Bonus Sample: “Joe Rogan of The Left” Glazes China
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Hasan Piker just spent two weeks in The People’s Republic of China. The famous streamer is often invoked as being a potential “Joe Rogan of The Left,” who might bring young voters, especially working class men, back into the Democratic Party.
But Piker’s livestreams from China raise controversial questions. Is he whitewashing Chinese human rights abuses? Was he paid by their government to propagandize his combined 5 million viewers? How else to explain first-class plane tickets, ultra-luxury hotel rooms, privileged access to forbidden Western social media, and carefully avoiding criticisms of the authoritarian state while waxing poetic about their country and Mao Zedong?
Julian digs into Piker’s politics in the context of China’s tumultuous history. First stop: Tiananmen Square.
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In my heart, in my soul, in my mind, in my conscience, I have already become Chinese.
We were already white Chinese in this chat.
I've already become full Chinese.
It's fucking sick.
Like, you have Ubundus-style consumption paired up with a centrally controlled economy, an economic system, that has yielded tremendous development.
1950s Soviet-era building blocks.
Next to the Gucci store.
If there was ever a country that represented things that I enjoy so much personally, if ever such a country existed, I do not know.
That was hugely popular Twitch and YouTube personality and prominent leftist political commentator Hassan Piker, who live streamed his two-week trip to China last month and a whole lot of controversy ensued.
Was Hassan whitewashing Chinese authoritarianism and human rights abuses?
Was he being paid to do propaganda for the Chinese Communist Party to his almost 5 million combined followers?
How are we to think about him as a potential Joe Rogan of the left in light of all of this?
And what does that even mean?
But first, there's a striking piece of footage that was viewed around the world in 1989.
Perhaps you're familiar with it.
An ominous line of 18 tanks is rolling slowly down a wide and empty street in the morning haze.
Then, a solitary man calmly walks into the frame.
He's in dark trousers and a white shirt.
He appears to be carrying shopping bags like he's on his way home from the grocery.
He stops and stands quietly in front of the first tank.
The tank grinds to a halt and then tries to do a little maneuver to go around him, but the man neatly steps to the side to again block the enormous metal military vehicle's passage.
After doing this dance a couple more times, the man puts his two shopping bags into one hand and steps forward to climb up onto the tank.
He inspects the outside, tries to speak into whatever openings he finds, and then ends up squatting down on top of it, seemingly conversing with the soldiers inside.
While he's up there, we start to hear gunfire from nearby, single shots, and even some machine gun rat-at-tat-tats.
He stays calm though.
He gets down and stands to the side for a bit before scampering back in front of the tank when it starts moving forward again.
Eventually, after about three minutes, the guy is pulled away by two people dressed in blue.
And to this day, we don't know who the tank man was, who pulled him off the street, or what happened to him next.
The date was June 5th, 1989, and the location was Tiananmen Square in Beijing.
The day before, June 4th, is referred to around the world as the date of the Tiananmen Square massacre.
But within China, the events of that period are actively censored so that no mention of it exists online and serious repercussions await anyone bringing it up.
That's because after six weeks of student and citizen protests, where at its peak as many as a million people gathered in that enormous square to demand democratic reforms, human rights, freedom of the press and freedom of speech, and government transparency about corruption, the military opened fire on its own people.
Initial reports estimated at least in the hundreds, perhaps as many as 2,000 civilians killed.
But in the time since, leaked internal documents were reported to say the number was really closer to 10,000.
Most experts conclude that around 3,000 civilians killed is probably accurate.
Harrowing accounts from eyewitnesses detail protesters being shot in waves, many of them in the back as they retreated, and then compatriots who were trying to pick up the wounded being shot for their trouble as well.
The tanks also rolled over many people who were killed.
I've seen some photos of this online and it is not for the faint-hearted.
Now, back to Hassan Piker, who made the flag raising ceremony in Tiananmen Square a first stop on his enthusiastically live-streamed visit to China.
Live behind the firewall, the great firewall.
What are your internet speeds?
My internet speeds are not great because I'm obviously using a VPN.
So, and now I got like a million different applications on this phone.
What do you mean, chill, bro?
You think the fing Chinese government doesn't know that, like, what do you think is going on?
You think the Chinese government's like, wow, we had no idea.
Okay, so there's a lot to unpack there.
I have plenty to say.
But first, I'm Julian Walker.
Welcome to Conspirituality.
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