Vinnie Hacker Breaks New Ground

Fame has trailed Vinnie Hacker since his teens, but he carries it lightly and humbly, with a sense that he’s already thinking about the next form his creative pursuits might take. At twenty-three, he has traversed continents for global ad campaigns and front-row appearances, streamed for audiences that consider him a fixture in their routines, and watched his image circulate with a speed he could never quite control. First vaulting into the public eye in the thick of 2020’s quarantine through an engaging blend of heartthrob-esque lip-syncing, trending dances, and shrewd collaborations with other vanguards of TikTok’s dominance, Hacker quickly leveraged his interests in gaming and Japanese popular culture to cement a multi-platform audience numbering in the tens of millions. Now a five-year veteran, he has fronted major campaigns for high-end fragrances and fashion, branched into live entertainment through ventures as diverse as streamed boxing matches and presenting at the Crunchyroll Anime Awards, and contracted with e-sports and lifestyle brand 100 Thieves. But no single venture—model, streamer, creator—quite encapsulates the vision he holds for what’s next. He prefers to talk about the passions that have shaped him since childhood: nights spent watching Dragon Ball and discovering how deeply an anime like Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood could cut. The manga he has just released is a seminal moment in his career, quickly succeeding his first major voice acting role as a key antagonist in Netflix’s anime adaptation of Sakamoto Days—which follows a former hitman battling off vengeful adversaries and boasted over twenty-four million views in the first half of this year alone—a story he had once read only for pleasure.

His original manga release—The Escape—has been dwelling in Hacker’s mind for years, though its realization took shape only recently. Even as he avoids giving away too many particulars, he speaks of the endeavor with an urgency and engagement that feel core to his character. His involvement as lead writer simultaneously converges cultures and sets historic precedent: Hacker is the first U.S.-based gensakusha (manga writer) ever tapped by Kodansha, the nearly-century-old Japanese publisher behind iconic franchises including Akira and Attack on Titan—both titles that were instrumental in entrenching manga and anime in the Western cultural consciousness. In a way, his involvement is a natural and inevitable progression from decades of cross-cultural exchange—which he does not regard lightly. “It feels surreal!” he exclaims. “To not only be able to cross off the number-one thing on my bucket list, but to also become the first U.S.-based writer to do so is something I never imagined achieving. I’m very grateful to everyone for their patience and support throughout this amazing project.”

If Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood was his emotional awakening to what animation could do, Vinland Saga—a Viking-era franchise praised for its nuanced exploration of cyclical violence, grief, and redemption—became a personal touchstone for the craft of storytelling. “It made me cry for the first time [watching] an anime,” Hacker recalls of Fullmetal, “especially since I watched it with my brother.” That memory lingers not because it was his first exposure—the Dragon Ball franchise had already pulled him in—but because it showed him that anime as an art form could tackle dark, complex themes that many would ascribe only to live-action narratives. From there, he began to see how narrative power could live in subtlety: “I tried to take elements from other anime and send messages the way Vinland Saga does, these internal and maybe not-as-seen messages.” He talks about hidden meaning the way some people talk about architecture, aware that structure, not spectacle, gives a story its weight.

The Escape, set on a desolate planet inundated with toxic miasma, follows a pair of subsurface voyagers in unexplained circumstances—the young, reckless Blue and the memory-impaired, conflicted Enkei—as they battle their way through hordes of enigmatic monsters and piece together the sequence of events that led to their predicament. The one-off manga, though relatively brief, manages to touch on many of the themes Hacker identifies as inspirational: the cost of violence, guilt, redemption—all while alluding to the larger universe at hand.

The process of writing The Escape became as much about collaboration as discovery. Hacker co-wrote the story with Emmy-nominated writer Shakira Pressley, whose background in animated storytelling was instrumental in delivering shape and rhythm to their narrative. “We worked remotely, but the chemistry was always there,” Hacker observes. “We had a shared vision and kept bouncing ideas back and forth, which made for a smooth process while creating the story.” For a first-time writer, it became a kind of apprenticeship in craft. “I’d seek the opinion of everyone I knew while creating this manga, especially from my friends who are obsessed with all things nerd culture—gaming, manga, anime, animation, etc. Both good and bad feedback were taken seriously.” His candid openness to criticism reflects a trait that runs through his creative pursuits: a willingness to learn by doing and to let each undertaking teach him something about the next.

The Escape is inherently an exercise in moral complexity: Hacker desired a setting removed from the familiar world yet still evocative of the compromises people make. As he puts it, he imagined “a dark and evil alternative version of Earth, something medieval,” but the point was never atmosphere for its own sake. He refused clean heroes—“I never wanted the protagonist or the characters we follow to be free of sin”—and even the antagonists were drawn with sympathetic edges so that the “monsters” would feel recognizably human. What appears in print is only a sliver of a grander conception; he says there was “a whole other draft of The Escape when we first started—an entire universe even,” and he and his co-writer hope to expand that material into longer-form stories and other media (video games, TV, films) if the chance arises. The result is a compact tale that asks readers to track deeply human (and thus dualist) concepts, including mercy and recursive aggression in a world that’s strange but not unknowable.

The magnitude of that ambition doesn’t obscure how new the process still feels to him. “I’ve never done anything like this before, so it required a lot of patience and a willingness to learn,” he says. “I realized that writing a manga and developing stories takes a lot of practice, and I’m excited to keep honing that craft in the future.” This posture is indicative of Hacker’s approach to nearly every one of his creative advances: treating each as both experiment and evolution, building a foundation for something bigger.

Writing manga isn’t his only move into the industry that shaped his adolescence. Earlier this year, he was cast in the English dub of Sakomoto Days. “I was sleeping in the morning, probably 8 AM,” he recalls. “And then I get a call from my team…one of them goes, ‘Are you sitting down right now? You just got the role for the antagonist.’ I started freaking out.” He had auditioned unsuccessfully for another project just weeks before and was thus braced for rejection, only to find himself suddenly inhabiting a story he already knew page by page. “It was super cool to get that call,” he says, understated but still visibly thrilled.

Hacker speaks openly about an eventual segue into live-action performance but insists on an ethos of preparedness—only taking on-screen work once he has steeped himself in the craft of it. “I’m a very awkward person in the first place, especially in front of a camera,” he admits demurely. ”Surprisingly, because that’s my whole job!” As part of his mission to tone his acting chops, he has studied with a handful of coaches, notably Nancy Banks, whose roster of former clientele includes Margot Robbie, Bryce Dallas Howard, and Chris Pine. “I want to make sure that if I’m doing it, I do it the right way,” he explains. “I don’t want to just take [an opportunity] because of what I’ve done in the past and not because of how competent I am for the actual job.”

Modeling, by contrast, feels like the arena he’s most familiar with. He was sixteen, long before his other ventures took shape, when he first dipped his toes into the industry—he talks about it with an easy familiarity. “[Modeling] was something I’ve always loved doing,” he pronounces, chuckling with recollection of his first shoot—“I was wearing a Cinnamon Toast Crunch shirt with camo shorts!” His progression from that formative moment to his current global presence in the industry—including collaborations with Ralph Lauren, Dior, Rabanne, and H&M—is perhaps inexorable considering the current ubiquity of influencers-turned-models lining front rows and call sheets today. Now backed by the full apparatus of the WME Group, Hacker is increasingly a fixture across both high fashion and mass-market brands, from David Yurman and Burberry to Crunchyroll and Gymshark. All the same, he admits he prefers working on smaller sets. “The intimate [shoots] are definitely better for me,” he confesses. “It just feels better that way because it brings the vibes up and makes [the shoot] quicker and more efficient.” It’s clear Hacker operates on a consistent frequency across disciplines: a wavelength of collaboration and connection in lieu of spectacle.

That same instinct informs how he engages with his audience. On Twitch, where he streams shooters, MOBAs, and anime commentary with regularity, the dynamic adopts a tone of conversation as opposed to performance. “I stream and I do all these things so people can see my true passions and who I actually am,” he insists. He remembers when anime was still niche, and expresses full-throated joy in witnessing its move toward the mainstream. “Everybody says this, but a few years ago nobody was vocal about loving anime,” he reminds me, voice heavy with conviction. “I’m glad more people are becoming interested. It makes me really excited to be able to share that with people on stream.”

His empathetic tendencies carry beyond his professional life into concrete gestures. Earlier this year, he hosted a Silver Lake pop-up to sell his own clothing, donating proceeds to the Trevor Project, a suicide hotline and resource center for LGBTQ+ youth which has recently drawn incessant heavy fire from conservative circles and had its federal funding terminated over the summer. (Hacker also selected the Trevor Project as the recipient of proceeds from direct sales of this issue of Cero Magazine.) He looks back on the decision with characteristic simplicity, opting to refrain from political platitudes in favor of commitment to the cause. “I just really thought it was something I wanted to choose,” Hacker asserts. “[Suicide prevention] was something I wanted to bring to people’s eyes, to give it more exposure in a different area.” The donation wasn’t an act of image-making, instead serving as solidarity rooted in private struggles in his closer circles. “I’m big on suicide prevention,” he adds with solemnity. “I’ve struggled with it. I know friends that have struggled with it as well.” He’s equally forthright when talking about burnout. “It’s way better to focus on your mental [health] than it is anything else,” he says. “Knowing my boundaries and being comfortable with knowing when to slow down has always helped.” For someone whose work thrives on visibility, the willingness to step back is a form of self-preservation, a reminder that sustainability—not speed—is what builds longevity.

When asked what kind of legacy he hopes to leave, Hacker doesn’t speak of influence or empire. “I just want people to know that I did all of this and I never complained,” he professes with a mellow air. “I was always thankful for every opportunity. And to say that I helped in some way to bring the joy of anime and creativity to other people so that they can experience it too.” The phrasing is modest, but the intent is not. Hacker’s ambition isn’t to direct culture but to enrich it—to translate his private passions into something relational, communal, and lasting.

It’s tempting to see Hacker’s career as sprawling, reaching in a slew of directions at once, but he insists there’s a thread binding it all. Every project—whether manga, modeling, or voice acting—feeds the same instinct toward growth. “Definitely the feedback,” he maintains, when asked what excites him most. “I want criticism. I want that so I can improve and grow in this area, because these are things I’m passionate about. I want to expand my horizons as much as I can for as long as I can.” It’s his hunger to refine, to flex his narrative muscles into more arenas, that drives him forward. For Vinnie Hacker, the effort is the prize.

Vinnie has selected The Trevor Project, a leading support organization for LGBTQ+ youth, as the recipient of proceeds from direct sales of CERO 10.⁠ Preorder your copy to see this story and many more in print here.