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- [00:02]
Hasan Piker
You're listening to DraftKings Network.
- [00:11]
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- [00:41]
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- [01:27]
Host of South Beach Sessions
Hello and welcome to South Beach Sessions. I'm excited about this. I want to see how this mind works. This is an interesting story right here. You don't see a lot like it. Hasan Piker is one of the strongest progressive voices you will find in an increasingly conservative online world. You can follow him YouTube and Twitch. Hasan Abi, thank you for being on with us, sir.
- [01:50]
Hasan Piker
Thank you for having me. This is very exciting.
- [01:52]
Host of South Beach Sessions
Yes. You don't know anything about sports.
- [01:54]
Hasan Piker
No, I don't. Self. Admittedly, I. My interest in sports begins and ends and exclusively revolves around LeBron James and defending LeBron James honor and talking about LeBron James in general.
- [02:06]
Host of South Beach Sessions
Same. Same.
- [02:07]
Hasan Piker
Really? Okay, we're great. But like, I am open and unashamed about the fact that I very rarely watch even basketball. I play basketball all the time. I play it, you know, weekly, but I don't watch professional sports at all weekly.
- [02:21]
Host of South Beach Sessions
W E E K L Y. Not W E a K L Y. Right. I imagine in the post you're talking.
- [02:30]
Hasan Piker
Yeah, No, I don't play in a weak way. No. I mean, I do have, like. People call me the Turkish Jokic, but.
- [02:37]
Host of South Beach Sessions
But, you know, they call you the.
- [02:39]
Hasan Piker
Turkish Jokic because I'm slow and also have a weird shot. But it goes in and that's what matters, I think.
- [02:47]
Host of South Beach Sessions
I imagine you would need to blow off some steam. I don't understand how you live or how you work. It seems like it would be exhausting and it also seems like you love it. Are both of those things true?
- [02:59]
Hasan Piker
Yes, for sure. I mean, it's definitely exhausting. I stream every single day from 11am Pacific Time to usually around 7 8pm Pacific Time, and that's seven days a week. So it's certainly exhausting, especially because, like, I'm doing talk radio for eight hours. I'm trying to entertain people for eight hours. I yap a lot. But it is very fulfilling, which is precisely the reason why I don't take it for granted. I say I talk about how privileged I am all the time, and I don't mind doing it because at the end of the day, I have this freedom. If I didn't want to do this, I wouldn't have to. I was just talking about this with my dad, who's visiting from Turkey, staying with me this morning, where I was like, I don't have to wake up at 7am every day. I do because I want to. But the freedom of not having to do that is tremendous. It's really important.
- [03:56]
Host of South Beach Sessions
I would imagine, though, that there's an addictive quality to what it is, too. If it's eight hours a day and seven days a week, you don't have to do it like that.
- [04:04]
Hasan Piker
Absolutely. There's definitely an addictive quality to it. Was that mine or yours?
- [04:09]
Host of South Beach Sessions
That was yours. That's a $5 fine. You're gonna have to pay.
- [04:11]
Hasan Piker
Okay. No, my. My dad is right. As I was talking, my dad has just been, like, aggressively calling me, and I don't know why, and I don't know why it's ringing. This has never happened in my entire life. I don't know what the hell's going on.
- [04:25]
Host of South Beach Sessions
It's important that you should take that.
- [04:27]
Hasan Piker
No, no, it's fine. It's a FaceTime. Family FaceTime. It's just annoying because I got a new phone, and I think the new phone does not.
- [04:37]
Host of South Beach Sessions
Do you need a minute?
- [04:38]
Hasan Piker
No, no, I'm good. I put it on. Do not disturb. My family loves having family talk. They love calling every morning and then having, like, a big FaceTime discussion.
- [04:51]
Host of South Beach Sessions
And you don't.
- [04:52]
Hasan Piker
And. Well, I don't mind it usually, but I have a very limited time frame that I can have these sorts of talks, and then sometimes they catch me while I'm on a podcast, and it's.
- [05:01]
Host of South Beach Sessions
Very embarrassing, but don't worry about it. Your life, though, does seem crazy.
- [05:06]
Hasan Piker
Yeah.
- [05:06]
Host of South Beach Sessions
And why is it that it has to be seven days a week? Why is it that it has to be eight hours a day? You have to stay ahead of people. Correct?
- [05:14]
Hasan Piker
Yeah. I mean it's like a, it's a one stop shop, it's a one man media operation. So I, there's so much to talk about and when I'm not talking about stuff, there's, you know, I'm playing games and things like that and doing fun, different kinds of fun content, like collaborating with other content creators. And I feel like that also serves a separate purpose. So it is addictive for sure. But I think I wouldn't be able to do this if I didn't have a moral compass guiding me. I would not be able to do this if I did not feel as though what I'm doing mattered to a certain degree. And it gave me emotional fulfillment, inspiration, I would imagine.
- [05:54]
Host of South Beach Sessions
Right?
- [05:55]
Hasan Piker
Yeah.
- [05:56]
Host of South Beach Sessions
Can you tell me the backstory? How did all of this happen? How did the professional part of it happen? We'll get into your family life, the immigrant mentality and where it is the work and the drive comes from. But the professional part of it, how did it start?
- [06:12]
Hasan Piker
I guess well, one, I was always political, I was always interested in politics growing up in Turkey, so that's a big part of that. But then, then I started working on my uncle's, at my uncle's startup called the Young Turks, 26 person media company at the time as a YouTube channel and had a bunch of other smaller YouTube channels underneath that umbrella. I interned with him. And then I wanted to live in LA and I had no job prospects. I lied to my family saying that I was gonna take the LSAT and go to college and maybe even go to UCLA Law, you know, and that was a lie. I was not interested in that at all. I just wanted to come to LA because I wanted to leave New Jersey, which is I think fairly reasonable. So I came out here. I worked for the Young Turks for years and in that process, I initially started off on the sales side. They didn't have any sort of like internal sales division, so I basically built that. I built the client list, I did the cold calling, I did all of our advertisement operations at the time at the Young Turks. But the, but the whole time I was like, I want to do on camera stuff. So I would just like slot myself in wherever I could. And it's a startup, so that was. There was an allowance there for me to be able to do so. And yeah, I started doing like the culture stuff, the media stuff. Whenever like a guest host wasn't there, I would just fill in last second. And I was so bad, I was so Bad on camera. It was crazy. But I knew that I would just have to constantly train myself and constantly keep going until I would inevitably get better. And now I can't shut up. So I guess to a certain degree it worked out. But I was doing that at the Young Turks and at the Young Turks. In that process I figured out like, I need to have something for myself and I also need to. I'm a gamer. The market at the time for gaming and commentary was heavily dominated by the right wing, which is not dissimilar to what it looks like right now. But I wanted to show that it wasn't just like woke SJWs. Like the left was much larger than this. It was a diverse umbrella of people who are progressive minded but can also have fun. Because I think that the right had so successfully undermined the optics of the left in general by constantly presenting them as woke rad libs who never enjoy themselves, who don't wanna have any fun, who are very censorious and yada yada yada. And to be fair, like that's how the right is as well and that's how they've always been. And there was some truth to that in general. But I think that it was so successful as a mechanism of pushback, is so successful as propaganda that a lot of young men responded to that. And I wanted to tackle that. I wanted to penetrate that and I wanted to show people like, no, you can have progressive politics and still have fun. This is ridiculous. And all these guys that are actually pointing the finger at blame of the left and saying that they're annoying and woke scolds are actually just neck bearded losers themselves. And they also are hysterical quite frequently. And that's how I got on Twitch.
- [09:29]
Host of South Beach Sessions
How long did the lie last with your parents before they realized that you weren't here for the reasons you said you weren't?
- [09:38]
Hasan Piker
I think they kind of gave up on me, so that was fine. I think I'll just say it like this. Every phone conversation that I had with my dad when I was working at the Young Turks, and until I would say 20, 21, every phone conversation was, when are you gonna get a PhD? What are you doing? When are you gonna get higher education? You have to get higher education.
- [10:02]
Host of South Beach Sessions
Your father's a scientist, Your mother's a professor, right?
- [10:04]
Hasan Piker
My mother's a professor. My father's a professor as well. He's not a scientist. He is. Cause I don't think, you know, being an economist is a real science. They both have PhDs, but yeah, that's basically what it is. They're both.
- [10:20]
Host of South Beach Sessions
But are you now a liar and a failure? Like, are you when you're lying and you're not doing what the immigrant family wants for you, which is. Choose a safe path, kid. Choose one of the structural paths. An architect, a lawyer, a doctor. One of the safe paths.
- [10:39]
Hasan Piker
We call it the golden bracelet. Golden bracelet. Engineer, doctor, lawyer, and lawyer is like the worst one out of the two. It's like three. You gotta go either engineer or doctor. My brother's an engineer. So they were. I wouldn't. I mean, they love me. They're very supportive. They were not ashamed, I don't think. Or if they were, they were hiding it very well. But.
- [11:02]
Host of South Beach Sessions
Well, they weren't approving either though, right?
- [11:03]
Hasan Piker
No, but it was a gentle nudge in the direction of getting a PhD. Every single time we had a conversation it was like, come on, come on, cut it with the shit, cut it out. This is done, right? Like it's over.
- [11:17]
Host of South Beach Sessions
And now what?
- [11:19]
Hasan Piker
I think, I don't know the exact moment when it changed, but I think like once I started showcasing that I was financially stable, they were like, okay, this worked out, it's fine. Cause I went full time in 2020 and you know, you got all these articles coming out. I was actually financially stable and very successful in the last election cycle in 2020. So I think that's when they were like, okay, this is a serious job. I think. I mean it's volatile, it's scary, but it has the fix ins of what looks like a profession. So I think that's what it was.
- [11:54]
Host of South Beach Sessions
Where does the work ethic come from?
- [11:59]
Hasan Piker
I don't know. That's actually a really interesting question because I don't think I've ever thought about that and I don't think I've ever answered that. But I've always been a very stubborn guy growing up and I always felt like I had so much more that I could achieve. And so I would spend all of my time trying to self improve, all of my time trying to improve myself, like day in, day out. Cause I'm not, I'm not a naturally gifted person. There are a lot of people who are. There's a lot of fantastic, charismatic individuals who are just like. You can tell, they just, it just clicks. You tell them to tackle a task they've never encountered before and then they just can do it. I'm not like that. I'm like the ugly duckling or you know, just uncoordinated and without tact.
- [12:48]
Host of South Beach Sessions
Wow. If you believe that then. Then it must be your work ethic that carries you.
- [12:52]
Hasan Piker
Oh, no, for sure.
- [12:53]
Host of South Beach Sessions
And how could you not know where it comes from? Like how the roots of it? Like, if your parents are professors, there's a. There's a life of discipline and education in there somewhere.
- [13:03]
Hasan Piker
No, no, they were, they were very open minded. When I was growing up, I think they were very, like. They kind of let me do my own thing. And I spent most of my childhood and high school years, almost entire, almost the entirety of it, drawing. I was obsessed with drawing. I would just draw video game characters and anime things like that. That's all I did. And it's interesting cause I never do that anymore now because my dad was like, you gotta cut this shit out. You have to. You're not gonna be an artist. What are you doing? You're not gonna make any money if you do that. Which is ironic because I. I think that paired up with my first freshman, like visual two dimensional visual design class made me realize I can't do this. The art stuff is crazy.
- [13:55]
Host of South Beach Sessions
Would you identify as a creative?
- [13:58]
Hasan Piker
I didn't even think about it like that. I just. That's all I cared about was drawing. Every class I would just sit there and draw. I wouldn't even listen to what the teacher was saying. I wouldn't take notes. I would just draw nonstop. And I stopped in college. And I mean, I draw every now and then, but like, it's just. I think the creative bones have stayed in me and it helps with the other things that I do, but it's definitely not there in the forefront as it once was. Why am I bringing that up? I'm bringing that up because I think I just have an obsessive nature. Very stubborn. Some people might say it's autism, I don't know, maybe. But that's what it is. There's a constant want inside of me that I have never really examined. Where I always want to do more. I always want to be better than who I was the day prior. And that's been the case since I was a kid.
- [14:56]
Host of South Beach Sessions
Do you reach your standard? Like, is it perpetually fulfilling or are you hard on yourself and not reaching your standard and then pushing yourself to be better the next day, which would then of course get in the way of how fulfilling any of that is or whether that hole actually gets filled?
- [15:12]
Hasan Piker
It depends. I think that a lot of people from the house, I would say you're very hard on yourself.
- [15:17]
Host of South Beach Sessions
I say it because I can relate. By the way, I say, like, it's been Something that I've done for a while that I'm trying to consciously alter. But I'm a lot older than you are. I don't run into a whole lot of successful people who don't have some of that in them and don't sometimes forget to enjoy it while they're having it.
- [15:37]
Hasan Piker
Yeah, I don't. I wouldn't say I'm too hard on myself necessarily cuz like I, I understand that it takes time. Like, I understand that change requires like hard work, is not going to happen overnight. So I feel like that is the reason why I'm not super hard on myself because I'm very happy with what I've achieved. It's not like I'm like, oh, I'm such a loser. Like I need to, to get better. Whether it be playing basketball and like trying to dunk again. Right. Or whether it be working out physical fitness, trying to hit certain PRs, like trying to achieve the, the same like physical prowess that I demonstrated when I was 26 at the age of 33, maybe 34 in the future. All of that stuff, I am aware, takes a lot to accomplish. And so I take the gains that I make in the short term and I don't take it for granted. That keeps me very motivated and very happy. So I don't think I'm too harsh on myself.
- [16:49]
Host of South Beach Sessions
Were you bullied as a kid?
- [16:51]
Hasan Piker
Oh yeah. Oh yeah.
- [16:53]
Host of South Beach Sessions
What did that look like?
- [16:56]
Hasan Piker
I mean, Turkish bullying is different. It was pretty violent, you know, pylons just beating the shit out of someone, you know. I also was the rich kid because my family initially is very affluent for Turkey and my father lost all of his money by the time I got to college. But that's besides the point. But in that process they took me out of private school in third grade and sent me to public school. And Turkish public schools are, you know, that's like the Turkish income inequality is something is very different than even American income inequality. Even though America is now more America is now resembling Turkey a little bit the Gini coefficiency. But I would say that that wealth disparity was so severe, that means that someone like myself going to public school in Turkey was almost controversial at the time, at least for middle school, because public schools, when you go to high school and college are the best schools in Turkey because we have a nationalized education system. But in middle school it was like, I guess, unique. And I got, I had this kid who followed me home with a knife and I remember negotiating with him throughout the entire process. And I Just, like, walking backwards because he didn't know where I lived. And just because I used to walk home from the school and walking, walking, walking. And then luckily, because I was so late that my mom was outside already and she was screaming. She didn't even see the kid had a knife. But it was, like, a somewhat traumatic experience for me. But it was also kind of a funny experience because I guess that was some kind of. Some. That was a little bit like bullying, if you think about it.
- [18:45]
Host of South Beach Sessions
No. Somebody chasing you home with a knife. That qualifies.
- [18:49]
Hasan Piker
Yeah, I think it's, like, a little bit extra than bullying, but. But yeah. The next day, the principal, in front of the entire school reprimanded him and, like, pulled his ear and, like, kind of beat his ass in front of everybody. He was crying and he was forced to apologize to me for. For almost killing me with a knife and, you know, follow me home. But, you know, I've had experiences like that, and then also experiences for being, like, a little different, too, for sure. Or being fat, being unathletic, being someone who's interested in nerdy stuff, like, interested in American culture rather than the normal stuff that everyone else was interested in. Having said that, I also had normal hobbies as well. I played a lot of Dota, which is a MOBA game. It's the first ever one that was ever created. Defense of the Ancients. That was very popular amongst my classmates.
- [19:46]
Host of South Beach Sessions
Is it a long period of fear here? Like, what are we talking about if a child is getting bullied and a child is just eager to fit in, doesn't want to be noticed too much? What are we talking about? Like, how much fear is in your daily life as you're growing up, and how long does it last?
- [20:06]
Hasan Piker
I. I mean, it wasn't like. I mean, I don't know. I wasn't, like, afraid to go to school or anything. I mean, I didn't like it. I didn't quite like it, but I think that's probably why I dove too much into just, like, doing art in general. But I did have some close friends. It's a different thing. It's different in Turkey. There's, like, they don't have the same cliques in Turkey in high school, or at least they didn't when I went there, or at least the high school I went to didn't have. But, you know, I was best friends with one of the. I mean, one of the best basketball players in the school team. Right. And he also would draw a lot. So we were just like. We Would hang out all the time. We lived close to one another, so it wasn't like there wasn't, like, a concept of, like, cool kids. But I also was getting bullied at the same time by, like, other random bullies, but they weren't the cool kids, if that makes sense. Like, it's just. It's a weird dynamic. But I just kind of kept to myself for that reason. I just, you know, drew and did what I wanted to do kind of, like now.
- [21:13]
Host of South Beach Sessions
How did you grow out of it, though? Like, where. When did. When did you start to blossom?
- [21:19]
Hasan Piker
Definitely college, because it gave me an opportunity. I think when I was younger, I would do this every. Every summer break. I was like, I'm gonna reinvent myself. Because, like, there was. There was so much that I desired that I was not achieving. I'm gonna reinvent myself. I'm gonna be cool when I come back from summer break. And then I think college was when I was actually able to do that that summer. I lost a lot of weight. And also, I went to Miami, University of Miami. And all of a sudden, I was an international student that was coming in with a bunch of other scared international students into this, like, new environment. So everyone is trying to figure out where they are in this space. And for me, I think that was an opportunity where I wasn't. I was no longer, like, a weird person that was sticking out because everyone else was weird. Everyone else coming to college. It's like a totally new. A complete reset. And I think that's when I started growing into my more social personality for sure.
- [22:24]
Host of South Beach Sessions
How much culture shock was there?
- [22:26]
Hasan Piker
Not that much, because I grew up. And this is kind of embarrassing to admit, but I grew up with one dream and one dream only. It was to go to college in America. That's it. Like, I didn't. I did not even think about, like, what my profession would look like. That was my only goal. I wanted to go to college in America. I wanted to live in America. I wanted to leave Turkey, and I wanted to live in America and go to college here.
- [22:47]
Host of South Beach Sessions
You almost did. You went to Miami. You almost got to America.
- [22:52]
Hasan Piker
Yeah, well, I did. You're right. It was close.
- [22:57]
Host of South Beach Sessions
But Miami's a great place for international. For. I'm going to get diverse America. I'm not gonna be in Wyoming.
- [23:06]
Hasan Piker
Oh, yeah. I wasn't even thinking about that. I would have loved Wyoming at that point. I didn't care. Cause, like, when you come from other countries, I have friends that still do this when they visit me from France, even. And it's not like France is a developing nation. They get so excited to go to like Trader Joe's and stuff. Like when you're not. When you're outside of the United States of America and you come to the U.S. you're like, there are so many things that we all take for granted that for a foreigner is like insane. Trader Joe's is like an insane experience for the average person. CVS is an insane experience for the average person, myself included. Like, I, I still enjoy going and shopping.
- [23:42]
Host of South Beach Sessions
Your only dream was get to college in America because what, because you were.
- [23:46]
Hasan Piker
Just the land of the free. I was like, this is gonna be so sweet. I just, once I make it there, everything will be good. I just believed in the American dream. I think, like, I love the freedoms. I love that it did not resemble a socially repressive country in comparison to Turkey at the time that was transitioning with, under Recep Tayyip Erdogan, very similar figure to Trump. So for me it was like a dream. It was so much prosperity. 32 different brands of Oreos that you could pick from, right? Like all this stuff and great television and all of that played a major role in me wanting to come to America.
- [24:29]
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- [25:35]
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- [26:51]
Host of South Beach Sessions
You start developing your voice?
- [26:54]
Hasan Piker
Developing my voice? I guess I was always even without being on camera, I still was a yapper. I would talk to my friends about this stuff all the time. Interestingly enough, I think for me what was hard was to basically take my personality and the way I operate off camera and become comfortable enough on camera that I can be exactly like that on camera. And we're there now, but this is this conversation that we're having would not be different whether the cameras are on or off. Like I would just this is exactly how I am.
- [27:30]
Host of South Beach Sessions
But are you a one man operation? Like what? So you have people who are helping you with publicity and whatnot, but when you're doing what you're doing, it's you with a thousand tabs going straight ahead. Do you have trouble sleeping? Because I would just imagine that your mind is working all of the time.
- [27:49]
Hasan Piker
Yes and no. I feel like I sleep like a baby. Like I don't have an issue going to bed, I just knock out. But I will wake up, take a piss at 5am every morning. And when I do, I notice myself arguing with commonly held perspectives. When I wake up in that moment where I'm like, oh fuck, what am I doing? But sometimes I'll be like, that's a great argument. I gotta remember that.
- [28:16]
Miller Lite Advertiser
That.
- [28:16]
Host of South Beach Sessions
So upon waking, your first morning meditation when I'm asking you can you get your mind to stop? Is to argue with commonly held beliefs as you shuffle to the bathroom.
- [28:28]
Hasan Piker
Yes, 100%.
- [28:30]
Host of South Beach Sessions
Because I would imagine your mind doesn't. I don't know whether you do meditation or breath work or any of that stuff, but I imagine it's a bit of a fishing reel.
- [28:38]
Hasan Piker
That it's, it never stops. No, it's definitely always going for sure.
- [28:43]
Host of South Beach Sessions
And you like that or would you like to steal it some?
- [28:46]
Hasan Piker
I like it. But I also do shut it off. And the way I shut it off is by mindless television consumption. Like I watch a lot of anime and I play a lot of video games. Like that's how I shut it off, where I don't think about anything. And that is my hyper fixation for the moment. Like a TV show that I'm watching that I want to catch up on or a video game that I'm playing. So in the brief hours, the three hours, four hours that I'm awake, when I'm not in front of a camera, that's what I do. Or I play basketball.
- [29:19]
Host of South Beach Sessions
One of the reasons I'm fascinated by you and your ilk in a new media age is because from where I am, from afar, even if you love it, the needing to feed the machine seems like an oppressive burden. Especially if you're self employed and you're a one man operation and you've largely arrived at your dreams and now you have to stay ahead of everybody. I don't know how competitive you are.
- [29:46]
Hasan Piker
Oh, it's very. I'm competitive and the space I'm in is very competitive as well.
- [29:49]
Host of South Beach Sessions
Yeah. And so I don't know how all of that affects your daily to always be some form of on. You are always on the treadmill and the monster doesn't sleep. The monster needs to be fed.
- [30:03]
Hasan Piker
Yeah, for sure. It's kind of interesting because we look at other relatively popular figures in the industry that take the initiative and scale it back, scale back their operations and say, I'm not gonna do this, I've made enough money, I'm not gonna stream every day. And we look at that and we're like, wow, that's weird. Oh, these guys never stream. And it's like, no, they've made it, they're successful and they're healthy. But for me, this is what I like doing. The moment that I don't enjoy doing, this is the moment that I'll stop. There's only been one instance where I've actually truly thought about changing my trajectory and just like scaling all this back and maybe even stopping it entirely. And that Was, I would say, post October 7th, when in the aftermath, in the months that came up afterwards, everyone was like, a big chunk of my community left because they were just like, they had never encountered someone who was, I think, for Palestinian emancipation. And in the aftermath of such horrifying actions, for many people, their first encounter was Oct. 7, right, with the issue. And they're like, this is the most barbaric. This is the scariest thing I've ever seen. So when I was like, no, no, no, this is how it's been for 75 years. And the reason for that is because of Israel, they were like, shocked. And so many people left. And in that. And, you know, so many fans of mine said, no, this is unacceptable. And I think in that process, I felt so discouraged about what I was doing because I was like, I've been saying these things for 10 years. I can't believe so many people would just be like, you're an Islamist fundamentalist terrorist and, you know, you need to be deplatformed. That was when I felt so that was the only time I felt discouraged, where I was like, damn, what I'm doing is like, is not. It's not working. And I think people resent me for it, for my positions, and I don't know if I can, like, penetrate public consciousness. Now, obviously, we're in a very different space now because, you know, 16 months later, everyone's like, okay, maybe you were right. You weren't that wrong. But that was when I. All the attacks that I was getting smears, I wanted to quit. I wanted to go and ironically do what my dad's been asking me to do, which is get a PhD and maybe teach, go to college.
- [32:28]
Host of South Beach Sessions
How long did that funk last for? Because doubt, when you are as confident as you appear is quite the poison. And you're also existing in a space that is a super mental health challenge.
- [32:44]
Hasan Piker
Oh, yeah, yeah. You know, that paired up with, like, seeing the atrocities every day I'm talking to people in Gaza. And, you know, it was not good for sure, it was not good for my mental health. And I did this every single day, non stop, regardless of the hemorrhaging of the audience or regardless of, like, people freaking out. And how did I deal with it? Being stubborn. I was like, I know I'm right. And one day you will see that I'm right. History will vindicate me. And I just kept doing what I was doing regardless. And I think a big part of what reinstilled the confidence in me and what I was doing was when I And this is something that happens frequently. When I went outside and went to the student encampments, I went to UCLA and all the field marshals, all the protest marshals there, all the organizers were like, dude, we're here because of you. Like, you have opened up my eyes to so many different things. Like, you've been such a positive force. And seeing that in action, like seeing what I try to do in action in broad daylight, that was. That is why I do what I do. And that was very encouraging, galvanizing.
- [34:04]
Host of South Beach Sessions
Take me through the examination, though, of the hopelessness, the introspection, of realizing, oh, look at how much of my identity is being tied up and whether people are leaving me or not and, oh, for sure, just all of it. Like for you to get to a point where you're thinking about quitting, when I'm surprised almost every day that you're not hopeless, there's a part of this fight that can feel that way.
- [34:27]
Hasan Piker
Yeah, well, part of that is because as a leftist, I'm used to taking Ls. I tell that to everyone all the time. I'm like, you're gonna. Change is gonna be marginal. It's not going to happen in a broad, sweeping fashion. Don't look to the right and assume that you can have a January 6th style situation. Don't look to the right and assume that you can have a Bernie Sanders presidency where he breaks the economy in the way that Trump is right now. In the time of us having this conversation, Donald Trump came out yesterday and did Liberation Day, and he slapped on at least 10% tariffs to every country on the planet, including all the way up to like 46% or even higher for certain allied nations. Trade protectionism of that sort is not a right wing position at all. A leftist politician would be able to do that or should be able to do that, but they would never be able to do that. They get assassinated before they even encountered such a thing, such a move. And Trump isn't doing it in the right way anyway. And that's besides the point. The point is change is marginal and you should always maintain revolutionary optimism. That's something that I explain to people all the time, and that's something that's always in the back of my mind as well, because I know that my cause is just and I know that my goals are to both self improve and improve everything around me, albeit marginally, and leave it better than it was a day before. So that is what keeps me hopeful even when I feel hopeless. And I guess I've grown accustomed to loss in that regard. So I don't expect it. I don't expect victories. So when they come, it feels great. And if it doesn't happen, then I was right.
- [36:12]
Host of South Beach Sessions
But what did you learn in the examination and the introspection of. Of the. Of the wallowing in. I don't know if I can do this anymore.
- [36:20]
Hasan Piker
I've always been very aware that a big chunk of my identity or a big chunk of, like, what I enjoy is directly tied to something that is unfortunately quantitative. And I say unfortunately because commentary or any sort of visual medium like the one I'm in is supposed to not be quantitative, is supposed to be qualitative. But because it's associated with a number, you can immediately see whether you're doing right or wrong. And I think a lot of people in my field associate success and happiness with higher number, better person. I definitely have the ups and downs, right? And in that moment, that was one of the downs. But I think the way that I was able to go through that, the way that I was able to experience that and still come out from the other side unscathed, was because I have always focused on areas within my control as well in my life, like physical fitness, you know, taking on a hobby and tackling it. And that's precisely what kept me sane through this process.
- [37:36]
Host of South Beach Sessions
The fat kid's gone, Fat kid's gone. Like, all of the scars and the. Whatever the dysmorphia was and the insecurity.
- [37:43]
Hasan Piker
I had body dysmorphia for sure. And I definitely. It's funny you say that. No, I definitely still have body dysmorphia. And I definitely still, especially at that time, was like, oh, I'm so fat. But I was still working out. I was working towards this goal, and I think reaching new. Reaching new pillars, like, reaching new levels in those. Those areas like physical fitness and whatnot was what gave me a lot more confidence and a lot more help in this time frame where I was just like, it's okay, this stuff doesn't work. It's not working right now, no matter how hard I try. But that's fine. You know, I shouldn't be so tied to the analytics of it all, and I should focus on other things that are within my control. You know, physical fitness being one of those things. And that's what I did.
- [38:39]
Host of South Beach Sessions
You work how many hours a day? Like, roughly, because there's the eight hours on air. But to stay as informed and to keep up, I would assume means you're working about twice that many hours a day just to be able to stay on top of things.
- [38:52]
Hasan Piker
I definitely. I work every moment that I'm not sleeping. For sure. I guess technically you could say I'm working when I'm sleeping, because I'm debating in my mind, but I work every moment that I'm not sleeping.
- [39:04]
Host of South Beach Sessions
When was the last time you had a day off?
- [39:07]
Hasan Piker
When I got banned for saying that if Republicans were serious about Medicare fraud, they would kill Rick Scott.
- [39:17]
Host of South Beach Sessions
He's the worst.
- [39:18]
Hasan Piker
Yeah. I mean, hey, that's Florida's very own Voldemort.
- [39:23]
Host of South Beach Sessions
It's a. It's amazing that people don't understand what that person has done.
- [39:27]
Hasan Piker
Oh, yeah.
- [39:27]
Host of South Beach Sessions
In terms of fraud and that. That keeps being somehow electable. I don't understand.
- [39:33]
Hasan Piker
Yeah.
- [39:33]
Host of South Beach Sessions
I don't understand your world enough to understand how that happens.
- [39:36]
Hasan Piker
I got banned for that.
- [39:37]
Host of South Beach Sessions
How many times have you been banned? You've been banned a few times.
- [39:41]
Hasan Piker
I don't know. I think seven, eight times, maybe. I don't. I have no idea.
- [39:44]
Host of South Beach Sessions
So what's the last day off you've had? That's not a band.
- [39:49]
Hasan Piker
I can't recall. I think the. The only time. Sometimes I'll take Sundays off because I have a podcast and we just have to shoot it in the middle of the day. So I just, you know, I'll be like, you know what? I'm not gonna stream today. It's fine. I guess technically that's not taking a day off because I'm still working. There's never been a moment where I haven't.
- [40:09]
Host of South Beach Sessions
So you're.
- [40:10]
TurboTax Advertiser
You're.
- [40:11]
Hasan Piker
I never don't work.
- [40:12]
Host of South Beach Sessions
You're. You're. I don't know if you're a loner or not, but this would seem to be hard on relationships.
- [40:21]
Hasan Piker
No, I don't talk about my private life at all because I don't want to associate anyone else.
- [40:27]
Host of South Beach Sessions
I didn't mean romantic relationships.
- [40:29]
Hasan Piker
No, no, no.
- [40:30]
Host of South Beach Sessions
I just meant that, like, how hard it must be to be present in any. Any interaction you're having with anybody if you're always working.
- [40:37]
Hasan Piker
I'm very family oriented and I have my whole family around me at all times. So it is. If that didn't happen, then you'd be right for sure. And I have a lot of good friends, like great Normie friends that I also interact with with regular frequency that keep me grounded and keep me centered. My family and my friends are what has allowed me to, I think, stay in tune with what's going on in the world.
- [41:04]
Host of South Beach Sessions
Don't talk about your private life because I imagine there's some fear involved. I imagine you're in some danger. Just the way that speak would be dangerous.
- [41:13]
Hasan Piker
Absolutely, yeah. That's the reason. I just don't want to bring anyone else into, you know, all of the stuff that I have to deal with.
- [41:22]
Host of South Beach Sessions
What is the stuff that you have to deal with?
- [41:24]
Hasan Piker
I also don't talk about that too much either, but it's just the basic stuff. It's. It's what. It's what every content creator goes through. The reason why I don't talk about it is because you don't want to offer, you don't want to encourage people to do it because there's a lot of copycats. All I'll say is this. The government has very few ways of dealing with cybercrime in general. They're not very good at it. And that's it.
- [41:54]
Host of South Beach Sessions
What would you assign as the tax to what you do, the cost to what you do?
- [42:01]
Hasan Piker
Mental health, physical. Like a toll on your mental health, toll on your sanity, toll on your expectation of privacy, toll on your physical body? For sure, because you're sitting a lot. Obviously you can change that if you want to, but many people just like they sit in front of the computer, myself included. Yeah. Toll on your relationships. But ultimately, on the other side of it, everyone will say, what are you talking about? You're just describing a regular job that sucks in the exact same way. And you make not even a fraction of what you are able to make as a top Twitch streamer. And they're right. I think the real privilege that I have, on the other hand, doesn't even come from the finances. It comes from the freedom. Because I've worked with someone else. I've worked for someone else in the past, and I've worked for myself. And I know the incredible freedom that you have when you set your own time, when you even know in the back of your mind that you don't have to work that day like that is infinitely more preferable to working for someone.
- [43:07]
Host of South Beach Sessions
The reason that I'm smiling about that is because when I left espn, I thought I was embarking on freedom and then didn't see the number of restrictions that would come with freedom. And what you're describing in the abstract is freedom, but the cost of it has enough restrictions that you can't take a day off. You're doing it eight hours a day. So, yes, you're making the choices on it, but it can also be a prison that you like the prison and doesn't really make it necessarily less of a confining. Place.
- [43:38]
Hasan Piker
Yeah, you're absolutely right about that. But I really like the prison. And it's doubly bad. It's doubly bad because, like, I'm a committed believer in the things that I speak about. Cause, like, if I was just grifting, that would be probably a lot easier to just be like, I love the clout. I love the money. I'm just gonna stop tomorrow. But because on of. And I certainly don't hate the clout or the money, make no mistake. But because I also am like, this is something that matters. I feel like I stopped doing this. And, you know, hundreds of thousands of people that normally tune into my broadcast on. At any point in the day to, like, figure out what's going on in the world are gonna be like, oh, what the hell? I just don't have NPR today. You know what I mean? I don't have. I don't have the New York Times, the Daily Today. And I see that as, like, something that is important.
- [44:40]
Host of South Beach Sessions
A responsibility.
- [44:41]
Hasan Piker
Yeah, I see that as a very important responsibility. And I find that very fulfilling as well, though, like, the fact that I have this role and I try to fulfill it, and I have reached levels of success that I never ever in a million years would have thought I'd be able to. So I don't take any moment for granted, and I really love it.
- [45:01]
Host of South Beach Sessions
I imagine that the part that you love best isn't the clout or the money. I would imagine from where I'm watching, it's the crack of having your passion, giving it voice, and then having it have influence.
- [45:17]
Hasan Piker
Yes, yes. Impact. That's what matters to me. When I hear about Chipotle unionizing, and in the article, they talk about how, like, they met over and bonded over their mutual appreciation for myself, and I'm like, that's it. Because that's my goal. My goal is that my goal isn't just to yell in a room and have hundreds of thousands of people watch. My goal is I yell in a room by myself. I'm gonna do that whether people are.
- [45:46]
Host of South Beach Sessions
Watching or not, but about something you're caring about, right?
- [45:48]
Hasan Piker
Like, something you care about. And then you're gonna hear that. You're gonna internalize that, and you're going to take matters into your own hands. You're gonna go and you're gon. You're gonna go and run for local office and win and start the change that is necessary for. Become the change that is necessary.
- [46:07]
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- [46:57]
Host of South Beach Sessions
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- [47:29]
Host of South Beach Sessions
Have your parents absorbed that you're a modern teacher? That you're doing the same thing they do? You're just doing it in a different classroom?
- [47:36]
Hasan Piker
Yeah, I think so. I think to a certain degree, but I'm too brash for them to recognize that. So I think it's hard. But yeah, I mean, especially during COVID like my mom was doing, you know, zoom teaching, like remote education, which is ironically, the exact same thing that I was doing, you know.
- [47:57]
Host of South Beach Sessions
Well, you are teaching to a certain degree.
- [48:00]
Hasan Piker
Yeah. And having fun with it.
- [48:02]
Host of South Beach Sessions
I mean, your audience is at least partially in there. There can be entertainment, but they're not in the circus tent because of the entertainment. They're in the circus tent because of the information, the nourishment.
- [48:14]
Hasan Piker
Yeah. But I definitely do try to make it as entertaining as possible because I think, like, I always have my entertainer first and foremost.
- [48:22]
Host of South Beach Sessions
Well, but that's. I mean, your gift is that you're making it digestible. You're taking subject matter that well. What is your gift? What would you say is your gift instead of me telling you what your gift is?
- [48:32]
Hasan Piker
I think it's working hard and being super stubborn. Those are my gifts. I have an incredibly addictive personality. And early on in my life I realized, like, if I focus my addictions not on vices Cause I've struggled with alcoholism as well. So, like, for me, I realized if I just get addicted to working out and, like, eating right and working hard in general and bettering myself.
- [49:04]
Host of South Beach Sessions
Healthy vices.
- [49:05]
Hasan Piker
Yeah, if I just focus on healthy vices rather than unhealthy ones like gambling, alcohol, getting laid, you know, things like that and partying, then I will be able to. I'll be very successful and happy as a consequence of that. And that's what it is.
- [49:24]
Host of South Beach Sessions
How did you find whatever tools you needed to manage the alcohol and the knowing yourself as an addictive personality? One of the reasons that I've never tried cocaine is because I'm like.
- [49:38]
Hasan Piker
It's kind of mid.
- [49:39]
Host of South Beach Sessions
I'm a little obsessive. I'm obsessive here, and I don't want to not have control over. Over something like that.
- [49:46]
Hasan Piker
Yeah, it ain't. It ain't that hot, I think, but I don't know, maybe people get really addicted to it, so it makes sense. But it's. It's fine. It's all right. It's like. I would say it's like Adderall, but.
- [50:01]
Host of South Beach Sessions
I wasn't asking you about cocaine anyway.
- [50:04]
Hasan Piker
Sorry, you're right.
- [50:05]
Host of South Beach Sessions
You went off to a dreamy.
- [50:07]
Hasan Piker
A dreamy land thinking about, you know what. You know what came to my mind? Theo Vaughn talking to Donald Trump going, cocaine will make you feel like an owl, homie. And now he's the fucking president. That's crazy. That was my moment where I realized that, like, Trump was probably going to win and the podcast circuit that he was doing was, like, infinitely more successful than people realize. What were we talking about?
- [50:35]
Host of South Beach Sessions
Sorry, I was asking you how it is that you met. You brought up alcoholism, which surprised me, because you don't talk about your personal life.
- [50:43]
Hasan Piker
Oh, no, I do talk about that.
- [50:45]
Host of South Beach Sessions
Stuff and the addictive portions of it. And I'm asking you how you got ahold of that, how you were able to find the tools you needed to manage that.
- [50:54]
Hasan Piker
I had really good friends. I got, ironically enough, I got pulled over for a DUI and arrested for a DUI when I wasn't drunk. But I had definitely. I had definitely been careless in the past, but that was my wake up call. I'm broke. I'm living in a frat house after college at this point because it's like free board for me. Right. I'm making less than minimum wage, basically. I'm barely making ends meet. And now I have this thing standing over me that is going to dominate my professional career for the rest of My life. Because at that time I was in sales, right? And I was like, I gotta change my life. This is over. My life is over. I'm done. I don't have $10,000. How am I gonna pay for a lawyer? Cause I got arrested. They made me blow on the field breathalyzer test like eight times until it was, I guess, over 0.08 so they could take me to get blood work done. And then the blood work showed at the end that I was actually lower than the actual legal limit. So they didn't have anything to prosecute me with. So they just dropped the court case in its entirety. But the arrest record is still there. And I was in jail that night. And for the months after the arrest, I thought, there's gonna be a court date and I'm probably gonna have my life ruined. It's over. It's over for me. And. And so I. That was definitely when I was like, I'm done. I'm quitting drinking. And I did. And I'm glad that I did because now I can definitely see certain vices and certain addictions like get out of hand very quickly, but especially with alcohol. Every now and then, as a social drinker, if I go to a party and I'm like peer pressured into it, I can just like have one drink. That paired up with the fact that I'm 33 and will be insanely hungover if I go overboard and have a couple has kept the demons at bay, I guess. And I never really want to drink in general. But yeah, I quit drinking for like two years in a row.
- [53:13]
Host of South Beach Sessions
Nothing's more important than work, right?
- [53:15]
Hasan Piker
Yeah.
- [53:17]
Host of South Beach Sessions
Which is stronger for you?
- [53:21]
Hasan Piker
Nothing's more important than fun. But work is fun. That's the way I feel about it.
- [53:28]
Host of South Beach Sessions
Which do you identify as stronger within you? The pull of addiction or your will?
- [53:36]
Hasan Piker
Pull of addiction? Yeah, but my willpower overcomes it. But I'm able to overcome it through repetition, through tricking myself basically slowly but surely into building that habit until it becomes almost addictive to follow through. But definitely the pull of addiction is what is my North Star for sure.
- [54:01]
Host of South Beach Sessions
How long was the struggle to develop what you've developed? Give me what the early months, even years looked like as you were building this thing.
- [54:14]
Hasan Piker
Years. I mean, it's every single day. I started off on the content side. I started off, I was terrible, unscripted. So I started out with writing a script and then doing a teleprompter in front of a green screen in this supply closet. That was alright. That was Fine. And actually got a lot of success when it was called a breakdown on Facebook. And I just knew that I had to keep doing it. It, whether good or bad, initially, I just have to keep going, and I have to keep doing it and develop myself and get better and better at it. As part of the reason why I started going, part of the reason why I got on Twitch as well, was because I wanted to get better at unscripted talk in contentious environments where I'm trying to entertain someone. And I knew that if I were to. Because I was playing Fortnite all the time with my friends anyway, I knew that if I were to, like, just livestream that process and try to be entertaining, that that would get me better off the cuff. And, yeah, it seemingly worked. So that's how I built it for years and years, brick by brick, both improving myself and improving everything else that I'm doing on my output.
- [55:26]
Host of South Beach Sessions
But when did it feel like it was breaking through? When did you realize, wait a minute, this isn't just a silly thing I'm doing with my time. There's a career path here. There's something that's real here that can be forever.
- [55:40]
Hasan Piker
First moment for first revelation was I walk into. I think it was like Buffalo Trading Company or whatever. It was like a secondhand thrift store. This is like 2016, 2017. I walk in, I'm doing these videos on the Young Turks, and these videos are getting like 30 million views a week because the Facebook video faucet had opened up at that time. It, like, literally made and then broke a lot of media companies, like, upworthy, right? You know, so at that time, I'm doing these Facebook videos, and they're getting 30 million views, and I'm like, I don't know if this is real or not. Like, is this real? Is there real motion here? Are people actually watching this, or is it just fake? I walk in, and this dude is on the phone talking to their friend, completely oblivious that I'm there about the video that they've watched. The last video that I put out about Tommy Lauren, that's when I was like, damn. Like, it was kismet. It was luck, you know? But this is actually penetrating public consciousness. Like, this is something that people that are interested in. So that was my first moment where I was like, oh, my God, people actually do care about what I have to say. This is crazy. And then the second thing was when I went full time on my own in 2020, and I think while the George Floyd protests were taking place and everyone Was at home and stuck. And they were all looking for exactly what I'm doing. Basically a sense of a place for a community of like minded individuals that are constantly going to keep you informed. And when that, you know, when, when my community just like exploded in size in that process, that's when I was like, oh, okay, this is beyond what I have ever imagined what my career would look like or even have a real career in this.
- [57:26]
Host of South Beach Sessions
What would be the way that you would describe your relationship with your audience?
- [57:31]
Hasan Piker
Parasocial. But in both ways, where I'm parasocial with them as well as they are parasocial with me. It's definitely unhealthy because I talked about this in Covid. Like, my dog died during COVID in the first couple months and I was alone. I was in my one bedroom apartment by myself and I had nowhere to go, couldn't go to the gym. You know, demons start creeping in. I'm like, I got nothing going on. So I just poured myself into my work. 14 hour streams every day. The year of 2020, I streamed 42% of the entire year. 42% of the entire year. Not like 42% of, like I was on camera for, for almost half of the entire year.
- [58:20]
Host of South Beach Sessions
That's not great.
- [58:21]
Hasan Piker
Yeah. But I was doing that because I just didn't want to focus on how shitty everything was. Like, I wanted a community, I wanted to hang out with people. So that's why I did it. And it was fairly successful. But it certainly helped me as well. I mean, I've dialed the bag. I do like 38% of the year now, right? It's not, it's not 42. It's fine.
- [58:49]
Host of South Beach Sessions
Moderation. Everything in moderation.
- [58:51]
Hasan Piker
Yeah. Moved in the opposite direction. We're good.
- [58:54]
Host of South Beach Sessions
But unhealthy. You're describing it as unhealthy.
- [58:56]
Hasan Piker
Yeah, yeah.
- [58:58]
Host of South Beach Sessions
The relationship with your audience you feel.
- [59:00]
Hasan Piker
Is unhealthy To a certain degree.
- [59:02]
Host of South Beach Sessions
For sure.
- [59:03]
Hasan Piker
I think. You know, I don't know them. I don't know them like that. They're anonymous and they don't know me, but they think they do. I do put myself out there. Like, I am very. I'm very honest about who I am and how I feel. Maybe to a fault. I should be able to hide it a little bit.
- [59:22]
Host of South Beach Sessions
That one's interesting though, because I do feel like my audience, like, okay, let's examine that one for a second. Does your audience actually know you? My guess is if they're spending eight hours a day with you, and this is a thing you Love. And this is a large part of your identity. Like they might not know you completely and it might not be a real relationship, but the intimacy of what it is that you're doing and the amount of time they're spending with you, they're getting to know you at least a little bit.
- [59:46]
Hasan Piker
Yeah, they know me, but I don't know them. So their expectation is that like I should almost. But also, no matter how well you know someone, you can read it incorrectly. Right. And I think that the real issue there is people develop parasocial tendencies, parasocial relationships, and then operate under the assumption that they do know you and sometimes get things off base. But then we'll still argue with you on like whether or not this is right for you or not. And it's like you're not, I'm a 33 year old man. Like you're, you're not my father. I don't even listen to my dad. You know what I mean? Like, I got this. Don't worry. That's what I mean when I say it just like gets to an unhealthy place.
- [60:35]
Host of South Beach Sessions
When you look back at some of the things that you would alter along your path, do you do much of that choices that you would have made differently?
- [60:50]
Hasan Piker
No, not really. Because, I mean, there's things that everyone would change about themselves. I think getting in, get involved in something earlier than you would have or anything like that. But I, I choose not to do that because I'm very happy with where I'm at and I feel like I have a policy, a principle of never just looking back and thinking, oh, I did that wrong. And then like endlessly thinking about that over and over again because I feel like it's unproductive. There's nothing you can do. It already happened. And you reacted the way that you did. You might as well focus on, learn your lessons from how you operated back then and make sure that it doesn't happen again. Improve yourself, but move on. So I rarely ever think about my mistakes in the past.
- [61:40]
Host of South Beach Sessions
My guess is that you've got a pretty good grip on what's going on with young men in this country. Your audience is more than 2/3 male. What is happening with the combination of young men and the loneliness epidemic?
- [61:58]
Hasan Piker
I mean, I think it's the phones, it's the alienation, it's the atomization, it's the lack of hope that everyone is experiencing. But it's particularly bad for men because I think maybe at least for women, it's like a relatively new thing where you get to just like, like go to college and work and stuff. So maybe they're more appreciative regardless of how shitty the material circumstances are, even for them. As opposed to men whose futures have been taken away from them. I think especially men that mostly worked in the manufacturing base that no longer exist in this country. So that switch over to white collar jobs and professional fields has eviscerated a big chunk of the male job opportunities that were readily available in this country. We have a significant rise of underemployment in this country where I believe it's like 23% something along those lines. It's a crazy number of people just doing gig economy work and basically nothing. Whereas in the past I think a decent percentage of men could just get a job at a factory and it was fine, you know, you could raise your children, send them to college even you got the GI Bill. All of that stuff is gone. And I think young men feel that, they feel that, young women feel it too. But I think it's particularly damaging to the collective conscious of young men. And young men unfortunately are also very susceptible to, and very in that vulnerability, they're very susceptible to believing like just a guy that masquerades as a role model but is a bad dude, you know, like Andrew Tates of the world. And that is a real issue. So they find a sense of comfort in a guy that they kind of want to be like, that is just like signaling all of the things that they care about. Money, power, women and freedom.
- [64:20]
Host of South Beach Sessions
There's always been a guy like that though. Every couple of years there's a Bulgarian or there's a Tucker Max or there's always some profit that feeds on lonely, angry men who carry around the rejection of women in a way that they can't get over for sure.
- [64:40]
Hasan Piker
And I think it's a sense of entitlement that is unaddressed overall, broadly for men. But as times worsen, as material conditions worsen, as people's hope for a better future becomes increasingly less likely, or you just can't even dream of a better tomorrow for yourself, that you're never going to retire, you're never going to be able to own a home, I think that creates this downward pressure on a lot of men because society does not match their expectations from their development, from their upbringing and what they're supposed to be at. And it breaks them. It breaks them. And paired up with a lack of interest in self examination and reevaluating where you are and how you got there and instead just kind of holding it down and pushing it down to the best of your ability. What. I'm gonna use a term here that's gonna piss people off. Toxic masculinity. How? Toxic masculinity has harmed men in this way. When you factor all of that together, it's an atom bomb.
- [65:51]
Host of South Beach Sessions
Well, when you talk about the relationship with your audience, like, I don't know, because I can't possibly understand what the new media space is that you particularly occupy, the combination of ingredients that is possible. It doesn't mean your entire audience is this or even most of it, but the combination of angry, lonely, and anonymous, those three things. Having a lot of that anywhere in your interactions or your life is a burden that comes with your success, because this is a. What you've built in the last 10 years is. It's a new space you're fighting for, a new media space. And that audience, to me, that particular audience scares me. I'm not saying the entirety of your audience. I'm just saying the combination of those ingredients.
- [66:48]
Hasan Piker
No, I understand it. It is scary. They are like that demographic. I wouldn't say that this is my audience, but that demographic does do a lot of harm online and maybe sometimes in the real world as well. So I try to steer them away from that to the best of my ability.
- [67:08]
Host of South Beach Sessions
Well, but when you say Trump did better with the podcast circuit than anyone understands, it was at least in part, feeding a good segment of that as the demo, correct?
- [67:18]
Hasan Piker
Oh, yeah, yeah. Just. I mean, that demo isn't just young men, though. That demo is just men. White men, especially, but men across the board. Like, I was in a. I was in an Uber going to the Bernie Sanders AOC rally in Nevada in Las Vegas, and. And my Uber driver was talking about how, you know, he loves the Ovon and Joe Rogan, and lo and behold, he was like, I'm so glad that Doge is cutting trans Sesame street or something in Iraq. Like, that's what they're doing in Iraq. Trans Sesame Street. And this dude was like, I think he was a teacher or. No, he worked in Western Pennsylvania in a oil field. Initially, he was a fracker. And I guess their company used to work on federal land, and Biden stopped offering federal land contracts, and he lost his job. But instead of carrying that resentment towards his boss for not doing right by him, he just hates Joe Brandon. He's like, I hate Joe Biden. And I think in that process, he just, like, found podcasts and became this guy who believes in nonsense, believes in falsehoods, because he hears the podcast guy who he's parasocially connected to, tell him, like, this is what's going on. And he just regurgitates that to feel smart about himself. And it slowly but surely becomes a mantra that he believes this is a dangerous cycle. That man was in his 50s. He was not a, you know, 25 year old. Right. So I think we have to examine a lot, a lot that has gone wrong.
- [68:55]
Host of South Beach Sessions
How do you walk away from that conversation? Like, what do you. You must. Some form of that conversation is happening.
- [69:01]
Hasan Piker
All the time, I would assume. Yeah, I try to. I try to be like water. I try to Bruce Lee this shit. When someone comes at me with that, I try to make a quick assessment of how much they care about this particular thing. Because if it's like borderline psychosis, if you have a pathological obsession with trans people, I'm not gonna be able to shake you from that position. That's like mental illness for the most part at that point. Right. If you're like constantly worrying about that, it does start resembling like. And I'm sure people in your audience know someone like this, whether online or in their real life, where they're just like, maybe a little too worried about this stuff, where it's like there's like 30 of them. Calm down. You know what I mean? But I usually look to, like, quickly try to understand whatever the key issue that we're talking about this time is like trans Sesame street or whatever for usaid. And I try to see if I can just move him to reason to find common ground and just like redirect all the force and anger. Really.
- [70:10]
Host of South Beach Sessions
You're still trying to change minds. It's hard. It's getting harder. Right. Like, I do feel like there's an entrenchment going on that you might have your victories where you walk around and someone slaps you on the back and says, thank you for making life easier. And those things make it feel like what we're doing is worth something. But it feels like there are more and more people entrenched in their positions than there have ever been.
- [70:34]
Hasan Piker
Yeah, there's an endless faucet of right wing reactionary sentiment. So that's not. I understand that. That's just what the market looks like. And this is the outcome. People believe in nonsense. There's not much you can do about it. And this is what you do about it. You try to redirect those conversations and hope that that person will remember that conversation and will have a takeaway from that experience that is otherwise positive. So what I did with him was basically like, you know, set a trap for him. I was like, oh, you heard about the Trump trans women in sports thing? And he was like, yeah, you know, I heard. And, you know, he's like, oh, are you excited about that? He's like, oh, hell yeah. Thank God, no more men playing against women. Something along those lines, right? Like, classic. It was like, okay, but the egg prices are dog shit. What's up with that? You know? And. And he was like, oh, yeah, I guess you're right. And I was like, yeah. Don't you think that he's just, like, distracting you because he doesn't want to fix the egg prices? And he started thinking about it. I could see the cogwheels turning. And the thing that I said to him basically was like, how many. How many trans athletes do you think participate in the ncaa? And he just had no idea. And I think, what is the number? 49.
- [71:56]
Host of South Beach Sessions
It's not very many.
- [71:57]
Hasan Piker
Yeah, so it's like, you think it's. There was more people standing behind him signing that thing than there are trans athletes in the ncaa. He's doing it because he doesn't want to fucking fix the egg prices. He wants you to be locked in and laser focused on someone who has no power over you. And I also told him because he said he was a Theo Vaughn fan. I was like, go listen to my Theo Vaughn interview. And, you know, I think you like it. And I. And I basically say similar things in that conversation as well. So I try to do. I try to do that a lot. Cause there are certain things that I think we delude ourselves into having firmly held convictions on when we just don't care. I think that's one of those things. These people don't give a fuck about women's sports. I'm sorry. You make fun of women's sports every goddamn day of the week and you say women's sports. Who's watching that? What am I, a pussy? What am I, gay? And then all of a sudden, you're like, a high school swim meet. We have to protect women's sports, the integrity of the high school swim meet. It's like, what are you, a pedophile? What do you mean?
- [72:58]
Host of South Beach Sessions
You.
- [72:58]
Hasan Piker
High school swim meet of a high school that you don't fucking go to. Get out of here. You don't know that. You don't know anything about the high school swim meet. You shouldn't know anything about the high school swim meet. Why the fuck are you busying your brain with this because someone in a podcast told you this is what you have to care about. And they're like, oh, I don't get it. Trans people are weird, actually. Yeah, Maybe they're doing it for indecent purpose. Yeah, they're transing themselves to win a fucking high school swim meet. Get out of here. You know, why don't you do it then? Why don't you trans yourself if it's so easy?
- [73:26]
Host of South Beach Sessions
Hasan Abi is where you go if you want that kind of passion and conviction on YouTube and on Twitch when he's not banned. Almost always on Twitch, except when he's banned from Twitch. Appreciate the insight and appreciate the time. I know you've gotta. You gotta go, you gotta get on air.
- [73:45]
Hasan Piker
I'm doing this. I'm gonna do this for the next eight.
- [73:49]
Host of South Beach Sessions
Good seeing you. Thank you for making this time for us.
- [73:52]
Hasan Piker
Thank you for having me. This was great.
- [74:04]
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