended to counterbalance the influence that online right-wing commentators have had on younger audiences. Piker is known for his socialist perspectives and sharp critiques of American foreign policy — born to Turkish parents in New Jersey, he was raised in Istanbul.

After interning for The Young Turks, a media brand co-founded by his uncle Cenk Uygur, as a college senior in 2013, Piker joined the company in a business role, but ended up hosting and producing a show called The Breakdown, which aimed to make news and politics accessible to a millennial audience. He also became a contributor to the HuffPost and supported Sen. Bernie Sanders’ presidential campaigns in 2016 and 2020.

By 2020, Piker had left TYT and was a full-time Twitch streamer. He made headlines by playing the viral video game Among Us on a stream with Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Ilhan Omar and fellow streamer Pokimane as part of a get-out-the-vote effort, pulling 700,000 viewers. He won a Streamy award that year in the “News” category. Since then, Piker has organized a fundraiser for the victims of the February 2023 Turkey-Syria earthquake that brought in more than $1 million, has advocated against Israel’s bombardment of Gaza, and traveled to Chicago to cover the 2024 Democratic National Convention. Piker won the 2023 Streamer Award for the “Just Chatting” category. — Miles Klee