This year’s
Vanity Fair Oscar Party boasted
a guest list including hundreds of A-list movie stars, business moguls across every industry, and one very anxious
Twitch streamer.
“
Before the party I reached out to a bunch of my friends that are real Hollywood celebrities, and not talentless hacks like myself,” Hasan Piker tells
Vanity Fair. “I asked them what to expect. They were like, ‘It’s intense, but don’t be nervous.’”
Piker spends seven hours a day, seven days a week dishing out socialist political commentary for millions of primarily Gen Z followers on Twitch. On the left, he’s heralded as the only voice capable of seducing young men disaffected by party politics. That’s thanks, in part, to his pairing of uncompromising leftism with alpha-male charisma and aesthetics—and having giant biceps.
He’s a staunch critic of both establishment Democrats and billionaires, but on Sunday, he
rubbed elbows with both, sharing the
LACMA party space with the likes of Nancy Pelosi and Jeff Bezos, Hollywood fixtures like Steven Spielberg, It boys
Hudson Williams and Connor Storrie, and media bigwigs like Maureen Dowd and Kaitlan Collins. Piker’s inclusion befitted an era in which
independent creators dominate.
But the next day, Piker took to Twitch to give his disciples a firsthand account of
the party. “It was the most nervous I’ve ever been in my life,” he confessed in the TikTok video caption, breaking from his usual bravado. On
Instagram, he posted a photo of himself on the red carpet and wrote that he’d been “absolutely frame mogged by real celebrities.”
Piker, who will depart Friday to join the Nuestra América Convoy delivering aid to Cuba, spoke to
VF from his home studio in LA. He reflected on
walking the carpet with no stylist, feeling starstruck around Dua Lipa and
Javier Bardem, and what a decade on Twitch does to a man’s swag.
Vanity Fair: On your livestream you said that you were more nervous than you’ve ever been in your life. You specifically shared that you felt like a “chud ass loser.” Can you explain what a “chud ass loser” is?
Piker: “Chud” originally comes from a movie from the ’90s, but it’s taken on a new life. Initially some of my friends over at Chapo Trap House started using it to describe Republicans. Now zoomers have taken it. When they say “chud” they just mean “loser” with extra seasoning—a guy who doesn’t work out, doesn’t shower, doesn’t have any ambition, doesn’t go outside. And that’s how I felt in the crowd of Hollywood aristocrats.
Talk to me about walking the carpet.
I didn’t have a stylist, but my outfit wasn’t too bad for something that I pulled together from my closet. I don’t have a lot of red-carpet attire, and you can’t be an outfit repeater. The jacket is a Japanese brand, but I guess it looks like a Chinese collar.
I thought about wearing a suit that I got tailor-made in China, but that one’s gray. And I wasn’t sure if you’re allowed to wear gray to a black-tie event.
The other thing I did not consider is that I should have gotten my hair and makeup done before the party. They even suggested a last-minute touch-up when I first walked in, but I was like, Nah, I don’t need that. That’s why every single other person on the red carpet looks super cool and super nice, and I look out of place and disheveled.
Once you got off the carpet and stepped inside, what did you do?
I pretty much first beelined to get a drink, and then luckily I saw Finneas. I know him fairly well, but he had a lot more friends there than I did. I’m sure he wanted to go chop it up with them. I didn’t want to be annoying, so I eventually broke off. My biggest L of the night was that Dua Lipa was right there but I didn’t talk to her.
Wagner Moura and Javier Bardem were also standing right next to me for an hour. They have radical politics. I wanted to talk to them and thank them for their work, but I thought to myself, I’m just some random guy. I don’t think they want to hear from me.
Are you usually fun at a party?
I’d say so. I’m not a very anxious person at all. I speak in front of thousands of people. I talk directly to high-profile politicians. But this was a bridge too far for me. It’s kind of like how I’m six-foot-four and I never think about my height until I’m standing next to a basketball team. Then I realize, Wow, I’m actually a lot shorter than these guys.
Has spending so much time on Twitch negatively impacted your level of swag?
For sure. I’m swagless. I used to have a robust social life, and I don’t anymore. I have fried my brain in irreparable ways, but I think it’s worth it. If I can be a megaphone for people that don’t really have a voice in mainstream news, the dispossessed masses, victims of American imperialism, it’s a worthwhile sacrifice.
When I approached you at the party, you appeared to be on a phone call. Was it a real phone call?
It was a real phone call. The way I was texting about the party in the group chat made my family members think something really bad had happened. Someone called to check in.
What was it like to share the space with powerful billionaires like Jeff Bezos? Did you feel any sense of moral conflict there?
The way I see attending an event like that, I jokingly call it “terrorism insurance.” A lot of people say I’m a terrorist or a lover of the enemy. My attendance at events like that is insurance to show that I am not a terrorist. I’m a normal functioning adult.
I saw Jeff Bezos for a moment, but I tried to evade his peripheral vision.
He’s the boss of a lot of people who were in that room, but he’s
directly my boss. He owns Twitch, and my entire life is on Twitch.
I bring a lot of positive PR to Twitch, but I bring a lot of heat to Twitch as well, so I have made it a policy to be as invisible as possible. I don’t ever want Jeff Bezos to know who I am.
You’re going to Cuba to join the Nuestra América Convoy this week, right?
I’m flying out tomorrow morning in a cargo plane from Miami to Havana.
We’re bringing humanitarian aid to Cuba, and trying to create more awareness of the American blockade that has asphyxiated the island for the past three months.
There has to be some whiplash going from a glamorous party to Cuba and joining the convoy.
You’ve got to be dynamic. I can be in a room like the
Vanity Fair Oscar Party and then seven days later be delivering aid in Havana. This is what the media environment requires.
In fact, another reason I go to events like the Vanity Fair party is to talk to as many people as possible, specifically to bring more awareness to things like this. It’s a mission I absolutely failed on at the VF party, but there’s always next year.
If you were invited to go again next year, would you go?
Oh, I would definitely go. I’d go with a plan of action. I would not be too afraid to talk to Wagner Moura and Javier Bardem. And I’d probably drink a little bit beforehand.
This conversation has been edited and condensed for clarity.
