What Happened to H3H3? The Satire Channel Rose High and Fell Hard

When you're an influencer, you have to reach for the stars. If you don't dream big and aim high, your content will never grow, and your fan base will never increase. It's possible for small-time influencers to keep a niche audience, but if you plan to make it your career, you have to hustle.

But sometimes when you hustle, you can grow too big, too fast, and the fall down the other side of the fame mountain can be a doozy.

This is what many speculate happened with Hila and Ethan Klein, owners of H3H3 Productions and co-hosts of the H3 podcast. Here's what we know about what happened with H3H3 and why the YouTube channel isn't what it used to be.

H3H3 is technically still around. On the YouTube channel, Ethan still posts on occasion. But in contrast to the daily posts that Ethan and Hila used to make, the channel is a ghost town these days.

So what happened? The answer depends on who you ask.

At the height of H3H3 back in the late 2010s, the channel featured satire, news takes, reaction videos, and collaborations with other influencers. According to a YouTube growth and influencer expert, Alan Spicer, the downfall began when channel hosts Ethan and Hila began engaging in feuds, including with some influencers that they once worked with.

A number of legal woes, including a fair use lawsuit and one for defamation (per CSQ), saw them teetering on the edge of a fall from fame.

As they continued to spiral out of control, the duo was accused of hypocrisy and linked to the controversial creator Jafari, who espoused white supremacist beliefs.

Some former fans complained that the quality of the content was going downhill, especially as they seemed increasingly consumed with inter-influencer feuds and accusations.

Eventually, Ethan and Hila decided to diversify and launched the H3 podcast. This gave them a nearly unfettered platform on which to expand both their desirable content and the drama drivers like the feuds, so its launch was met with mixed reactions from many fans.

However, Reddit wasn't so mixed; they pretty much loathe the H3 podcast. A community called /h3snark explores a thread about what caused H3H3's downfall, and users did not hold back.

One particularly kind former fan wrote, "As someone who stopped watching because they fell off my radar too, I can tell you I noticed a difference in the content and kind of just got bored of it. The show isn’t structured like it was in the beginning when they had guests on, and even the bits that are preplanned are mostly planned as topics of discussion and aren’t researched well."

Another fan wrote, "He's honestly always been problematic, but the thing is he hid it well to where some people believed his lies. He's constantly doing bad things but will play the victim when hit with the backlash." They pointed out that Ethan's outspoken opinions about Palestine and Israel, which some fans have called "Zionist," is part of why their popularity has declined.

But one user summed up the thoughts of many, writing, "The shortest answer I can give you is that they got wealthy and it enabled their worst behaviors, and the podcast gave them more opportunities to broadcast them. In some ways, the content improved, but the people behind it did not, and the laziness and greed at the heart of the production have turned their brand into a stagnant mess that deteriorates daily."

While opinions may vary on what caused H3H3 to wither to the low-volume content we see today, it's clear that they're no longer at the top of their game.