Sam Hyde in Pittsburgh- Two Sold Out Shows

By Keystone Anti-Racist Action

UPDATE: 4/12/25 3:00 pm- This event is happening tonight and was relocated to West Mifflin #3 Volunteer Fire Company at 3722 Rodeo Drive, West Mifflin, PA 15122. Greg Hlasnick, vice president, refused to shut down this event.

UPDATE: 4/10/25 6:45 pm- We have confirmed that this event is no longer taking place at Hop Farm Brewing. The owners of this business issued their statement on their Instagram page today. The promoter, Hazy Heckler (affiliated with Lolev Beer) have attempted to publicly distance themselves by commenting on Hop Farm’s post, but have not cancelled this event. They have transferred ticket holders to a different Pittsburgh venue.

*Only confirmed updates will be posted here*

Yet another white supremacist soap-boxer books a comedy show in Pittsburgh.

According to his personal website Sam Hyde has booked back to back, sold out, comedy shows at a Pittsburgh neighborhood brewery, Hop Farm, on Saturday April 12, 2025. This city is just one stop on his mini-tour of 8 cities. While Hyde has already completed several stops, his tour still has shows scheduled to occur in Richmond VA (tonight 4/9), Perryville MD (4/11), Pittsburgh PA (4/12) as well as Ohio cities Dayton (4/13), Cincinnati (4/14) and Toledo (4/15).

Hyde first gained notoriety back in 2015 by performing a slur riddled homophobic comedy “routine”. He blamed many of society’s problems on members of the LGBTQ+ community and expanded it to include antisemitic attacks. 

Around the same time his image started to be used in an online trolling campaign following mass shootings. Often pictures of Hyde, posing with a rifle, claiming that the picture was of the shooter. These seem to have originated on 4chan message boards with the apparent goal of confusing the media and or law enforcement during the initial investigations. These same message boards are responsible for Hyde’s early grassroots support for his Million Dollar Extreme (MDE) project.

The MDE project landed a short lived spot on Adult Swim, the adult block of Cartoon Network’s programming. This show was canceled after public outcry reportedly due to the show’s connections to the “Alt-Right” movement. Alt-Right is a term self-coined by racists in 2015 to help the their movement appear a softer, more approachable movement. Often through the use of comedy they pushed racist images and ideas, retreating behind the mantra of “it’s just a joke” when called out for it. It was leaders of this Alt-Right movement that called for and organized the deadly Charlottesville VA rally, Unite the Right, in 2017.

Successful comedy is often meant to push social limits and to make people uncomfortable. There is nothing inherently wrong with this- through this medium artists can force people to reexamine norms and social ills. Comedians often come from communities with stereotypes, making fun of those same communities, in order to gain recognition and encourage growth. Hyde’s comedy, on the other hand, is a blatant attempt to reinforce social problems and inequality based on race, sexuality, gender and religion. This has made him the darling of a sizable portion of the white supremacist movement.

Sam Hyde forged deep ties with other far right celebrities including Nick Fuentes and Alex Jones. He donated and helped promote Andrew Anglin’s legal defense fund following a lawsuit from the Southern Poverty Law Center. When asked by a LA Times reporter about the donation he first asked if the reporter was “jewish” then deflected his role in the fundraiser. These ties help to promote Hyde’s work to a paying audience of far right extremists.

Hyde has posed with some highly notable white supremacists, Richard Spencer and Andrew Auernheimer to name a few. In both of these photos, each of these men makes a known white supremacist gesture. Photos like these are used to connect his white supremacist organizing to its racist base. Hyde himself has claimed that his fan base is “pretty dialed in” and that makes him immune to being canceled, inferring that they support the racist, homophobic and antisemitic content. He is correct, and we welcome the community to shut these public events down, and drive them underground into obscurity where they belong!

Hyde has a tenuous connection to the city of Pittsburgh. He attended Carnegie Mellon University for one year. More recently he mocked victims of the Tree of Life massacre in 2018. That attack was carried out by an obscure white supremacist who was radicalized in online chat rooms flush with Alt-Right supporters. This was the largest loss of life during an antisemitic attack this country has ever seen. There is no dispute that this was a hate attack on the Jewish community of Pittsburgh fueled by antisemitism.

Hazy Heckler, the promoting agency who booked Hyde’s Pittsburgh show, was contacted for comment. They are doing business out of Lolev Beer, another brewery down the street from Hop Farm, who was also contacted for comment, where the performances are set to take place. Both breweries are taking part in the same day Fifth Annual Lawrenceville Brewery Crawl. At this event “stamp cards” can be purchased and presented at participating breweries. These can be turned in as raffle tickets to benefit a local LGBTQ+ center. All of this is seemingly out of touch with their platforming of a known racist, misogynist, homophobic, antisemite who has ties to violent organized hate groups.

At the time of this publication, neither Hazy Heckler nor Hop Farm returned our requests for their comments to be included in this article.

Anyone with information regarding white supremacist organizing and activity in the Western PA region can send tips to Keystone Anti-Racist Action [email protected].