Hasan Piker has recently become a sensation on Twitch with his streams throughout the U.S. Election — and has now explained why he would much rather stay on Twitch than be on TV and mainstream media such as CNN.
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Known on Twitch as HasanAbi, Piker became the platform’s most-watched channel since his Presidential Election streams and coverage started on November 3, a far cry from the usual likes of Felix ‘xQc’ Lengyel or Michael ‘Shroud’ Grzesiek that we usually see atop the charts.
While Hasan has been growing his stream over the last year, with various streams in gaming, IRL and political commentary, he actually started off on political and topical commentary channel The Young Turks.
The election obviously did wonders for his Twitch stream, catapulting him into the eyes of not only those with an eye on internet culture but also the mainstream media.
Why Hasan wants to stick with Twitch
While reading a New York Times article on his meteoric rise, it was mentioned that he “doesn’t have a desire to pursue a career in cable TV” — something Hasan went a little more in-depth with during his November 10 stream.
“The freedom I have here to say what I want, to be able to do what I want… the power I have because of you guys is not something that I would trade for mainstream media legitimacy,” he said.
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“Mainstream media legitimacy is good, it gives you more security, but also, if I were to work for CNN, I couldn’t tell someone to suck my entire c**k if they p**sed me off, and that’s something I personally value.”
Though not worded quite as eloquently as mainstream news platforms would typically like, this is exactly why Hasan wants to stick with Twitch.
He’s finding a lot of success on the platform, but working for a separate organization could lead to him having less control over the decision-making, reporting and commentary process, which is ultimately one of the main reasons he has been able to find so much success on Twitch.
It goes without saying that Hasan will be on the radar of some mainstream outlets, possibly including CNN, but they will have to offer something special to win him over.
