Latest / Blocked and Reported / Episode 292: Hasan Piker vs Ethan Klein (Part 1)

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Episode 292: Hasan Piker vs Ethan Klein (Part 1) · Blocked and Reported

0:08
SPEAKER_03: Jesse, so you're about to go see the country?
0:09
SPEAKER_03: Yep.
0:10
SPEAKER_03: I am finally seeing real America.
0:14
SPEAKER_03: It's about time.
0:16
SPEAKER_03: It is, isn't it?
0:18
SPEAKER_01: Are you going to Paducah?
0:19
SPEAKER_01: Paducah is the most real American place you can go.
0:21
SPEAKER_03: Where's Paducah?
0:22
SPEAKER_01: You don't even know where it is.
0:23
SPEAKER_01: You don't even fucking know.
0:24
SPEAKER_03: Let me Google it.
0:26
SPEAKER_01: At least we have one.
0:27
SPEAKER_03: Oh, Paducah, Kentucky.
0:28
SPEAKER_03: It looks beautiful.
0:29
SPEAKER_03: That downtown right on the river, the Ohio River.
0:32
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's quite nice.
0:33
SPEAKER_01: I do believe it floods.
0:34
SPEAKER_03: The National Quilt?
0:35
SPEAKER_03: Wait, the National Quilt Museum?
0:37
SPEAKER_01: Obviously.
0:37
SPEAKER_01: What other Paducah?
0:39
SPEAKER_03: Jesus Christ.
0:40
SPEAKER_03: I will not be in Paducah, but...
0:44
SPEAKER_03: As of when people hear this,
0:46
SPEAKER_03: my Austin event with Katie,
0:49
SPEAKER_03: off the top of your head,
0:50
SPEAKER_03: who am I doing the Austin event with?
0:51
SPEAKER_01: Easy.
0:53
SPEAKER_01: Connor Friedersdorf, number one.
0:54
SPEAKER_01: Yep.
0:55
SPEAKER_03: Well, no, he's not number one.
0:56
SPEAKER_03: We're all equal.
0:57
SPEAKER_01: Yes.
0:57
SPEAKER_01: Although some are more equal than others.
0:59
SPEAKER_01: He's number one because you continually forget him.
1:01
SPEAKER_01: Sorry, Connor.
1:02
SPEAKER_01: I would never.
1:03
SPEAKER_01: You're doing it.
1:03
SPEAKER_01: Connor Friedersdorf.
1:04
SPEAKER_03: Mm-hmm.
1:05
SPEAKER_01: Megan McArdle.
1:06
SPEAKER_01: The big man.
1:07
SPEAKER_01: Very tall.
1:08
SPEAKER_01: Is Megan the big?
1:09
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, okay.
1:10
SPEAKER_01: Very tall.
1:10
SPEAKER_03: Connor's the big man.
1:12
SPEAKER_01: Lee Stein.
1:12
SPEAKER_03: Yep.
1:13
SPEAKER_01: Kat Rosenfield.
1:14
SPEAKER_01: And I'm putting Riverpage last because he's a baby.
1:19
SPEAKER_03: He's very young.
1:19
SPEAKER_03: Yes.
1:20
SPEAKER_03: This event will have gone wonderfully.
1:21
SPEAKER_03: But yeah, I have a little bit of time.
1:24
SPEAKER_03: I'm actually...
1:25
So I'm going to go to West Texas and just drive around until
1:29
something bad happens
1:31
SPEAKER_03: to me,
1:31
SPEAKER_03: I guess.
1:32
SPEAKER_03: I'm really excited for it.
1:33
SPEAKER_03: Listen for the rattle.
1:34
SPEAKER_03: Oh, there's...
1:36
Oh shit maybe I should can't I forgot there's actual
1:39
rattlesnakes there this is how
1:40
prepared I am but yeah I think I'm doing some combination of
1:43
well I know I'm doing
1:44
San Antonio and then I think Marfa and El Paso and my sense is
1:50
Marfa is just this
1:51
SPEAKER_03: artsy little town like in the in the desert.
1:53
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's just one empty Prada in the middle of nowhere.
1:56
Everyone,
1:56
I'm just going to go to the Prada,
1:58
take a picture,
1:59
and then move on.
1:59
SPEAKER_03: I'm not going to see any of Marfa itself.
2:01
And then El Paso,
2:03
this does get to the sort of elitist flyover country thing.
2:07
It's a large city that's right on the border and shares a
2:11
border with Ciudad Juarez.
2:13
SPEAKER_03: And it looks like a really interesting place.
2:15
SPEAKER_03: I'm excited to go there.
2:16
SPEAKER_03: And I'm sure we have millions of listeners in all these places.
2:18
SPEAKER_01: I've never been to the nice parts of El Paso,
2:21
SPEAKER_01: but I've driven through it a bunch of times on my cross-country trips.
2:25
SPEAKER_01: And when you're driving on,
2:26
SPEAKER_01: I think it's I-10,
2:27
SPEAKER_01: it's like on the,
2:28
SPEAKER_01: if you're headed west,
2:29
SPEAKER_01: it's like on the right side,
2:30
SPEAKER_01: you have the perfect encapsulation of the worst parts of America.
2:34
It's like raw stress for less,
2:35
TGI Fridays,
2:36
raw stress for less,
2:37
Kmart,
2:37
raw stress for less.
2:39
SPEAKER_01: And on the left side, the Mexican side, it slums.
2:41
SPEAKER_01: It's like cheap goods on one side and abject poverty on the other side.
2:46
SPEAKER_01: It's very stark.
2:47
SPEAKER_01: But I'm sure Old Town's very nice.
2:49
SPEAKER_03: Katie, you yourself are traversing this great nation of ours, right?
2:53
SPEAKER_01: Not quite yet, but I will be soon.
2:55
SPEAKER_01: I am once again driving across the country.
2:57
SPEAKER_01: I'm heading back to Washington State.
2:59
We will not be hopefully taking the southern route unless it
3:02
snows up north.
3:02
SPEAKER_01: But the good thing is that there's been...
3:05
SPEAKER_01: insane drought all across the West.
3:07
It's like the worst ski season in Colorado,
3:11
Utah,
3:11
everywhere ever,
3:12
which is terrible.
3:14
But the good news for me is that I might actually be able to
3:17
like take the most
3:18
SPEAKER_01: efficient route across the country.
3:19
SPEAKER_01: And then after this, I hope to be done.
3:22
We're selling the Asheville house,
3:24
our great experiment with bi-coastal living.
3:27
SPEAKER_01: We'll end.
3:28
SPEAKER_01: I just like work to the wise and
3:31
SPEAKER_01: for people thinking about doing this,
3:33
do not buy a home 3,000 miles from where you live if you have a
3:38
large dog.
3:39
SPEAKER_01: I know everybody's thinking about it right now, but just don't do it.
3:43
SPEAKER_01: It's not a good idea.
3:45
SPEAKER_03: My finger was over the Bible and I was going to
3:47
I had two buttons,
3:49
one to buy a large dog and one to buy a home 3,000 miles away.
3:51
SPEAKER_03: Now I'm not going to do it.
3:52
SPEAKER_03: Thank you for the feedback.
3:53
SPEAKER_01: Get one or the other, but not both.
3:55
SPEAKER_01: It's really hard to do.
3:56
SPEAKER_01: So we're selling the Asheville house.
3:58
SPEAKER_01: We will be single coastal elites.
4:00
SPEAKER_01: And so this is hopefully the last drive.
4:01
SPEAKER_01: And I hope that I survive it.
4:02
SPEAKER_01: I have a feeling I won't, but I hope that I will.
4:04
SPEAKER_03: Well, I also hope you survive it, Katie.
4:06
SPEAKER_03: And I mean that.
4:07
SPEAKER_01: Thank you, Jesse.
4:08
SPEAKER_03: Speaking of coastal elitists,
4:10
SPEAKER_03: today's story is about...
4:12
SPEAKER_03: Actually,
4:12
SPEAKER_03: I only know one of the two is technically coastal elitists,
4:15
SPEAKER_03: but...
4:15
SPEAKER_01: They both are.
4:16
SPEAKER_03: We should get into it.
4:17
SPEAKER_03: Okay, I forgot.
4:18
SPEAKER_03: Okay, anyway, continue.
4:19
SPEAKER_01: Yes,
4:19
SPEAKER_01: today we're going to be talking about two of the most ubiquitous,
4:24
aggravating and inexplicably successful characters in the
4:29
streaming world today.
4:30
SPEAKER_01: That is Hassan Piker and Ethan Klein.
4:32
SPEAKER_01: But before we get to that,
4:34
we have an update to a story we've mentioned a few times out of
4:37
the University of
4:37
SPEAKER_01: Washington.
4:38
SPEAKER_01: So that story is about Stuart Regis.
4:40
SPEAKER_01: He's an untenured computer science instructor at UW.
4:43
SPEAKER_01: He's a bit of a shitster.
4:45
I first came across him in 2018 when he wrote a piece in
4:48
Quillette called Why Women Don't Code.
4:50
SPEAKER_01: This was a defense of James Damore.
4:52
SPEAKER_03: Someone who would write an article with that headline in 2018,
4:55
SPEAKER_03: I almost just want to defend them on principle just because it's so...
4:59
SPEAKER_03: Don't get me wrong.
5:00
SPEAKER_03: I think he's a monster, but it's very pretty.
5:02
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
5:03
SPEAKER_01: 2018.
5:03
SPEAKER_01: You can say that in 20 in 2025.
5:05
SPEAKER_01: Actually, you can say why bitches don't code.
5:07
SPEAKER_01: It's fine.
5:08
SPEAKER_03: Bitches don't be coding.
5:09
SPEAKER_01: But at the time in Seattle,
5:10
SPEAKER_01: especially in 2018,
5:11
SPEAKER_01: even publishing in Quillette was sort of the mark of the beast.
5:15
SPEAKER_01: And James D'Amour,
5:15
SPEAKER_01: for anyone who doesn't remember,
5:16
SPEAKER_01: was he was this I think he was an engineer engineer.
5:19
SPEAKER_01: He probably wasn't a project manager.
5:22
He was fired from Google for arguing that the reason there
5:24
aren't more women in
5:25
SPEAKER_01: tech isn't because of discrimination,
5:27
SPEAKER_01: but because women are just less interested in tech.
5:29
SPEAKER_01: Basically,
5:30
SPEAKER_01: well,
5:30
he said it was he said it was basically the argument is that
5:33
males tend to be more
5:33
SPEAKER_01: interested in things and females tend to be more interested in people.
5:36
SPEAKER_03: I feel like that's true of our dynamic, except the opposite.
5:39
SPEAKER_03: No, it's true.
5:42
SPEAKER_03: You like Moose.
5:43
SPEAKER_03: Moose is a thing.
5:44
SPEAKER_01: You think he's a thing?
5:45
SPEAKER_03: You like your household, which is a thing.
5:47
SPEAKER_03: I like meeting our listeners, which I like playing with dolls.
5:53
SPEAKER_01: Yes, I like trucks.
5:54
SPEAKER_03: I get mad at people.
5:55
SPEAKER_03: Wait, you do like trucks.
5:56
SPEAKER_01: Well, my first car was a truck.
5:58
SPEAKER_01: It was a giant F-150, a giant brown F-150, yeah.
6:02
The first thing you did when you had money from the podcast was
6:04
buy like a beat up – A van.
6:06
SPEAKER_03: You definitely have a male gender identity.
6:08
SPEAKER_01: All right.
6:08
SPEAKER_01: So read this.
6:09
SPEAKER_01: I want you to read this passage from Stuart's Collette article.
6:11
SPEAKER_03: Ever since Google fired James Damore for,
6:13
SPEAKER_03: quote,
6:14
SPEAKER_03: advancing harmful gender stereotypes in our workplace,
6:16
SPEAKER_03: end quote,
6:17
those of us working in tech have been trying to figure out what
6:19
we can and cannot
6:20
SPEAKER_03: say on the subject of diversity.
6:21
You might imagine that a university would be more open to
6:24
discussing his ideas,
6:25
SPEAKER_03: but my experience –
6:26
SPEAKER_03: Suggest otherwise.
6:27
SPEAKER_03: For the last 10 months,
6:28
I've been discussing this issue at the Allen School of Computer
6:31
Science and
6:31
SPEAKER_03: Engineering where I work.
6:32
I've tried to understand why Damore's opinions generated such
6:35
anger and have
6:35
SPEAKER_03: struggled to decide what I want to do in response.
6:38
SPEAKER_03: As a result of my attempts to discuss this,
6:39
our mailing list known as Diversity Allies is now a moderated
6:43
list to prevent
6:44
SPEAKER_03: nuanced and potentially hurtful discussion.
6:47
SPEAKER_03: That's a quote.
6:48
SPEAKER_03: Instead,
6:48
I have been encouraged to participate in face-to-face meetings
6:51
that have often been
6:51
SPEAKER_03: tense,
6:53
SPEAKER_03: but which have helped me to understand where others are coming from.
6:56
SPEAKER_01: So his piece wasn't just like,
6:58
SPEAKER_01: Demore is right,
6:59
SPEAKER_01: women have girl brains,
7:01
SPEAKER_01: they like baby dolls,
7:03
SPEAKER_01: men like tractors.
7:04
SPEAKER_01: It was about the difficulty of speaking on this issue.
7:08
SPEAKER_01: And you can hear like,
7:09
SPEAKER_01: Stuart,
7:10
SPEAKER_01: he did these face to face meetings,
7:12
SPEAKER_01: he said he helped,
7:13
SPEAKER_01: you know,
7:13
SPEAKER_01: it helped me understand where others are coming from.
7:15
It seems to me like he was like,
7:17
good faith trying to engage in people who disagreed with him.
7:22
SPEAKER_01: And this was, I think, much harder to do in 2018 than it is now.
7:26
SPEAKER_01: So he also writes,
7:43
SPEAKER_01: When I mentioned that perhaps we could invite Damore to speak at UW,
7:46
SPEAKER_01: a faculty member responded,
7:47
SPEAKER_01: if he comes here,
7:48
SPEAKER_01: we'll hurt him.
7:49
SPEAKER_01: She was joking, but the sentiment was clear.
7:51
He also writes in the piece that even with equity agendas and
7:54
whatever attempts to
7:55
SPEAKER_01: reach gender parity,
7:56
SPEAKER_01: probably the most you'd ever see in women in tech is 20%.
7:59
He also included some stats on who gets computer science
8:03
degrees in Iceland,
8:04
SPEAKER_01: Finland,
8:04
SPEAKER_01: and Norway,
8:05
SPEAKER_01: which rank the highest in terms of gender equality.
8:07
And female computer science graduates in those countries,
8:10
it's generally less than 20%.
8:13
SPEAKER_01: And I should say Stewart does not strike me as like a good old boy.
8:15
SPEAKER_01: I know him a little bit.
8:16
I went to one of his classes and he comes across to me as
8:19
someone who really does
8:20
SPEAKER_01: care about his students,
8:21
SPEAKER_01: but is predisposed to poking the bear.
8:24
SPEAKER_01: So Stewart was really ostracized for his opinions and for that article.
8:27
SPEAKER_01: And the article was a big deal in Seattle.
8:29
SPEAKER_01: So I wrote about it for The Stranger.
8:30
SPEAKER_01: The Seattle Times covered it.
8:32
SPEAKER_01: The computer science department disavowed the piece.
8:35
SPEAKER_01: Students and faculty demanded that he be fired.
8:38
SPEAKER_01: Some students started a petition.
8:43
SPEAKER_01: Right.
8:59
SPEAKER_01: Anyway, he wasn't fired, but he was demoted.
9:01
SPEAKER_01: He was placed on probation for a year.
9:03
SPEAKER_01: And Stuart is obviously not a guy who is afraid to court controversy.
9:07
SPEAKER_01: So a couple years later,
9:08
when instructors were encouraged to add land acknowledgments to
9:11
their syllabi,
9:12
SPEAKER_01: not required,
9:13
SPEAKER_01: but encouraged,
9:14
SPEAKER_01: Stuart decided to craft his own land acknowledgment.
9:17
SPEAKER_01: So before he did this,
9:18
he wrote the faculty listserv saying he was going to do it and
9:21
he asked for input.
9:22
SPEAKER_01: No one responded.
9:23
It seems as though his colleagues have decided that the best
9:26
way to handle Stuart
9:27
SPEAKER_01: is to ignore him.
9:28
SPEAKER_01: So he decided he would write his own land acknowledgement on his own.
9:31
SPEAKER_01: This is what it said.
9:32
SPEAKER_01: I acknowledge that by the labor theory of property,
9:36
the Coast Salish people can claim historical ownership of
9:39
almost none of the land
9:40
SPEAKER_01: currently occupied by the University of Washington.
9:42
SPEAKER_01: Jesse, do you get that?
9:43
SPEAKER_03: Yes, but you should explain to the people who aren't as smart as me.
9:46
Okay,
9:47
so the labor theory of property is basically he who works the
9:50
land owns the land.
9:52
SPEAKER_01: This is a principle that comes from John Locke.
9:54
SPEAKER_01: And Stuart actually looked into the university archives,
9:57
SPEAKER_01: and he found that the land where the university stood was cleared by the
10:01
SPEAKER_01: university,
10:02
SPEAKER_01: not by the Native Americans who had lived in the area.
10:04
SPEAKER_01: So in his thinking, they never owned the land at all.
10:06
SPEAKER_01: This is obviously not how land ownership works in the US.
10:09
SPEAKER_01: Thank God for that.
10:10
SPEAKER_01: I think he was part trolling and part making a point.
10:13
SPEAKER_01: But when students noticed this, they complained.
10:16
SPEAKER_01: The Allen School,
10:17
SPEAKER_01: so that's where he works,
10:18
SPEAKER_01: they responded to one student on Twitter saying,
10:20
SPEAKER_01: we became aware of this offensive statement a few hours ago.
10:23
We're horrified by it and are working on getting it removed
10:25
from the syllabus.
10:27
SPEAKER_01: Meanwhile, we have removed the document from the course website.
10:30
SPEAKER_01: Again, he told the faculty list if he was going to do this.
10:32
SPEAKER_01: Everyone ignored him.
10:34
SPEAKER_01: Then the dean contacted him and asked him to remove it himself.
10:37
Stewart argued that if other faculty were allowed to make
10:40
political statements,
10:41
SPEAKER_01: then he should be allowed to as well.
10:43
And so the dean then had the IT staff remove the syllabus from
10:46
the university
10:46
SPEAKER_01: website and replace it with this.
10:48
No,
10:48
the course syllabus has been temporarily removed due to
10:51
offensive statements.
10:52
SPEAKER_01: We apologize for the inconvenience.
10:54
SPEAKER_03: So it was so harmful that I had to get the IT staff to remove it.
10:58
Yes,
10:58
I am curious what percentage of the IT staff were male versus
11:01
female.
11:02
SPEAKER_01: So the school launched an investigation.
11:05
They announced they were opening a new section of the class
11:07
with a different
11:08
SPEAKER_01: professor and students could transfer into that if they wanted to.
11:12
SPEAKER_01: And then later that year,
11:13
SPEAKER_01: Stewart partnered with FIRE,
11:15
SPEAKER_01: the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression,
11:17
SPEAKER_01: to sue the University of Washington and various administrators.
11:21
SPEAKER_01: He claimed that he was punished,
11:22
SPEAKER_01: that other faculty who did like the standard land acknowledgement,
11:26
SPEAKER_01: they were not punished.
11:27
And so this was a retaliation for his protected speech and
11:30
therefore unconstitutional.
11:32
SPEAKER_01: And the case has been working its way through the courts.
11:34
SPEAKER_01: So last year, a district court ruled in favor of UW.
11:38
SPEAKER_01: The judge said that Stuart's land acknowledgement was disruptive.
11:41
SPEAKER_01: But he and Fyre appealed,
11:43
and last month he won when the Court of Appeals for the Ninth
11:46
Circuit in Seattle
11:46
SPEAKER_01: decided in his favor.
11:48
A circuit judge said,
11:49
debate and disagreement are hallmarks of higher education.
11:53
Student discomfort with the professor's views can prompt
11:55
discussion and disapproval.
11:56
But this discomfort is not grounds for the university
11:59
retaliating against the professor.
12:01
We hold that this university's actions toward the professor
12:03
violated his First Amendment rights.
12:05
SPEAKER_01: So that's your update.
12:06
SPEAKER_01: Congratulations to Stuart and Fyre.
12:09
SPEAKER_01: I'm sure he is even more popular.
12:11
SPEAKER_01: in Seattle.
12:12
SPEAKER_03: It's a great time for freedom in America.
12:14
SPEAKER_03: It's just spreading like wildfire.
12:16
SPEAKER_01: Okay, on to the main event.
12:18
SPEAKER_01: As promised,
12:19
we are going to be discussing the protracted uncivil war
12:24
between Hassan Piker and
12:26
SPEAKER_01: Ethan Klein.
12:27
Now,
12:27
both of these characters have come up before,
12:29
but today we're going to go deep.
12:31
These are two former friends and collaborators who have been at
12:34
war with each other
12:35
SPEAKER_01: since October 7,
12:36
SPEAKER_01: 2023.
12:37
SPEAKER_01: And this conflict has split into some...
12:40
SPEAKER_01: Very messy, bizarre side plots.
12:43
SPEAKER_01: Just for the sake of keeping this to one or possibly two episodes,
12:47
SPEAKER_01: we might have to break this up.
12:48
SPEAKER_01: We're going to mostly focus on Piker and Klein themselves,
12:52
SPEAKER_01: but this is really a sprawling web of YouTube and streamer drama.
12:56
SPEAKER_01: Lots of breakups in content land.
12:58
SPEAKER_01: It's very reality TV.
13:00
Okay,
13:01
so Jesse,
13:01
our audience is probably more familiar with Hassan Piker than
13:05
Ethan Klein.
13:06
SPEAKER_01: We have mentioned him quite a bit.
13:08
SPEAKER_01: Not obsessed.
13:09
SPEAKER_01: We are not obsessed with him.
13:10
SPEAKER_01: Does he think we're obsessed with him?
13:11
SPEAKER_01: Because we're not obsessed with him.
13:12
SPEAKER_03: Definitely not.
13:13
We did a segment on his interview with the Houthi pirate or
13:17
maybe a teenager
13:18
SPEAKER_01: LARPing as a Houthi pirate.
13:20
SPEAKER_01: If you'll recall, they bonded over a shared love of anime and terrorism.
13:24
SPEAKER_01: We also discussed Dog Collargate.
13:27
This was when Piker was accused of using a shock collar on his
13:30
dog on camera.
13:32
SPEAKER_01: I consider that matter unsettled.
13:34
Yes,
13:34
he may think America deserved 9-11,
13:36
but shocking a dog on camera,
13:39
no one is that sick.
13:40
SPEAKER_01: So Piker is 34 years old, born in New Jersey, raised in Istanbul.
13:44
SPEAKER_01: He's often referred to as a Nepo baby, but that's unfair.
13:47
SPEAKER_01: His parents are academics, apparently fairly notable ones.
13:50
His father is an economist who founded a conservative political
13:53
party in Turkey.
13:54
SPEAKER_01: His mother is an art historian.
13:56
SPEAKER_01: He's not a Nepo baby.
13:57
SPEAKER_01: He's a Nepo nephew.
13:59
SPEAKER_01: His uncle is Cenk Uygur, founder of the Young Turks Network.
14:02
SPEAKER_01: This is this progressive TV network on both YouTube and on TV.
14:07
SPEAKER_01: But TV, I think that makes it sound bigger than it is.
14:10
SPEAKER_01: Do you have a TV, like an actual physical TV?
14:13
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
14:14
SPEAKER_01: Okay,
14:14
SPEAKER_01: so if you have a TV these days,
14:17
SPEAKER_01: you might have noticed that TV has channels entirely dedicated to,
14:23
SPEAKER_01: like,
14:23
SPEAKER_01: Young Sheldon and season two of Kim's Convenience.
14:27
SPEAKER_01: Have you noticed this?
14:29
SPEAKER_01: Entire channels.
14:30
SPEAKER_03: I thought, um... I thought the Young Turks, like...
14:33
SPEAKER_03: had become a pretty big business.
14:35
SPEAKER_03: And that's how they got the TV deal.
14:37
SPEAKER_01: I mean, what I'm saying is that everybody's on fucking TV now.
14:39
SPEAKER_01: Gotcha.
14:40
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
14:40
SPEAKER_03: Yes.
14:41
SPEAKER_01: Yes.
14:41
SPEAKER_03: Except for us.
14:42
SPEAKER_01: Except for us.
14:43
SPEAKER_01: Hey, hey, we are moving to YouTube.
14:46
SPEAKER_01: We are.
14:46
SPEAKER_01: This episode, this very episode might be on YouTube.
14:49
SPEAKER_01: If you are interested in seeing our faces,
14:53
SPEAKER_01: do not go to YouTube expecting them because it's not going to be any...
14:58
SPEAKER_01: Camera stuff, camera work, video itself.
15:01
SPEAKER_01: It's just going to be a waveform.
15:03
SPEAKER_01: This is our way of pivoting to video is just pivoting.
15:07
SPEAKER_01: It's just putting our shit on YouTube without video.
15:09
SPEAKER_03: It's going to be very effective, I'm sure.
15:10
SPEAKER_03: I'm excited for this.
15:13
SPEAKER_01: A new era in Blockton reported the very, very half pivot to video.
15:18
SPEAKER_01: Anyway.
15:20
SPEAKER_01: Young Turks is leftist.
15:21
SPEAKER_01: It's populist.
15:22
SPEAKER_01: There's lots of yelling.
15:24
SPEAKER_01: And that's where Hasan Piker got his start.
15:26
SPEAKER_01: So he started as an intern at TYT.
15:29
SPEAKER_01: And then after college, he got a job in the marketing department.
15:32
SPEAKER_01: And he occasionally filled in on air.
15:33
SPEAKER_01: And he clearly showed some talent.
15:35
SPEAKER_01: And he later got his own series on the network.
15:38
And then in 2018,
15:39
while he was still at TYT,
15:41
he started streaming on Twitch.
15:43
SPEAKER_01: And that's where his career really took off.
15:44
SPEAKER_01: So Jesse, explain Twitch to our geriatric listeners and also Jana.
15:50
SPEAKER_03: I mean,
15:50
it's a platform that was originally designed to allow people to
15:54
stream their video
15:55
SPEAKER_03: game achievements.
15:57
SPEAKER_03: But it has since evolved into something much bigger.
16:00
And a lot of the content on Twitch is just people talking about
16:03
politics or current
16:04
SPEAKER_03: events or whatever else.
16:05
But there's what appears to be a very healthy market for
16:08
political streaming,
16:09
SPEAKER_03: although it's often more political screaming.
16:12
SPEAKER_01: Ooh, that was good.
16:14
SPEAKER_01: So that's where Piker is huge on Twitch.
16:17
SPEAKER_01: He has 3 million followers there.
16:19
SPEAKER_01: He's also got 1.8 million on YouTube, 1.7 on X, 1.6 on Instagram.
16:24
SPEAKER_01: And he streams for eight hours a day every single day.
16:29
SPEAKER_01: And this is not like working in the coal mines or anything like that.
16:32
SPEAKER_01: But I have to say,
16:33
SPEAKER_01: as much as I do not admire his politics,
16:35
I think that talking for eight hours a day does show some
16:38
strong work ethic.
16:40
SPEAKER_01: I barely breathe for eight hours a day.
16:43
SPEAKER_01: And here's this guy talking to himself for a full shift.
16:46
SPEAKER_01: Maybe he did shock his dog because that is psychotic.
16:49
SPEAKER_01: Jesse, have you watched much of his stuff?
16:52
SPEAKER_03: No, I don't want to blow my brains out.
16:54
SPEAKER_03: So I try to stay away from him.
16:56
SPEAKER_03: No, I mean, I've seen a lot.
16:57
SPEAKER_03: I find him so,
17:00
even by the standards of the sorts of people who become
17:02
political streamers,
17:05
SPEAKER_03: so off-putting.
17:07
SPEAKER_03: The sort of like, I don't know.
17:09
SPEAKER_03: I mean, you'll tell me more.
17:10
SPEAKER_03: I just, it's not...
17:12
it's not for me i sort of understand why like a certain type of
17:15
male would respond
17:16
to it like this very sort of beefy masculine energy but it's
17:20
just like it's it's
17:22
kind of a lot is in my experience do you see the appeal to a
17:25
certain kind of female
17:27
i do i mean he's obviously he's a good looking uh jacked guy as
17:31
he will be the
17:31
SPEAKER_03: first to post on instagram so yeah i get that
17:34
SPEAKER_01: Yeah,
17:35
SPEAKER_01: so Piker is generally considered a political streamer,
17:38
SPEAKER_01: but because he streams for so long,
17:40
SPEAKER_01: he talks about kind of anything that crosses his mind.
17:43
SPEAKER_01: So let's just,
17:43
SPEAKER_01: as an experiment,
17:44
let's go to his Twitch page right now and see what he's talking
17:46
about right this
17:46
SPEAKER_01: second.
17:47
SPEAKER_03: He's like, oh, did we have to save the Iranian people?
17:50
SPEAKER_03: Just the sheer on-screen chaos of all the people.
17:53
SPEAKER_03: I'm so old.
17:54
SPEAKER_01: It's a lot of text on the screen.
17:56
SPEAKER_03: Go back to F-word son.
17:57
SPEAKER_03: Ha ha ha.
17:58
SPEAKER_03: I fucked your mom chatter.
18:00
SPEAKER_03: It was the greatest orgasm she's ever had in her entire life.
18:03
SPEAKER_03: Holy fuck.
18:04
SPEAKER_03: Fucked your dad too.
18:05
SPEAKER_03: Destroyed his G spot.
18:07
SPEAKER_03: Fucked him right in his ass, dude.
18:09
SPEAKER_03: He loved it too.
18:10
SPEAKER_03: Okay.
18:11
SPEAKER_03: This is Katie.
18:11
SPEAKER_03: I don't know if I could do this much longer.
18:13
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
18:13
SPEAKER_03: I know we just logged in.
18:14
SPEAKER_03: There's 30, almost 39,000 people concurrently.
18:17
SPEAKER_03: Okay.
18:17
SPEAKER_03: I had to turn it off.
18:18
SPEAKER_03: I couldn't, I couldn't, I tried, I tried.
18:20
SPEAKER_01: All right, so that is a taste of Hasan Piker's daily live stream.
18:26
SPEAKER_01: Scintillating content.
18:27
SPEAKER_01: I'm scintillated.
18:28
SPEAKER_01: Are you scintillated?
18:29
SPEAKER_03: I'm beyond scintillated.
18:30
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, that was great.
18:31
SPEAKER_03: I'm really glad I got to do that.
18:32
SPEAKER_01: Well, you don't have to stop here, Jesse.
18:34
SPEAKER_01: He does this eight hours a day,
18:36
SPEAKER_01: every single day,
18:36
SPEAKER_01: and he apparently makes quite a lot of money doing this.
18:39
SPEAKER_01: I don't really understand the Twitch economy,
18:42
SPEAKER_01: but I would feel very confident in guessing that he makes...
18:45
well over a million dollars a year like well over a million
18:48
dollars a year and if
18:49
you're wondering how he manages to use the bathroom while he's
18:52
doing this for eight
18:52
hours a day the answer is he just pisses all over himself it's
18:56
true no diaper no
18:58
catheter just whiz it's strange but people like it should we um
19:02
do we have an
19:03
SPEAKER_03: estimate of what he makes per year
19:05
SPEAKER_01: If you Google it, you will find a bunch of different estimates.
19:08
SPEAKER_01: These are just guesses.
19:09
Like you can Google yourself and your net worth and it will
19:12
come up with something
19:13
SPEAKER_01: completely bizarre and not at all connected to reality.
19:17
SPEAKER_01: But in 2021, there was a hack of Twitch
19:22
SPEAKER_01: And this is I'm reading from the Washington Post here.
19:24
SPEAKER_01: Hassan Piker,
19:25
SPEAKER_01: a popular leftist news pundit,
19:26
was trending on Twitter Wednesday as a rule of his pay around
19:30
$2.8 million since
19:31
SPEAKER_01: 2019.
19:32
SPEAKER_01: That was 2021.
19:34
SPEAKER_01: So at that point, he was making a lot of money.
19:36
SPEAKER_01: He's much more popular now.
19:38
SPEAKER_01: So I don't know what the number is, but I know it's high.
19:40
SPEAKER_01: And he's just apparently very good at talking a lot.
19:43
SPEAKER_01: People love his commentary.
19:45
SPEAKER_01: And as you mentioned,
19:46
SPEAKER_01: he's also got something else going on for him,
19:48
SPEAKER_01: and that's that he is attractive.
19:50
SPEAKER_01: And I do not think it should be underestimated as a key to his success.
19:54
SPEAKER_01: So let's read from this recent Guardian article about him.
19:56
SPEAKER_01: Jesse, will you read this paragraph?
19:58
SPEAKER_03: To his enemies, there is plenty to dislike.
20:00
SPEAKER_03: His outspoken political views,
20:01
SPEAKER_03: his Turkish-Muslim background,
20:03
SPEAKER_03: his allegiances with progressive politicians such as Zoran Mamdani—
20:07
SPEAKER_03: Can you say the list?
20:10
SPEAKER_03: OK, I have a comment after I finish.
20:13
SPEAKER_01: Give it to us.
20:14
SPEAKER_03: It's just it's like it's thrown in.
20:18
SPEAKER_03: There's among the top two reasons.
20:21
SPEAKER_03: First to mention reasons to dislike him, his Turkish Muslim background.
20:25
SPEAKER_03: What percentage of people in 2025, 2026?
20:29
SPEAKER_03: Is that why they dislike him?
20:30
SPEAKER_03: Because he's a Turk?
20:33
SPEAKER_03: He's an American.
20:33
SPEAKER_03: I mean,
20:34
SPEAKER_03: anyway,
20:35
SPEAKER_03: his allegiances with progressive politicians such as Zoran Mamdani,
20:38
SPEAKER_03: Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez,
20:39
SPEAKER_03: and Ilhan Omar,
20:41
SPEAKER_03: all of whom appeared on the show,
20:42
SPEAKER_03: but they also hate the fact that Piker,
20:43
SPEAKER_03: tall,
20:44
SPEAKER_03: muscular,
20:44
SPEAKER_03: fashionable,
20:45
SPEAKER_03: and handsome,
20:46
SPEAKER_03: is far too alpha to fit lefty stereotypes.
20:49
SPEAKER_03: That's it.
20:50
SPEAKER_03: That's why they hate him.
20:51
SPEAKER_03: He's too hot.
20:53
He has not been afraid to leverage his henchness in
20:55
shirtless...
20:56
Is that a Britishism?
20:58
SPEAKER_01: Maybe.
20:59
SPEAKER_03: In shirtless,
21:00
SPEAKER_03: sometimes even trouserless magazine photoshops or selfies on his socials,
21:04
generating articles such as 30 sexy pics of Hassan Piker that
21:08
prove the only thing
21:08
SPEAKER_03: that is hotter than his takes is his bod.
21:10
SPEAKER_03: Jesus Christ.
21:11
I get the feeling that this author has wallpapered his home
21:15
with the 30 sexy pics
21:17
SPEAKER_01: of Hassan Piker.
21:18
SPEAKER_01: Sounds like it.
21:18
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
21:19
SPEAKER_01: So this sort of fawning profile of Hasan Piker is very common,
21:23
SPEAKER_01: particularly in the last year or so.
21:25
SPEAKER_01: You know,
21:25
SPEAKER_01: after the 2024 election,
21:26
SPEAKER_01: there was all this talk about finding the Joe Rogan of the left,
21:29
SPEAKER_01: someone who could help Democrats attract young men back from MAGA.
21:34
And there was this wave of coverage of Piker from the
21:37
mainstream and liberal press,
21:38
SPEAKER_01: like,
21:38
SPEAKER_01: he's the guy,
21:38
SPEAKER_01: he'll save us.
21:39
But Hasan Piker was never going to be the young white male
21:42
whisperer for the Dems
21:44
SPEAKER_01: because Hasan Piker is not a Democrat.
21:46
He seems to hate Democrats as much,
21:49
if not more,
21:49
than he hates Donald Trump.
21:51
SPEAKER_01: Well,
21:52
SPEAKER_03: but there's like a lot of the conservative,
21:56
a lot of the podcasters people associate with getting young
21:59
people to vote for
22:00
SPEAKER_03: Trump are not Republicans per se.
22:02
SPEAKER_03: They just sort of nudge.
22:03
SPEAKER_01: That's true.
22:04
SPEAKER_01: But Joe Rogan, he explicitly endorsed Donald Trump.
22:08
SPEAKER_01: He said he was voting for Donald Trump.
22:09
SPEAKER_01: Piker definitely didn't do that for Kamala Harris.
22:12
And in fact,
22:13
he said things like trans people would not be safer under a
22:17
Harris presidency.
22:19
SPEAKER_01: He's not a Democrat.
22:21
SPEAKER_01: He doesn't like Democrats.
22:23
I think you could argue that he could be a young male whisperer
22:26
for the DSA or for
22:28
SPEAKER_01: candidates like Mondami or Ilhan Omar or AOC,
22:34
SPEAKER_01: but the Democratic establishment,
22:36
SPEAKER_01: no.
22:36
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I mean, that's fair.
22:38
SPEAKER_03: I'm just saying,
22:38
SPEAKER_03: like,
22:38
SPEAKER_03: I mean,
22:39
SPEAKER_03: and part of this is the,
22:43
SPEAKER_03: I think,
22:43
SPEAKER_03: stupidity of being like,
22:44
we need to find the left wing equivalent of Joe Rogan just
22:47
because Rogan's his own
22:48
SPEAKER_03: thing.
22:48
SPEAKER_03: And Rogan is just not as straightforwardly ideological as people think,
22:51
SPEAKER_03: even if he did at one point endorse Trump.
22:54
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
22:55
SPEAKER_01: And so Piker,
22:55
SPEAKER_01: he used to call himself a democratic socialist,
22:58
SPEAKER_01: you know,
22:58
SPEAKER_01: in the mold of Bernie Sanders.
22:59
SPEAKER_01: But he is very clearly at this point, not that he's a communist.
23:04
He would like to see wealth seized from the rich and
23:06
redistributed to the poor.
23:08
SPEAKER_01: He also lives in a big, you know, expensive house in California.
23:11
So I assume he'll be opening that up for his tiki torch welding
23:14
comrades at some point.
23:15
SPEAKER_01: The guy, he's not opposed to a little cultural revolution.
23:18
SPEAKER_01: And he has said that the best model for governance is China.
23:24
SPEAKER_01: So here's a clip of Piker on the Trigonometry podcast.
23:27
SPEAKER_01: You're going to hear host Konstantin Kissen first.
23:29
You said something interesting because,
23:30
you know,
23:31
I was born in the Soviet Union.
23:32
So we both have direct experience of socialism in various
23:36
shapes and forms.
23:36
SPEAKER_00: You talked about, well, there's positives and there's negatives.
23:40
SPEAKER_00: So is there a country that's done socialism the way that you like?
23:46
SPEAKER_00: I would say that...
23:49
I am hypercritical of all forms of governance,
23:52
including the American one.
23:53
SPEAKER_03: I think that's not a surprise to you guys, right?
23:59
SPEAKER_03: And in that same vein,
24:00
SPEAKER_03: I think there is critiques to apply to all forms of governance,
24:04
SPEAKER_03: even socialist ones.
24:06
And as far as getting closer to what I think has been
24:11
relatively successful,
24:12
because if ultimately the point of government is to improve the
24:16
material conditions
24:17
SPEAKER_03: of all people,
24:18
SPEAKER_03: to the best of your ability.
24:19
SPEAKER_03: It's not always going to be perfect,
24:21
SPEAKER_03: but when you are getting,
24:23
SPEAKER_03: I don't know,
24:23
SPEAKER_03: the poorest people,
24:25
the poorest of the dispossessed masses out of a situation where
24:30
they were serviled,
24:32
SPEAKER_03: the landed gentry,
24:33
SPEAKER_03: or they were peasants from an agrarian society,
24:36
SPEAKER_03: or they were dominated by the landlords,
24:40
SPEAKER_03: but then ultimately they were able to
24:42
to come into modernity and become like a powerhouse an
24:45
industrial powerhouse that
24:46
is competitive with the largest superpower on the planet i
24:49
would say if that's the
24:50
point of good governance and i think you guys might agree with
24:53
me on that i would
24:54
say china is probably the closest that is a super interesting
24:58
take china as a model
25:00
SPEAKER_03: for good governance good
25:01
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
25:01
SPEAKER_03: Interesting.
25:03
Have you,
25:04
on another note,
25:04
have you ever heard Constantine's co-host speak?
25:07
SPEAKER_01: I think he might actually be mute.
25:09
SPEAKER_01: It's very odd.
25:10
SPEAKER_03: Might be like a Penn and Teller type deal.
25:12
SPEAKER_01: So I haven't listened to the entire episode.
25:14
SPEAKER_01: So it's possible that Piker mentioned, you know,
25:17
the imprisonment of minority groups like the uyghurs the police
25:20
state mass
25:20
surveillance the suppression of tibet and hong kong the lack of
25:24
free press etc but
25:26
he seems to have a real infatuation with china he actually
25:29
traveled to china
25:30
recently he has some very nice things to say about the place
25:33
including that it's
25:34
gay as hell did you see this one jesse i know i saw when he was
25:37
there i didn't see
25:39
SPEAKER_03: him say it was gay as hell
25:40
SPEAKER_01: Okay, so this is a stream he did while in China.
25:42
SPEAKER_01: And one of his viewers was like, wait a second, you're an ally.
25:45
SPEAKER_01: Isn't China bad for gay people?
25:47
SPEAKER_01: And Piker said this.
25:49
SPEAKER_03: Why China blog gay dating apps?
25:51
SPEAKER_03: I don't think that's true.
25:53
SPEAKER_03: I think you saw that on Twitter.
25:54
SPEAKER_03: I don't know if that's true.
25:57
SPEAKER_03: Chatter, this is exactly what I mean.
26:00
If you look,
26:01
if you get your notes from Twitter,
26:03
which,
26:03
by the way,
26:04
like...
26:08
SPEAKER_03: Like, you'll see.
26:08
SPEAKER_03: We're about to go to Chengdu.
26:10
SPEAKER_03: What's really funny about this is, like, China's gay as hell.
26:16
SPEAKER_03: Like, just watch this stream and you will see.
26:23
SPEAKER_03: Like, Austin's been on the apps.
26:28
SPEAKER_03: That's so funny.
26:29
SPEAKER_03: There is, like, I mean, it's true.
26:34
SPEAKER_03: Apple removes Chinese gay dating apps on government order?
26:37
SPEAKER_03: Okay, but that's Apple.
26:40
SPEAKER_01: So a very cursory exploration,
26:44
SPEAKER_01: and by that I mean Google,
26:46
of China and homosexuality shows that China is indeed a very
26:51
homophobic place,
26:53
SPEAKER_01: and this includes coming from the federal government.
26:56
SPEAKER_01: So gay marriage is not legal, which it's not legal a lot of places.
27:00
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
27:00
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
27:01
SPEAKER_01: Still kind of new.
27:02
SPEAKER_01: We'll forgive them for that.
27:04
SPEAKER_01: But let me read you from this NBC News piece.
27:05
Homosexuality has become one of the biggest subjects of
27:08
censorship in China and the
27:09
SPEAKER_01: target of a recent government crackdown,
27:11
even though surveys say the public is increasingly supportive
27:14
of LGBTQ people.
27:16
SPEAKER_01: In September, the U.S.
27:17
movie Together that featured a same-sex wedding scene was
27:19
digitally altered to turn
27:21
SPEAKER_01: one of the two men into a woman for early screenings in Mainland.
27:26
china so gay as hell but also you can show gay people on tv and
27:31
good luck getting
27:31
the dating apps logic yeah did you see what happened when he
27:34
went to tiananmen
27:35
square i did not so i thought you were online have you gotten a
27:38
life that i don't
27:39
know about i tried i just like hassan i'm glad i'm glad i'm
27:43
learning about hassan
27:44
but i don't i don't seek out the content to be honest although
27:47
it seems to be
27:48
SPEAKER_03: everywhere
27:49
SPEAKER_01: I don't seek it out.
27:50
SPEAKER_01: It seeks me out.
27:51
SPEAKER_01: Well, what did he do?
27:52
SPEAKER_01: What did he do in Tiananmen Square?
27:53
SPEAKER_01: OK, so this clip is mostly in Chinese, so we won't play it.
27:56
SPEAKER_01: But he was streaming from Tiananmen Square.
27:58
And someone in his group showed a meme on his phone of Chairman
28:02
Mao with Hassan's
28:04
SPEAKER_01: face on it,
28:05
SPEAKER_01: like showed this to the camera.
28:07
They were stopped by state security and had to hand over their
28:10
phones for inspection.
28:11
SPEAKER_01: And Hassan was apparently fine with this.
28:14
And,
28:14
you know,
28:15
last year he was stopped by immigration when returning to the
28:18
U.S.
28:18
SPEAKER_01: from Europe.
28:19
SPEAKER_01: He was questioned for a couple of hours.
28:20
SPEAKER_01: They took his phone away.
28:21
SPEAKER_01: This is wrong.
28:23
SPEAKER_01: He's an American citizen.
28:24
SPEAKER_01: And Hassan was rightfully outraged,
28:25
but he's completely blasé about human rights abuses in China or
28:29
Russia because
28:29
SPEAKER_01: communism good or whatever.
28:31
SPEAKER_01: I've just got one more clip for you from Hassan's stream.
28:34
SPEAKER_01: I think this one really sums up his worldview.
28:36
SPEAKER_03: When you look at a situation in the Middle East,
28:39
SPEAKER_03: you look at what the local government is and who the Western forces are.
28:44
SPEAKER_03: Never align with the Western forces.
28:46
SPEAKER_03: So when I look at other countries,
28:48
SPEAKER_03: I look at the regional actor,
28:49
SPEAKER_03: whoever the regional power player is,
28:51
SPEAKER_03: and then I look at who is backed by the Western superpowers.
28:55
SPEAKER_03: That's a principle that you could take home with you.
28:57
If you want to actually be moral or if you want to be smart
28:59
about the way you
29:00
SPEAKER_03: analyze other countries,
29:03
SPEAKER_03: that's one principle.
29:04
SPEAKER_03: Basic principle that you can take home with you.
29:07
SPEAKER_03: All of a sudden,
29:08
SPEAKER_03: magically,
29:09
SPEAKER_03: you are above,
29:10
SPEAKER_03: on your foreign policy analysis,
29:11
you're going to be better off than 90% of people that look at
29:15
the situation.
29:16
Yeah,
29:16
this is a classic thing among a certain type of
29:19
pseudo-intellectual where...
29:22
SPEAKER_03: I mean, he's just saying it out loud.
29:24
SPEAKER_03: You literally, whoever the West backs, you're against him.
29:27
SPEAKER_03: And this led people to support,
29:29
has led people to support like truly heinous murderous regimes
29:32
over the years
29:33
SPEAKER_03: because they're opposed,
29:34
SPEAKER_03: happen to be opposed to the US.
29:35
So how did he respond after we did our super legal operation in
29:41
Venezuela?
29:42
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
29:42
SPEAKER_03: And a lot of those Venezuelans,
29:43
SPEAKER_03: some of them are going to be in the chat today,
29:45
are going to fucking talk like this is a fantastic moment and
29:48
Trump is a great
29:49
SPEAKER_03: liberator.
29:50
SPEAKER_03: Bitch, he's saying you're a rapist, okay?
29:52
SPEAKER_03: I need you to understand this.
29:54
SPEAKER_03: If you are a fucking Venezuelan expat,
29:56
SPEAKER_03: if you are a Venezuelan refugee living in the United States of America,
29:59
SPEAKER_03: understand something.
30:00
He is saying you're a rapist drug dealer that will get sent to
30:06
fucking Seacott.
30:07
SPEAKER_03: Okay.
30:08
It doesn't matter whether you like Maduro or whether you hate
30:13
the Chavistas or,
30:15
SPEAKER_03: or whatever the fuck.
30:16
SPEAKER_03: Okay.
30:17
SPEAKER_03: He will use you like a pawn.
30:19
SPEAKER_03: Okay.
30:19
SPEAKER_03: You are like a, you're like a, like a comrade.
30:21
SPEAKER_03: I mean,
30:21
SPEAKER_03: he's not wrong,
30:22
SPEAKER_03: but he's sort of,
30:22
he's sort of doing that thing where like everything's about
30:25
America and Trump,
30:26
SPEAKER_03: like Venezuelans in Venezuela.
30:28
SPEAKER_03: I look at it.
30:29
SPEAKER_03: Yeah,
30:31
SPEAKER_03: it's hard to – he's obviously right that from Trump's point of view,
30:35
SPEAKER_03: if you don't have the correct legal status,
30:38
SPEAKER_03: you're at the same risk,
30:38
SPEAKER_03: whatever you think.
30:39
SPEAKER_03: But I think he's maybe missing the point a little bit.
30:41
But this is probably the issue where it's easiest for Hassan
30:44
Piker to be right
30:46
SPEAKER_03: because what we did was so crazy.
30:48
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I'm kind of with him on this one.
30:49
I mean,
30:50
I understand Venezuelans celebrating and I do hope for the best
30:54
for them.
30:54
SPEAKER_01: I'm extremely skeptical of Trump's motives and his actions.
30:58
SPEAKER_01: No legal scholar here,
30:59
but kidnapping the sitting president of a nation and
31:02
extraditing him to the U.S.
31:04
when he has not attacked this country seems,
31:05
I don't know,
31:06
it seems illegal to me.
31:07
Seems like an act of war,
31:08
not congressional proof,
31:09
but I'm not,
31:10
again,
31:10
not a legal scholar.
31:12
I also,
31:13
when he says that Trump will use Venezuelans as a comrade,
31:16
it's a little racy.
31:17
SPEAKER_01: And Trump doesn't strike me as a big gooner.
31:20
SPEAKER_01: Too messy.
31:21
SPEAKER_01: But I did sort of find myself nodding along with this one, unfortunately.
31:25
Anyway,
31:26
that's Hassan Piker,
31:28
CCP enthusiast,
31:29
alleged dog shocker,
31:31
beefcake.
31:32
SPEAKER_01: Now, Jesse, enter Ethan Klein.
31:34
SPEAKER_01: So how much do you know about Ethan Klein?
31:36
SPEAKER_03: I just honestly,
31:37
I just I mostly know that they got in a fight about a certain
31:42
people's certain
31:43
SPEAKER_03: homeland.
31:43
SPEAKER_03: But no, fill me in on Ethan Klein.
31:45
SPEAKER_03: Who's homeland, Jesse?
31:46
SPEAKER_03: Depends who you ask.
31:49
SPEAKER_01: All right, so Ethan Klein's company is called H3H3 Productions.
31:53
SPEAKER_01: That's old internet slang for hee hee.
31:55
SPEAKER_01: And he runs the company with his wife, Ila Klein.
31:59
SPEAKER_01: H3 has 5.5 million subscribers on YouTube.
32:03
SPEAKER_01: He does have way fewer followers on Twitch than Pikers,
32:06
SPEAKER_01: just half a million,
32:07
SPEAKER_01: two Pikers,
32:07
SPEAKER_01: three million.
32:08
SPEAKER_01: But Klein has 2 million followers on X, 1.6 on Instagram.
32:12
SPEAKER_01: So he's also very popular.
32:13
SPEAKER_01: Now,
32:14
SPEAKER_01: I'm just going to be frank here.
32:16
SPEAKER_01: I don't really like Hassan Piker.
32:18
SPEAKER_01: I think he's an extremist, but I can see why people follow him.
32:22
SPEAKER_01: He's hot.
32:23
And he blames all of the world's woes on Western imperialism
32:27
and late capitalism.
32:28
SPEAKER_01: It's a very tidy narrative.
32:30
SPEAKER_01: I can sort of see the appeal if you're like...
32:33
You know,
32:33
you went to college and now your only job is at Starbucks and
32:37
you hate your boss.
32:38
SPEAKER_01: You come home from a hard day standing on your feet making lattes.
32:42
And there's Hassan Piker telling you that the key to all of
32:46
your problems is Jeff Bezos.
32:49
SPEAKER_01: I kind of get it, even if I don't agree.
32:51
SPEAKER_01: But Klein, I don't get the appeal.
32:54
SPEAKER_01: He is a very strange physical affect.
32:57
SPEAKER_01: It's not really his fault.
32:58
He has Tourette's and he has these pretty intense twitches and
33:01
tics that do seem to
33:03
SPEAKER_01: be exacerbated when he's wound up,
33:05
SPEAKER_01: which is often...
33:07
SPEAKER_01: But he has a lot of followers.
33:10
SPEAKER_01: And he started out, he's been around for a long time.
33:11
SPEAKER_01: So he started out making like funny reaction videos on YouTube in 2011.
33:16
SPEAKER_01: Reaction videos have been a staple of YouTube for years.
33:18
SPEAKER_01: They have evolved over time.
33:20
So back in the day,
33:21
a reaction video didn't usually contain any of the source
33:24
material.
33:26
SPEAKER_01: I guess like downloading and clipping technology has evolved since then,
33:29
but reaction videos in the beginning would just be a face of
33:32
someone watching a
33:33
SPEAKER_01: video.
33:34
SPEAKER_01: So the classic examples are reaction videos for two girls, one cop.
33:37
SPEAKER_01: Do you remember that?
33:38
SPEAKER_03: Oh, God, yeah.
33:39
SPEAKER_01: Did you ever watch it?
33:40
SPEAKER_03: I think when I was like a wee lad, yeah.
33:42
SPEAKER_01: Should we do it on camera?
33:44
SPEAKER_03: No, that's okay.
33:45
SPEAKER_01: I've never seen it.
33:46
SPEAKER_01: Anyway, it was all very meta.
33:47
SPEAKER_03: That should be the only video we post on our YouTube channel.
33:51
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
33:53
It's just waveforms and then it cuts to that and then back to
33:55
the waveforms.
33:56
SPEAKER_01: You know, we might go viral for that.
34:01
SPEAKER_01: We might.
34:02
SPEAKER_01: So back in the day,
34:02
SPEAKER_01: the reaction video,
34:03
SPEAKER_01: it would only kind of make sense if you know that Two Girls,
34:06
SPEAKER_01: One Cup is not about sharing a soda,
34:08
SPEAKER_01: right?
34:09
SPEAKER_01: Ethan Klein's reaction videos were slightly different because Hila,
34:12
SPEAKER_01: his wife,
34:13
SPEAKER_01: would be filming him watching something on his computer.
34:16
SPEAKER_01: So she pans from the computer screen to his reaction to it.
34:21
I watched so many of these fucking videos to try to find one
34:26
that was even mildly interesting.
34:27
SPEAKER_01: I failed.
34:28
SPEAKER_01: These videos are so bad.
34:29
SPEAKER_01: I mean, they're 15 years old, so...
34:33
SPEAKER_01: Our tastes change, but these videos have millions of views.
34:36
So here was the best of the many dozens of early Ethan Klein
34:41
videos I watched for you,
34:42
Jesse.
34:42
SPEAKER_01: This one is called How to Clean Your Gamer Gear H3H3 Reaction Clip.
34:48
SPEAKER_03: You want to know a dirty little secret?
34:50
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, huh?
34:50
SPEAKER_03: Do ya?
34:51
SPEAKER_03: Do ya?
34:52
SPEAKER_03: You're not gonna get there if your gear's all crapped up with gamer gunk,
34:55
SPEAKER_03: dust,
34:55
SPEAKER_03: chip dip,
34:56
SPEAKER_03: greasy,
34:56
SPEAKER_03: sticky,
34:57
SPEAKER_03: slimy game residue.
34:58
SPEAKER_03: Oh, your keyboard isn't fucking full of chip dip and covered in splooch?
35:03
SPEAKER_03: Oh.
35:03
SPEAKER_03: Oh, well, you're not a real gamer.
35:05
SPEAKER_03: Okay, now, Ethan is...
35:10
SPEAKER_03: Okay, Ethan covered his whole keyboard with queso and Doritos.
35:14
SPEAKER_03: These are Call of Duty branded Doritos, in case you're wondering.
35:18
So it's just a grotesque scene of Ethan just basically rubbing
35:25
queso all over his keyboard.
35:27
SPEAKER_03: And I guess from a certain point of view, it's funny.
35:30
SPEAKER_01: I'm lulling right now.
35:31
SPEAKER_03: This does have 12 million views from 10 years ago.
35:35
SPEAKER_01: So maybe we should recreate that for our YouTube channel.
35:38
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
35:39
SPEAKER_01: Just you covered in queso.
35:40
SPEAKER_01: That actually might do pretty well.
35:42
So Ethan Klein did these sort of bad comedy and reaction videos
35:45
before gradually
35:46
SPEAKER_01: pivoting to politics.
35:48
SPEAKER_01: And Klein, like Piker, has had some controversies of his own.
35:51
SPEAKER_01: Actually, quite a few controversies.
35:53
SPEAKER_01: So we're going to get to the latest ones in detail later,
35:56
SPEAKER_01: but there's one I wanted to mention up top.
35:59
SPEAKER_01: So in 2016,
36:00
SPEAKER_01: a YouTuber named Matt Hosanzada filed a lawsuit against H3H3,
36:06
SPEAKER_01: Klein's production company,
36:07
SPEAKER_01: in response to a video they made using clips of his video.
36:11
SPEAKER_01: So they were making fun of him.
36:13
SPEAKER_01: Standard reaction video.
36:14
YouTuber Matt's lawyer said that Ethan and Hila took 70% of
36:18
Matt's video while,
36:19
SPEAKER_01: quote,
36:20
SPEAKER_01: contributing nothing substantive to it.
36:22
SPEAKER_01: And this is really the question that defines fair use.
36:26
SPEAKER_01: If you adequately transform content,
36:29
SPEAKER_01: whether that's video or audio clips or art or whatever,
36:31
SPEAKER_01: it's legal to reproduce and sometimes even sell it,
36:35
SPEAKER_01: which is how Weird Al Yankovich isn't in copyright prison right now.
36:38
SPEAKER_01: Eat it.
36:39
SPEAKER_03: Well, he also gets permission.
36:41
SPEAKER_03: Oh, does he?
36:42
SPEAKER_01: Well, that would also help.
36:43
SPEAKER_01: So Eat It obviously copies beat it,
36:46
SPEAKER_01: but it also transformed the content enough to make it fair use.
36:49
SPEAKER_01: Plus, parody is generally protected by courts.
36:51
SPEAKER_03: Okay.
36:52
SPEAKER_03: This is important, Katie.
36:54
SPEAKER_03: I looked on the frequently asked questions of the Weird Al page.
36:56
SPEAKER_03: Weird Al believes,
36:57
SPEAKER_03: quote,
36:59
SPEAKER_03: A,
36:59
Al does get permission from the original writers of the Song
37:01
City Parodies.
37:02
SPEAKER_03: While the law supports his ability to parody without permission,
37:04
he feels it's important to maintain the relationships that he's
37:06
built with artists
37:07
SPEAKER_03: and writers over the years.
37:08
SPEAKER_03: Okay.
37:08
SPEAKER_01: Nice guy.
37:09
SPEAKER_03: He is a very nice guy.
37:10
SPEAKER_01: So, yes, but he doesn't have to.
37:12
SPEAKER_01: Parody is protected by the courts.
37:14
SPEAKER_01: But there is some interesting legal gray area when it comes to fair use.
37:18
SPEAKER_01: So,
37:18
SPEAKER_01: for example,
37:19
SPEAKER_01: in the early 80s,
37:20
SPEAKER_01: Polo,
37:20
SPEAKER_01: the clothing company,
37:21
SPEAKER_01: sued a company called – do you remember Mad Dog?
37:23
SPEAKER_01: I don't.
37:24
SPEAKER_01: You were probably more of a Big Johnson guy.
37:25
SPEAKER_03: I don't remember what I was.
37:26
SPEAKER_03: I don't remember my childhood at all.
37:28
SPEAKER_03: It was just I blacked out.
37:30
SPEAKER_01: So Mad Dog just made the coolest t-shirts in 1996.
37:33
And they made a spoof shirt with a horse logo in the style of
37:37
the polo logo.
37:38
SPEAKER_01: The horse was dragging a polo player behind it.
37:41
SPEAKER_01: Polo sued and Mad Dog argued that it was parody.
37:44
SPEAKER_01: They eventually settled out of court.
37:45
SPEAKER_01: Mad Dog was also sued by Lacoste, by the way.
37:48
SPEAKER_01: They also settled and they stopped selling the shirts.
37:50
Now,
37:50
this is relevant to our story,
37:52
but the point is,
37:53
parody can get you sued.
37:55
SPEAKER_01: It is legally protected, but you can get sued.
37:58
SPEAKER_01: And oftentimes,
37:59
SPEAKER_01: as we learned last year,
38:02
getting sued for something that you can probably win is still a
38:05
giant pain in the
38:06
SPEAKER_01: ass.
38:06
SPEAKER_03: Well,
38:06
but also it is like different in this age where anyone can take
38:10
anyone else's video
38:11
SPEAKER_03: and then publish huge portions of it and respond to.
38:15
SPEAKER_03: I do think that's substantively different than like Eat It.
38:18
SPEAKER_01: A parody.
38:18
SPEAKER_01: Yes, it is different than parody.
38:20
SPEAKER_01: Anyway, this YouTuber suit against Ethan Klein was filed in 2016.
38:23
Another YouTuber set up a GoFundMe for the Kleins and they
38:26
raised over $170,000 to
38:27
SPEAKER_01: pay their legal fees.
38:30
As you will hear,
38:31
I do not think there would be a six-figure fundraiser for the
38:34
clients today.
38:35
SPEAKER_01: But at the time, H3H3 was one of the more beloved YouTube channels.
38:41
SPEAKER_01: They had more friends than they do now.
38:43
SPEAKER_01: And after the success of the GoFundMe,
38:44
the clients announced that the money from the fundraiser was
38:47
going to a fund they
38:48
SPEAKER_01: were establishing called the Fair Use Protection Account,
38:51
SPEAKER_01: or FUPA,
38:52
SPEAKER_01: of course.
38:53
SPEAKER_02: Nice.
38:53
And they would use the fund to help other content creators who
38:56
were being sued for
38:57
SPEAKER_01: copyright violations.
38:58
SPEAKER_01: Which sounds great.
38:59
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
38:59
SPEAKER_01: Well,
39:00
the only creators the fund actually ended up supporting were
39:02
the Clines because
39:03
SPEAKER_01: their own legal fees exceeded the $170,000.
39:06
SPEAKER_03: That's not surprising.
39:09
SPEAKER_03: I mean, that's like a very normal amount.
39:11
Luckily,
39:12
I and we have not had to actually engage in legal shenanigans,
39:15
but like that –
39:16
SPEAKER_01: Lawyers are expensive.
39:17
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
39:18
SPEAKER_03: Anyone who's like,
39:20
SPEAKER_03: if you are maybe headed down that road,
39:22
SPEAKER_03: anyone will tell you it could easily get six figures.
39:25
So there was a little bit of backlash at the time that they
39:28
didn't actually use the
39:29
SPEAKER_01: FUPA fund for anyone but themselves.
39:31
But at the time,
39:32
the clients were well-liked and the fundraiser had been set up
39:36
to support them.
39:37
SPEAKER_01: So no real scandal there.
39:39
SPEAKER_03: Who won the case?
39:39
SPEAKER_01: The clients did.
39:40
And this was one of the first federal court rulings to
39:43
explicitly recognize
39:45
SPEAKER_01: reaction videos as transformative under US copyright law.
39:49
SPEAKER_01: And had it gone the other way,
39:51
it's hard to imagine YouTube or TikTok or Twitch existing as it
39:55
does today because
39:56
SPEAKER_01: so much of the content on those platforms are reaction videos.
39:59
I'm not saying that this would have killed YouTube,
40:01
but it would have killed the reaction video.
40:03
SPEAKER_01: And that case is widely cited as this landmark case for YouTube creators.
40:08
SPEAKER_01: This will come back.
40:09
SPEAKER_01: So remember this.
40:11
SPEAKER_01: So I first heard of Ethan Klein in probably like 2022.
40:13
SPEAKER_01: And the reason I heard of him then was because of Jordan Peterson.
40:18
So Klein had Peterson on his show twice,
40:21
his YouTube show,
40:22
in 2017 and 2018.
40:23
SPEAKER_01: And then in 2022, he deleted those episodes and he tweeted this.
40:30
SPEAKER_01: That's really pathetic.
40:31
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
40:31
SPEAKER_01: Do you think that's a fair assessment of Jordan Peterson?
40:33
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
40:51
SPEAKER_03: It depends which Jordan Peterson and when.
40:53
I think a lot of Jordan Peterson is like just normal clean your
40:56
room stuff,
40:57
but he's absolutely become a bit of a conspiracy theorist and a
41:00
little bit crazy.
41:01
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, he has.
41:02
SPEAKER_01: I think he needs some fiber or a vegetable.
41:06
He should eat one vegetable and then he would just go back to
41:08
normal,
41:08
I bet.
41:09
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
41:10
SPEAKER_01: So Klein has since deleted that tweet.
41:12
SPEAKER_01: But at the time, this became somewhat of a story.
41:16
SPEAKER_01: And look, Jordan Peterson has fully gone off the deep end.
41:19
SPEAKER_01: Maybe he always was off the deep end.
41:22
But if you talk to his supporters or in some cases former
41:24
supporters,
41:25
this theme emerges from
41:29
And that's that Jordan Peterson was actually their gateway out
41:31
of the alt-right.
41:33
SPEAKER_01: That might not be as true today as it was a few years ago.
41:36
SPEAKER_01: I really don't know how much of a following he has anymore.
41:40
SPEAKER_03: But it sort of doesn't matter.
41:42
The point is taking down an interview you did with a guy,
41:45
it's just a pathetic,
41:47
weak-ass move.
41:48
SPEAKER_03: I don't know.
41:49
SPEAKER_03: I mean, to me, I get what you're saying.
41:51
SPEAKER_03: It could go either way, and there's controversy over that.
41:53
SPEAKER_03: But let's say Jordan Peterson was...
41:56
SPEAKER_03: a gateway to the alt-right.
41:57
It would still be interesting and worthwhile that you had
41:59
interviewed him and just
42:00
SPEAKER_03: to keep that up as like a historic...
42:02
SPEAKER_03: Like,
42:02
SPEAKER_03: yeah,
42:02
SPEAKER_03: I just...
42:03
SPEAKER_03: Pulling,
42:03
trying to delete stuff that was on the internet that you did I
42:06
think is so lame.
42:06
SPEAKER_01: But 2022, there was a lot of that going on.
42:09
SPEAKER_01: So that's how I first came across Ethan Klein.
42:11
SPEAKER_01: So Peterson responded to Klein and he said...
42:14
You will be held to higher and higher and soon impossible to
42:18
maintain ethical
42:19
SPEAKER_01: standards by the very mob that you currently wish to please.
42:22
SPEAKER_01: Then you will make a mistake and they will devour you with glee.
42:25
SPEAKER_01: Please take this warning seriously.
42:28
SPEAKER_01: I liked you.
42:28
SPEAKER_01: I would say this was prescient.
42:33
SPEAKER_01: Yes.
42:33
SPEAKER_01: Yes.
42:34
SPEAKER_01: Peterson also said,
42:35
SPEAKER_01: also,
42:36
I should warn you that those who engage in cancel culture
42:38
generally live to regret
42:39
SPEAKER_01: it.
42:39
SPEAKER_01: I'm not going to come after you except politely in this Twitter stream.
42:43
SPEAKER_01: But the chickens will definitely come home to roost.
42:45
SPEAKER_03: Damn.
42:46
SPEAKER_01: He sounds so sensible and reasonable and kind in those tweets.
42:50
SPEAKER_03: It's like someone's cursing you, basically.
42:53
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
42:54
SPEAKER_03: But gently.
42:55
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
42:55
SPEAKER_01: So Peterson, as you will hear, was correct.
42:59
SPEAKER_01: And quickly after this exchange went viral,
43:02
SPEAKER_01: rival YouTuber Keemstar,
43:04
SPEAKER_01: so he's a right winger,
43:05
he posted compilation footage of Klein saying the faggot slur
43:09
and the n-word dozens
43:10
SPEAKER_01: of times.
43:11
SPEAKER_01: This was clearly posted in an attempt to cancel Ethan Klein.
43:14
SPEAKER_01: But as everyone knows, you can only be canceled by your own side.
43:16
SPEAKER_01: And so that attempt failed.
43:18
SPEAKER_01: There have been many other controversies over the years,
43:21
SPEAKER_01: including a years-long feud with the YouTuber Trisha Paytas.
43:24
SPEAKER_01: We aren't even going to get into that here.
43:26
SPEAKER_01: Let's just say Ethan Klein...
43:29
SPEAKER_01: Maybe heterosexual, but he is a queen.
43:31
SPEAKER_01: Now,
43:32
SPEAKER_01: politically,
43:33
SPEAKER_01: Hassan Piker and Ethan Klein are both on the left,
43:35
SPEAKER_01: but they are different shades of left.
43:37
SPEAKER_01: So again,
43:38
Hassan is a communist apologist who thinks Ukrainians should
43:41
stop whining and be
43:42
SPEAKER_01: Russian already,
43:43
while Ethan Klein is a self-described social democrat with
43:46
pretty unremarkable
43:47
SPEAKER_01: views.
43:48
SPEAKER_01: There are also some religious differences between the two.
43:51
SPEAKER_01: So Hassan is Muslim, although obviously non-practicing.
43:54
SPEAKER_01: Ethan Klein, as his name suggests, is Jewish.
43:57
SPEAKER_01: In fact, he has dual citizenship with the US and Israel.
44:01
He lived in Israel for five years,
44:03
and he actually met his wife,
44:04
Ila,
44:05
on a birthright trip.
44:06
SPEAKER_01: And she, like most Israelis, served in the IDF.
44:10
SPEAKER_01: But despite these differences between Piker and Klein,
44:14
the two of them came together to make a kind of YouTube
44:17
streaming version of a
44:18
SPEAKER_01: buddy comedy,
44:19
SPEAKER_01: like a
44:20
SPEAKER_01: 21st century version of Dumb and Dumber, but somehow dumber.
44:23
So they started working together in September 2021 on a YouTube
44:27
show and podcast
44:28
SPEAKER_01: called The Leftovers.
44:29
SPEAKER_01: Have you seen it, Jesse?
44:30
I think I've seen clips over the years,
44:32
but what was like,
44:34
what were they doing on that?
44:35
SPEAKER_03: Like, what was it like?
44:36
SPEAKER_01: Standard owning the right content, mostly.
44:39
SPEAKER_01: Lots of reaction vids.
44:41
SPEAKER_01: So let's watch a clip.
44:42
SPEAKER_01: This is Hassan and Ethan reacting to GOP campaign ads.
44:46
SPEAKER_03: Every political ad is exactly the same.
44:47
So here's these guys trying to sell themselves as good old salt
44:52
of the earth Americans.
44:55
SPEAKER_03: These are all conservatives, obviously.
44:57
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, including Joe Manchin in the bottom left there.
44:59
SPEAKER_03: I mean, he's a conservative.
45:02
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, he is.
45:05
SPEAKER_03: America has some big problems.
45:06
SPEAKER_03: This motherfucker's holding a pig in his hand.
45:08
SPEAKER_03: I love that, dude.
45:10
SPEAKER_03: I love that.
45:11
SPEAKER_03: That dude is walking with a piggy.
45:14
SPEAKER_03: Come on now here, down here.
45:19
SPEAKER_03: I can't get over this dude holding a piggy.
45:21
SPEAKER_03: Big Dan Rodimer for Congress.
45:23
SPEAKER_03: I'm about to eat this pig whole, boy.
45:25
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, that's fucking awesome.
45:27
SPEAKER_03: That's a cute-ass pig, though.
45:29
SPEAKER_03: Dude,
45:29
SPEAKER_02: goddamn,
45:30
SPEAKER_03: pigs are so cute when they're little babies and they become,
45:32
SPEAKER_03: like,
45:32
SPEAKER_03: giant monsters.
45:33
SPEAKER_03: This is sort of like successor.
45:35
SPEAKER_03: It's like a Jon Stewart-style comedy, almost.
45:39
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so it's largely shit like that, but they did occasionally argue.
45:42
SPEAKER_01: This happens.
45:43
No podcast partnership is without the occasional debate about
45:46
how much more Jesse
45:47
SPEAKER_01: should be doing.
45:48
SPEAKER_01: But even though they sometimes disagreed,
45:51
they seemed like they were genuinely friends and they could
45:54
disagree with each
45:54
SPEAKER_01: other without blowing up.
45:57
SPEAKER_01: So here's an example of that.
45:58
Tibet was literally a fucking feudal slave mandate,
46:04
like autonomous zone.
46:06
SPEAKER_03: China did them a favor.
46:07
SPEAKER_03: That was one.
46:08
I mean,
46:09
in America,
46:09
when I say something like this,
46:10
people get very upset.
46:12
SPEAKER_03: You know, we talk about the Dalai Lama saying suck my tongue or whatever.
46:15
SPEAKER_03: But like,
46:16
that's not far from the norm in fucking normal Tibetan
46:18
existence before the
46:20
SPEAKER_03: Communist Party came in.
46:22
SPEAKER_03: And China unilaterally.
46:26
SPEAKER_03: took over Tibet, wealthed their culture.
46:29
SPEAKER_03: They basically are trying to homogenize the culture.
46:33
SPEAKER_03: They're trying to squel the religion and the identity.
46:35
SPEAKER_03: And they did them a favor.
46:36
The part of feudal warlords and slavery abolishing that,
46:40
yes,
46:40
I do think that that is good.
46:41
SPEAKER_03: No, China did them a favor.
46:42
SPEAKER_03: I mean, this is a common dynamic.
46:44
SPEAKER_03: Because I'm usually...
46:47
SPEAKER_01: Are you Ethan or are you Hassan?
46:50
SPEAKER_03: I'm obviously Ethan.
46:51
There's like a guy who is much saner and less of a moron and
46:56
not a revolutionary idiot.
46:58
SPEAKER_03: And then there's like a much more sort of like masculine camera.
47:02
SPEAKER_03: I mean, this is how it works.
47:06
SPEAKER_03: This is how we got where we are.
47:08
SPEAKER_01: Except that I'm more of a capitalist than you.
47:10
SPEAKER_03: I don't.
47:11
SPEAKER_03: Are you?
47:11
SPEAKER_01: I don't know.
47:12
You pay extra in taxes,
47:14
which is actually true because you always pay yours late.
47:17
SPEAKER_03: It just makes me lazy.
47:20
Okay,
47:21
so I do love that Piker is in favor of imperialism when it's
47:27
brown people doing it.
47:28
SPEAKER_03: Yellow people.
47:28
SPEAKER_01: Offensive, Jesse, offensive.
47:30
SPEAKER_01: Okay,
47:30
SPEAKER_01: so they had some good-natured disagreement and debate,
47:33
SPEAKER_01: but they maintained this show for two years.
47:36
SPEAKER_01: And then October 7th happened.
47:38
SPEAKER_01: Remember, Ethan has Israeli citizenship.
47:40
SPEAKER_01: Piker is vehemently pro-Palestinian.
47:44
SPEAKER_01: And at first they seemed kind of on the same page.
47:46
SPEAKER_01: Like they had discussed Israel-Palestine before.
47:49
SPEAKER_01: And even where they disagreed, they'd been respectful of each other.
47:51
SPEAKER_01: So like Hassan Piker did a fundraiser for Gaza.
47:55
SPEAKER_01: Ethan donated $6,500.
47:57
SPEAKER_01: But things were tense.
47:58
SPEAKER_01: Hassan either couldn't or wouldn't moderate his chat.
48:03
SPEAKER_01: Ethan was getting more and more frustrated.
48:04
SPEAKER_01: The ticks were coming out.
48:06
And then two weeks after the attacks,
48:08
the host dedicated a full episode to the situation.
48:11
SPEAKER_01: So let's watch the top of that.
48:13
SPEAKER_03: In actuality,
48:13
we're going to be discussing the conflict between Israel and
48:18
Gaza that's happening
48:19
SPEAKER_03: right now.
48:19
SPEAKER_03: Obviously,
48:19
SPEAKER_03: there's been a lot of emotional charged stuff going on,
48:27
SPEAKER_03: but we're going to discuss everything.
48:28
But I do want to make something very clear at the top of this
48:31
show here is that
48:32
SPEAKER_03: I've seen a lot of people expecting us to come frothed.
48:36
and argue and our friendship is going to end and the show is
48:40
going to end or
48:40
SPEAKER_03: something like that.
48:41
SPEAKER_03: And I'm sorry to disappoint you guys,
48:43
SPEAKER_03: but that's definitely not what we're planning on doing here.
48:45
SPEAKER_03: It's not going to happen.
48:46
Jesse,
48:47
you will be shocked to learn this was the final episode of The
48:50
Leftovers.
48:51
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
49:06
SPEAKER_01: And it started out okay.
49:07
So Klein lays out his position on Israel,
49:10
which is that Netanyahu is a war criminal.
49:13
SPEAKER_01: The right-wing Israeli coalition is hellbent on genocide.
49:15
SPEAKER_01: They've committed war crimes in Gaza.
49:17
SPEAKER_01: It's barbaric.
49:18
SPEAKER_01: It's unacceptable.
49:18
SPEAKER_01: It's disgusting.
49:19
SPEAKER_01: He says all that.
49:20
He gets choked up when talking about seeing a video of a
49:23
Palestinian father holding
49:25
SPEAKER_01: his dead infant.
49:25
SPEAKER_01: Like, he cries.
49:27
SPEAKER_01: It's actually touching.
49:29
SPEAKER_01: And he comes across, to me, as very sincere.
49:32
SPEAKER_01: And it's very clear he does not support the Israeli government.
49:36
SPEAKER_01: So the two are in agreement about this.
49:38
SPEAKER_01: And on the whole, they actually agree a lot in that episode.
49:43
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, Hassan is more tolerant of Hamasniks than Klein is.
49:47
SPEAKER_01: That's to be expected.
49:48
SPEAKER_01: And at one point, he refers to baby settlers.
49:52
SPEAKER_01: That was weird.
49:52
SPEAKER_03: Right, yeah, that was...
49:54
not great and they argue over some particulars but considering
49:57
that this was the
49:58
last ever episode of the podcast in the end of their
50:00
collaboration and the start of
50:02
their war with each other I was actually surprised when I
50:05
watched this how
50:06
copacetic it was so it ended with Klein saying Piker had
50:10
genuinely moved him on
50:11
SPEAKER_01: some issues they seem to be in the same place
50:15
But shortly afterwards,
50:16
they announced that the show is going on on hiatus.
50:19
SPEAKER_01: And that hiatus now over two years later has not ended.
50:23
SPEAKER_01: And I'm starting to think, Jesse, that it won't.
50:25
Sounds like it sounds like this was a pretty serious fight from
50:28
two guys who are
50:29
SPEAKER_03: maybe a little bit mismatched from the start.
50:31
SPEAKER_03: Yes.
50:32
SPEAKER_01: So, Jesse, we're going to pause this for today.
50:36
SPEAKER_01: We're running out of time.
50:38
SPEAKER_01: But we forgot to do housekeeping.
50:40
SPEAKER_01: You want to skip it for once just as a treat?
50:42
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, let's see what happens if we skip it.
50:44
SPEAKER_01: Okay, but I do have to mention something.
50:45
SPEAKER_03: Go for it.
50:46
SPEAKER_01: Personals are back.
50:48
SPEAKER_03: Okay.
50:48
SPEAKER_03: How do people submit them?
50:51
SPEAKER_03: This is a perk.
50:53
SPEAKER_03: We'll leave a series of breadcrumbs across the internet.
50:55
SPEAKER_03: Good luck figuring out how to submit a personal.
50:58
SPEAKER_01: This is our annual low effort matchmaking service.
51:02
SPEAKER_01: This is a perk for primos.
51:04
SPEAKER_01: You can submit a personal ad through a,
51:07
SPEAKER_01: look at our Substack page,
51:09
SPEAKER_01: blockchainreported.org.
51:10
SPEAKER_01: If you are a primo, you will have access to this.
51:13
SPEAKER_01: You can submit your personal ad
51:15
Shock to report these personals have in one case resulted in a
51:20
literal legal marriage.
51:22
SPEAKER_03: Wait, but how do you actually submit it?
51:24
SPEAKER_03: Do we have an email address?
51:25
SPEAKER_03: Are you about to give that?
51:27
SPEAKER_01: No, we don't have an email address.
51:28
SPEAKER_01: I did it as a Google form.
51:30
SPEAKER_01: Way easier.
51:31
SPEAKER_01: So if you go to the Substack page, blocksandreported.org.
51:33
SPEAKER_03: Why don't you just include a link to the Google form in the show notes?
51:35
SPEAKER_03: Oh.
51:36
SPEAKER_01: No, no, no, because it's for pre-mails only.
51:38
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
51:38
SPEAKER_01: So it's got to be paywalled.
51:39
SPEAKER_01: So here's what I do.
51:41
I will link to the page that links to the page with the paywall
51:46
that has the Google
51:47
SPEAKER_01: form so you can submit your personal ads.
51:49
SPEAKER_01: Does that make sense?
51:50
SPEAKER_01: We're all in the same page here?
51:52
SPEAKER_03: No.
51:52
So on the right side of blockchainported.org,
51:54
there's a thing called Useful Links.
51:56
SPEAKER_03: And Katie, once you build that page, I will add it to Useful Links.
51:59
SPEAKER_03: It's already built.
51:59
SPEAKER_03: Okay.
52:00
SPEAKER_03: Well, send me the link.
52:00
SPEAKER_03: I'll add it to Useful Links right now.
52:02
SPEAKER_01: Do you not get our emails?
52:03
SPEAKER_03: No.
52:03
SPEAKER_03: No.
52:04
personals wait let's see if i got the email january 6
52:07
introducing the book club
52:08
plus personals are back babe you get the emails okay so you
52:12
have the link i'm gonna
52:13
put personals in the um oh wait but we only have let's just pin
52:17
it to the top of
52:18
the page it will be pinned to our our blocked and reported.org
52:22
how's that yes okay
52:23
SPEAKER_03: wait this was uh okay i'll do that yeah
52:26
SPEAKER_01: So if you want to submit your personal,
52:28
SPEAKER_01: look for the page on our website that says personals are back.
52:33
SPEAKER_01: The other announcement is, yes, the book club is meeting.
52:35
SPEAKER_01: We have a date.
52:35
SPEAKER_01: This is February 22nd.
52:37
SPEAKER_01: It's a Sunday.
52:39
SPEAKER_01: The book is Laura Delano's Untrunk.
52:42
SPEAKER_01: She's going to be joining us for Substack Live.
52:44
SPEAKER_01: We're going to discuss the book.
52:45
SPEAKER_01: You'll be able to ask questions.
52:47
SPEAKER_01: This is an experiment pilot program.
52:49
SPEAKER_01: We'll see how it goes.
52:51
SPEAKER_01: These are just a couple of the perks for our primos.
52:53
SPEAKER_01: We're doing housekeeping.
52:54
SPEAKER_01: And if you want to join one and get a fuck ton of extra content,
52:57
SPEAKER_01: including the next episode of the Hassan Piker Ethan Klein saga,
53:02
SPEAKER_01: because this one is going to be part two is going for just for primos.
53:05
SPEAKER_01: Please join us.
53:06
SPEAKER_01: It is the best way to support the show.
53:09
SPEAKER_01: And we need your support.
53:10
SPEAKER_01: I need your support.
53:11
SPEAKER_03: We all do.
53:13
SPEAKER_03: Well, thank you for that, Katie.
53:14
SPEAKER_03: This has been Blocked and Imported.
53:16
SPEAKER_03: As always, we are produced with help from Jessica the 80s Baby.
53:19
SPEAKER_03: And yeah, join us for the second half of the Ethan Hassan saga.
53:23
SPEAKER_03: But you're going to have to pay for it.
53:24
SPEAKER_03: It'll be out tomorrow.
53:25
SPEAKER_03: You're going to have to pay for it.
53:26
SPEAKER_03: It'll be out tomorrow.
53:27
SPEAKER_03: Bye.
53:27
SPEAKER_03: Bye.