Vaush

Ian Anthony Kochinski (born February 14, 1994), better known as Vaush , is an American left-wing YouTuber and former Twitch streamer. Kochinski started his online career as a member of streamer Destiny's community, before creating his Twitch channel and YouTube account in 2019. His content consists of commentary on various news and media topics, men's fashion, video games, and urbanist policies. Debates and discussions with various political figures have been a large part of his channel. Noted for his confrontational style, use of memes, and mimicry of right-wing YouTubers, he is regarded as part of the BreadTube community.

Described as a progressive and libertarian socialist, Kochinski is considered a controversial figure online. He has received several bans on Twitch and criticism for various statements, and has also received praise for his sociological content, debates, and charity livestreams.

Personal life Ian Anthony Kochinski was born on February 14, 1994, in Los Angeles, California, and grew up in Beverly Hills. Kochinski studied sociology at Humboldt State University, graduating with a BA in 2018. Kochinski identifies as pansexual. He is autistic and also has ADHD. Vaush has also said that he was diagnosed as having bipolar disorder.

Career Kochinski has livestreamed debates with far-right figures such as Stefan Molyneux and Sargon of Akkad, which have millions of views. His first appearances online were in discussions with the political streamer Destiny, and encouraged by Destiny's audience he later began a Twitch channel of his own. a common strategy employed by the left-wing BreadTube community on YouTube. He also uses memes and internet slang in his videos to appeal to the audience of primarily young people online. His channel also features discussions and debates with offline figures, including journalists, radio hosts, and political candidates. In December 2021, Kochinski was again banned from Twitch indefinitely for using the racial epithet "cracker" on stream. He used the term while discussing whether it could be considered a racial slur and if saying it should be a bannable offense following the ban of fellow Twitch streamer Hasan Piker for saying the word on stream. In response to the ban, Kochinski told The Washington Post that social media platforms are "terrible at acknowledging context and power relations when it comes to harassment."

Kochinski and fellow political streamer Destiny organized their communities to knock on more than 10,000 doors and make 50,000 phone calls in support of Janet Protasiewicz during the 2023 Wisconsin Supreme Court election. In a Progressive Victory livestream that September, Kochinski, along with Destiny, Emma Vigeland, and Keffals, interviewed U.S. Representative Ro Khanna about various topics, including the importance of youth political participation and ways to push progressive political sentiment.

Political views

Noted as a left-wing streamer, Kochinski is a self-described progressive, and libertarian socialist. While believing that tech companies have too much power, Kochinski also felt that Donald Trump being banned from various social media websites was an "unequivocally good thing".

Kochinski has criticized the online right for creating a "pipeline" that pushes people to radical hard-right views such as ethnic nationalism, disenfranchising women, and for engaging in "absolute abject cruelty to trans people". He has also criticized the online left for "purity politics" and for engaging in actions that create "great content but terrible political advocacy". He has criticized Twitter for banning trans people for using the term TERF, which he argues is "categorically not a slur". Responding to the controversy on his livestream, Kochinski said that earlier statements that he had made had been a failed attempt at being "overly edgy" and that he "no longer stand by" his arguments justifying the use of the word.

Later in 2021, his arguments that kink should be excluded from some pride events for not being family-friendly, and for making pride inaccessible to young questioning queer people were met with divided opinions on social media The Mary Sue, and The Bulwark, though he later renounced his statements, saying "[During the] kink at pride discourse, I said some stuff that I later came to regret. I think that there were some issues I was reactionary on... kink at pride isn't a problem".

Also in 2021, Kochinski received praise from Kotaku for a charity livestream in which he raised over US$200,000 for the Palestine Children's Relief Fund and from The Daily Beast for challenging Tim Pool on the meaning of critical race theory while appearing on his podcast Timcast IRL. He was also positively cited by sociologist Anthony Knowles for successfully communicating sociological ideas to a large audience outside the reach of academic sociologists.