I love when my enemies hate, me

Every day, Hasan Piker broadcasts a marathon Twitch stream, airing his views to 3 million followers. It has led to him becoming one of the biggest voices on the US left. But Piker's online fame has drawn vitriol towards him in real life

- Steve Rose

ASAN PIKER CALLS IT THE BUS DRIVER TEST: "You get on a bus and you have 30 seconds to explain whatever online phenomena took place to the bus driver without them looking at you and going: 'Get off the fucking bus."" Most online discourse, no matter how heated, fails the test, he says - not least an incident recently, when someone on a Dublin street asked to take a picture with Piker, then held up a picture of his dog and shouted: "Free Kaya!" Never mind the bus driver; trying to explain the significance of this particular event might well take the rest of this article, but the wider point is that there is a jarring overlap, or more often disconnect, between the online and offline worlds.

Piker finds himself in this in-between space more and more these days. Until fairly recently, the 34-year-old was familiar only to the very online, especially Americans in their 20s and 30s, largely thanks to his presence on the streaming channel Twitch, where he has 3 million followers. But since Donald Trump's election, Piker has become an in-demand voice in "the real world" for his views on the beleaguered political left, and especially that inordinately frettedover demographic, young men.