HasanAbi's viral clash with Piers Morgan ignites social media storm

Hasan Piker, streaming on Twitch.tv as HasanAbi, is also gaining popularity on other social media platforms, all thanks to a rant on Piers Morgan's channel.

On 25 April, many people not involved in the streaming world heard about Hasan Piker for the first time. A segment of a program on YouTube featuring the extremely conservative British presenter Piers Morgan went viral across all social media. In the 25-second recording, Piker "explained" YouTuber Tyler Oakley.

Hasan Piker's rant went viral across social media

In the discussion about the events in the Gaza Strip, Oakley did not appreciate Piker's very patronizing comment, which strongly opposes the actions of the Israeli government and army. Interrupting the streamer's comment, Oakley provoked him to burst out: "I am being patronizing. I don’t know who the fuck you are. And you over there chirping all the way from fucking London about Palestine and doing like ‘both sides are fine’ type bullshit. You're talking about you want to fucking "free Palestine", but also, simultaneously, you have both sides is a lot going on both sides. Just f***ing shut up, you don’t know anything, okay?"

Piker's rant was widely shared on the platform X. 32-year-old Hasan Piker was born in the United States and raised in Istanbul. His parents are from Turkey. Streaming from Los Angeles on Twitch.tv as HasanAbi, Piker is the nephew of Cenk Uygur, an American-Turkish politician and commentator and co-founder of the popular public affairs program "The Young Turks."

Commentators on the viral rant joked that they were glad he talked to these people the way he talked in chat. Piker's streams are appreciated for delivering political news in a way that is understandable and accessible to Twitch viewers unfamiliar with news in traditional media. "Cosmopolitan" magazine also highlighted Piker's vulgar, animated speech style and attractive physical appearance as factors contributing to his popularity.

On 25 April, Piker appeared on the University of California in Los Angeles (UCLA) campus. He arrived with many boxes of pizza for male and female students who were camping out in tent cities, demonstrating solidarity with the inhabitants of the Gaza Strip. HasanAbi streamed live from the campus, and on the platform X, he summarized: "I met some of the kindest most amazing student activists tonight and it filled my heart with so much hope. I highly suggest attending a protest sometime. In the midst of all the pain, the future seems brighter than it did yesterday".

On campus, Piker met, among others, one of his fans. The guy admitted that he earned part of the money for tuition at the prestigious school thanks to the fact that HasanAbi does not object to the replication of content he creates. The student runs a popular YouTube channel where he replicates recordings from Piker's Twitch.