Final yr, Hasan “Hasanabi” Piker was quickly banned from the Amazon-owned streaming platform, Twitch, for having the audacity to say “cracker” full-throated whereas broadcasting to an viewers of two.3 million followers. Final week, everybody’s favourite tiny-headed socialist streamer lastly acquired a cross to say the no-no phrase from Wheat Thins.
Final Friday, Piker acquired a cryptic tweet from Wheat Thins’ official account saying it delivered a bundle outdoors of his home in West Hollywood. Hasan, stunned by how a model would know his handle (apparently they obtained it from his agent), initially didn’t take kindly to the ominous Tweet. However the streamer placed on a courageous face and did an unboxing of Wheat Thins’ mysterious parcel on his stream. Whereas his chat rattled off variations of jokes that Wheat Thins had mailed him a sundried tomato and basil flavor-themed bomb, it seems the entire grain cracker model introduced good tithings. Along with receiving containers of the reduced-fat snack, Wheat Thins gave the streamer a plaque granting him a cross to say cracker anytime he desires.
“That is legit. I can say it,” Piker advised his chat. “Twitch, I can fucking say it. I can name somebody the C-word and you can not ban me. Do you perceive? I’ve the cracker cross.”
As Hasan rapidly found final yr, saying the slang phrase for trifling-ass white brethren classifies as a violation of Twitch’s group pointers towards hate speech. Twitch’s pearl-clutching and subsequent banning of Hasan for a complete of 1 week, three minutes, and 49 seconds rang particularly hole contemplating Twitch streamers—notably queer streamers and streamers of colour—began the #TwitchDoBetter motion that very same yr. The aim of stated marketing campaign was to get Twitch to deal with the rampant harassment campaigns, follow-botting, and charged “hate raids” streamers confronted on the platform. To Twitch’s credit score, it could later handle precise racism on its web site by suing two nameless people believed to be leaders within the ongoing hate raids however, let’s be sincere, Hasan getting banned for saying cracker was ridiculous on Twitch’s half.
One can solely assume that Wheat Thins’ C-word cross works equally to the parody N-word cross subscription service from Canadian streamer WoolieVersus: some fortunate lily-skinned person has the chance to sing alongside to their favourite Kendrick Lamar music with out worry of catching a fade. Product viability could fluctuate. I’m undecided what number of chart-topping tunes use the naughty streamer phrase, so the Wheat Thins cross has a really completely different use-case. It’s not day-after-day that one of many world’s greatest cracker distributors offers you the go-ahead to say Black of us’ tried and true noun for racist white folks, so use your cross responsibly, Hasan. Congrats in your all the things.