This was me with Ethan Klein/H3H3 over the past ~14ish months. Their podcast content used to be lighthearted Internet drama with funny soundbytes, but now the dude is having a major crashout about Gaza after rotting his brain with Israeli state propaganda media coverage. He’s always been an out-of-touch rich asshole, but now he’s so far out of pocket it’s unbearable to watch.
h3 is an incredibly interesting part of internet fandom/history. my phones about to die but if anyone is into it, i’ve “personally been there” since the very early days of their channel and think i have a decent perspective on the entire dynamic here, i might do a little actual, extensive write up in an edit here when i get home later.
i find h3 is fun to discuss as throughout his history on the internet he’s unique in of that he has entirely abandoned his audience multiple times. on the outside he’s a hypocrite (which is definitely true don’t get me wrong), but i think “inside” it’s a more machievallian and sinister sort of thing. frankly ethan and hila not only do alt-right dogwhistling better than anyone else; they invented a whole new technique. idk what to call it. but their snake-y nature lets them subvert typical premonitions and community norms time and time again and infiltrate way further into communities any other alt-righter would get nowhere near as close into the spheres of.
I think h3 is kind of a hidden nexus of fringe->main stream internet culture throughout the last like 15 years. Every wave Ethan has ridden has never been the main thing, it’s always right on the periphery of mainstream internet culture. That way he has cultivated a tiny amount of fans from every wave but never enough to get him into the public eye, and as a result everyone who knows him thinks they know someone “under ground” and he doesn’t shy away from that branding.
I don’t think it’s Machiavellian. I think it’s more just that Ethan has always held incoherent views (like everyone in the world) and his brand is to be unapologetically opinionated, so now that he’s dug his heels in on Gaza there’s no moving him until he has fully crashed and burned.
I mean he’s Jewish and his wife is from Israel, they have family members or at least know people personally who are in Israel and have their whole life, so the propaganda they’ve been fed is ingrained in their family identity.
It’s not an excuse, it’s sad to see, but as you pointed out he’s always declared himself a “capitalist” and has taken some pretty right wing positions. It’s just to say it’s not intentional, just a stupid dude who doesn’t work to hard to form opinions about stuff. I wouldn’t say this about every grifter, it’s just that H3 started out much more innocently and I don’t think they spent a decade keeping up a ruse like that I think it was genuine. I mean you really think he was doing Vape Nashe videos concocting how he was going to infiltrate internet culture to push right wing propaganda?
I’m seeing this play out on the Hasan Piker side of things, and it’s outrageous but also completely hilarious that Ethan will not have a conversation with Hasan or Sam Seder about Gaza. The propaganda of the State of Israel, and plain old sunk cost fallacy has left him paralyzed as a liberal. I hope he doesn’t stay in that place for the rest of his days because it’s destructive, but some people have to bottom out before they can come up for air. I just hope that means all the hate and trouble both sides of the American political divide give him doesn’t lead to anything drastic.
This was me with Ethan Klein/H3H3 over the past ~14ish months. Their podcast content used to be lighthearted Internet drama with funny soundbytes, but now the dude is having a major crashout about Gaza after rotting his brain with Israeli state
propagandamedia coverage. He’s always been an out-of-touch rich asshole, but now he’s so far out of pocket it’s unbearable to watch.At this point Ethan’s final act will be picking a fight with reddit and losing.
he had a weird sense of humor and was universally loved. how did that even happen.
h3 is an incredibly interesting part of internet fandom/history. my phones about to die but if anyone is into it, i’ve “personally been there” since the very early days of their channel and think i have a decent perspective on the entire dynamic here, i might do a little actual, extensive write up in an edit here when i get home later.
i find h3 is fun to discuss as throughout his history on the internet he’s unique in of that he has entirely abandoned his audience multiple times. on the outside he’s a hypocrite (which is definitely true don’t get me wrong), but i think “inside” it’s a more machievallian and sinister sort of thing. frankly ethan and hila not only do alt-right dogwhistling better than anyone else; they invented a whole new technique. idk what to call it. but their snake-y nature lets them subvert typical premonitions and community norms time and time again and infiltrate way further into communities any other alt-righter would get nowhere near as close into the spheres of.
I think h3 is kind of a hidden nexus of fringe->main stream internet culture throughout the last like 15 years. Every wave Ethan has ridden has never been the main thing, it’s always right on the periphery of mainstream internet culture. That way he has cultivated a tiny amount of fans from every wave but never enough to get him into the public eye, and as a result everyone who knows him thinks they know someone “under ground” and he doesn’t shy away from that branding.
I don’t think it’s Machiavellian. I think it’s more just that Ethan has always held incoherent views (like everyone in the world) and his brand is to be unapologetically opinionated, so now that he’s dug his heels in on Gaza there’s no moving him until he has fully crashed and burned.
I mean he’s Jewish and his wife is from Israel, they have family members or at least know people personally who are in Israel and have their whole life, so the propaganda they’ve been fed is ingrained in their family identity.
It’s not an excuse, it’s sad to see, but as you pointed out he’s always declared himself a “capitalist” and has taken some pretty right wing positions. It’s just to say it’s not intentional, just a stupid dude who doesn’t work to hard to form opinions about stuff. I wouldn’t say this about every grifter, it’s just that H3 started out much more innocently and I don’t think they spent a decade keeping up a ruse like that I think it was genuine. I mean you really think he was doing Vape Nashe videos concocting how he was going to infiltrate internet culture to push right wing propaganda?
I’m seeing this play out on the Hasan Piker side of things, and it’s outrageous but also completely hilarious that Ethan will not have a conversation with Hasan or Sam Seder about Gaza. The propaganda of the State of Israel, and plain old sunk cost fallacy has left him paralyzed as a liberal. I hope he doesn’t stay in that place for the rest of his days because it’s destructive, but some people have to bottom out before they can come up for air. I just hope that means all the hate and trouble both sides of the American political divide give him doesn’t lead to anything drastic.