This guy’s dad is the former VP of a multibillion dollar Turkish conglomerate, as well as the secretary of a government department. Mom and Dad were able to fly to their other home in NJ to give birth so he’d get US citizenship. His uncle is the founder and owner of TYT Media and gave him his media career. He went to Rutgers. He lives in a multimillion dollar mansion in the Hollywood Hills. This is by definition not the kind of person who can be a voice of the People. Saying “I recognize my privilege” over and over, while living his lifestyle, doesn’t negate his privilege and complete lack of real-life experience outside of the curated garden of the wealthy. He gets paid obscene amounts of cash to sit in his bedroom and word-vomit for 9 hours a day. Why are his unending opinions taken so seriously? He gives me strong controlled opposition vibes.
Edit: Thank you all for this discussion. I learned a lot.
So what? A class traitor is a class traitor, and we only have to win with this. What’s next, you gonna say Engels wasn’t a communist because he was a part of the bourgeoisie?
You do not need some sort of vow of poverty to be a true leftist.
This is pretty much why the left will always lose. They will purity test their movements until only the most dogmatic ideologues remain, and those dozen or so purists will get steamrolled by the right-wingers that remained united over a single issue.
When I was young, and generally much poorer, leftist groups basics tried to court me. My young mind, not yet sure how to attain wealth and establish my place in the world, was quite valuable to their movements because it was easy to convince me that my dreams were being gatekept by elites. To this day, this rings true to me. I see the lack of meritocracy and fairness every day with my own eyes.
But after I graduated college and started building a career, my political leanings didn’t really change, but I noticed that my political allies’ attitude toward me certainly did.
The more stable, self-sufficient, and financially solvent I became, the more I found myself ostracized by the left. Working in tech became disqualifying - I was a “tech bro” just for getting the job. Wearing decent clothes would get me side-eyed by those who insist on black bloc. Enjoying any luxury or pleasure in the world without suffering would have me cast aside as too privileged to understand the world.
So any material assistance I could ever provide the left is nullified by the fact that other leftists won’t give the time of day to anyone with a positive net worth, and any desire I have to work with the left is nullified by the fact that all of my so-called allies expect me to either live in poverty and misery to be a real leftist, or self-flagellate about my privilege because I have an education and career.
The left convinced me to establish myself as a progressive, socialist participant in our democracy, and then chased me away over a matter of class membership, rather than substantive disagreement. No matter what class I fight for, the left brands anyone who attains middle-class status a class traitor by default.
If I chose to align with the right, they would accept me with open arms. They would pat me on the back for my career. They would tell me I deserve more. It’s no mystery why so many men like me drift towards validation like that. The only thing stopping me is my moral core would never let me align myself with the socially regressive goals of the right, and my education keeps me from falling for the incredibly stupid policy positions of the Republican Party.
As for Hasan, he’s a great example of what I am talking about. He’s worth $2.6 million, and he stands up against the interests of people worth more than $300 billion, yet the left is eager to group him together with the people he opposes.
I have a net worth 1/8 of Hasan Piker’s. Elon Musk has a net worth 130,000x that of Hasan Piker’s. If you’re drawing the line between me and Hasan, congratulations, your movement is dead in the water. Unfortunately, the line is usually drawn so low that even I don’t make the cut.
I’m also in the tech sector and I’ve been part of local leftist organization. From direct mutual aid to anarchist crust punks to soup kitchens to PSL, I’ve literally never had a problem. Not to turn this into Blind dot com, but my net worth is ~3x the US median.
The difference between Hasan and I, is that Hasan is a poster boy for the left that is making money off of being a poster boy for the left. Nobody is “pocket watching” you as a rando online or in person. Nobody is putting you on trial for your success. That argument is literally the same argument that Elon Musk and other Billionaires make about being punished for their success.
If you’re attempting to show your class traitor bona fides and defending Hasan as one at the same time, but it’s sounding a lot more like solidarity with the moneyed class. Your resentment is showing.
Also wtf does this even mean? People don’t dress black bloc for every day dude.
If you want to be lauded for your material success in a capitalist system perhaps you should just be a capitalist?
I totally get your frustration. Any leftist person, group or organization that ostracize people for being a little bit better materially than other people is completely wrong and shouldn’t be taken seriously. The tech field is full of techbro ancaps, having a leftists there is already a step forward. We can’t just confine ourselves to a few spaces and gatekeep who can and who cannot be a part of it.
It’s like you said, you’re orders of magnitude closer to the homeless than to the rich. You are not the enemy, and even if you were, you’re still a leftist and any help is welcomed.
That all being said, I don’t think it’s right to say that this is the reason the left will always lose. First because the left is not an unified mass that thinks the same. There’s a lot of different leftist ideologies and they all clash in some way of another, be it for a disagreement in how to organize or in how to achieve communism. And second, because this type of thing tends to be something you would see more on the imperial core where actual leftist thinking have been thwarted and made into a boogeyman, I don’t know where you’re from, but I honestly suggest you try looking for Marxist-Leninist groups and organizations.
helps though