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Notes -
Controversial Twitch streamer Hasan Piker allegedly uses a shock collar on his dog on stream.
It is narrative shorthand for a villain - to emphasize his wickedness and complete removal from the family of man - to kick a dog for no reason other than vicious spite. While on air last night, expounding upon his hatred of America and its violence and imperialism, his dog Kaya stands up behind him. A Tibetan mastiff/guardhound mix, the streamer purchased her a long time ago as a puppy. Nowadays, she spends the majority of her waking existence sitting behind him, in camera as a prop during his streams. As soon as he sees that she's moving off the bed, he shouts at her, and reaches for something off-camera. Immediately afterwards, the dog yelps as she tries to lay back down.
It is obviously a shock collar that is being used. No amount of denial or snarky comments can get anyone to believe that their lying eyes can see any differently. And if you think that's an overstatement - I invite you to see the footage for yourself. The fact that the man still has a career after saying "America deserved 9/11" is testament to the country's tolerance for extreme left-wing radicalization, but this might very well be the thing that can take him down. Americans love their dogs: creatures of innocent, adoring love for man. The fact that Hasan uses his dog to sustain his flagging social media presence - in emotes and in donation messages - is a transparent attempt to associate his vile personality with an animal's emotional resonance.
You can tell a lot about a character of a man by his treatment of creatures who depend entirely upon his good will and care for their lives. By this metric, Hasan is a despotic and evil blackguard. One hopes that these clips are shown at tonight's congressional hearing to the Twitch CEO. At the very least, it will be entertaining to see how the man deflects for his pet demagogue. Perhaps, in a peace offering, he can offer to collar the streamer?
I have no love for Hasan Piker - I don't follow him on any social media, so my exposure to him is all second-hand, and what I've seen of him indicates to me that he's a very careless thinker and impenetrable ideologue that has actively made political discourse worse in America. But I do think there's reasonable doubt here. Based on the behavior, the timing, his personality, the way he seems to treat his dog, and the way he has talked about potentially using shock collars on his dog in the past, I would absolutely guess that the odds are over 50% that that clip was of him using a shock collar on the dog. But without seeing the remote or a close-up of the collar to verify that it's indeed a shock collar, I wouldn't vote to convict in a court of law.
And though he won't be judged in a court of law, he will be judged in the court of public opinion, by people who will be more than happy to hold the "prosecution" to a far higher standard than "beyond a reasonable doubt." As well as by people who will use a far lower standard of, "I don't like him, therefore he's guilty." I believe that there will be more than enough people of the former sort such that Piker has absolutely nothing to be concerned about with respect to "cancelation" or whatever.
Personally, as someone who has had dogs and cats for most of his life, I find shock collars for pets to be pretty much evil, and this has lowered my opinion of Piker as a person even more. But my opinion of him doesn't matter.
I don't know personally what he did, but I know that I've never seen a dog yelp in response to anything except pain or the expectation of incoming pain if it has been conditioned into them, neither is a good look for Hasan.
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