H3 Podcast

About

H3 Podcast is a podcast channel hosted by h3h3 Productions founders Ethan and Hila Klein multiple times per week. The podcast began in December 2016 as a side project of the h3h3productions commentary channel, soon becoming their main channel. The H3 Podcast channel boasts over 3 million subscribers as of October 2021 and hosts several podcasts featuring the same cast and crew but focusing on different formats, including "After Dark," "Off The Rails" and Frenemies, a podcast featuring Trisha Paytas that lasted 39 episodes. In September 2021, the Leftovers podcast hosted by Hasan Piker and Ethan Klein began airing on the channel.

History

The first official episode of the H3 Podcast was uploaded to the h3h3productions YouTube^[1] channel on December 20th, 2016, and features an interview between Ethan and Hila and Rick and Morty creator Justin Roiland (shown below). The next five episodes, featuring interviews between PewDiePie, Vsauce Michael, iDubbbz and Philip Defranco, respectively, were all posted to the h3h3productions channel.

Between April 7th and 10th, 2017, the first six episodes of the podcast were uploaded to the new H3 Podcast channel, where the podcasts would be posted from then on. On May 22nd, an episode featuring interviews with Post Malone and Joji, aka Filthy Frank, was uploaded,^[2] gaining over 9.3 million views in four years and becoming a fan favorite episode (shown below).

On June 13th, episode 10 of the podcast was uploaded, notable for being the first episode to remove itself from the interview format, becoming more frequent as the podcast progressed (shown below, left). On February 24th, 2018, the podcast hosted Shane Dawson, gaining over 11.8 million views in three years (shown below, right).

Papa John Interview

On February 10th, 2020, Papa John appeared as a guest on the 174th episode of the podcast shortly following a series of interviews about his removal from the Papa John's franchise over alleged racist comments (shown below). This was a big get for the podcast, as one of Ethan's main recurring gags during the h3h3productions era of content the phrase Papa Bless, directly referencing the restaurant.

Papa John has appeared on the podcast in a number of subsequent episodes.

Frenemies

Social media influencer Trisha Paytas appeared on the H3 Podcast on October 26th, 2019, appearing again on February 22nd, 2020 (shown below, left and right respectively). The first episode features extended arguments between the two, many focusing on a critical video^[9] Ethan made featuring Paytas. Many enjoyed the comedic back-and-forth between Trisha and Ethan, hyping up their comedic chemistry.

In the second appearance, Paytas announces that she will be the show's "bacH3lorette," an occasional segment on the podcast mimicking reality series The Bachelor. Paytas appeared on the show again on March 14th to pick eligible bachelors via video profiles sent into the show. Paytas is ultimately dissatisfied with the options, instead hitting up Hila's brother Moses over DM following the show. The two began dating shortly after and are engaged as of June 2021.

On September 15th, 2020, the first episode of Frenemies was uploaded to the H3 Podcast YouTube^[8] channel, titled "Trisha's New Boyfriend Is Hila's Brother – Frenemies #1" (shown below). The video gained over 2.8 million views in nine months.

Frenemies ran for 39 episodes over the course of the next nine months, quickly becoming the most popular show on the H3 Podcast channel. Over the course of the series, Paytas and Ethan frequently get in arguments, resulting in Paytas storming off and "quitting" a number of times. They also notably helped spread information about David Dobrik's sexual assault allegations and James Charles grooming allegations. The two hosts frequently dress in elaborate costumes for the episodes.

On June 8th, the unintentionally final episode of Frenemies was uploaded to YouTube.^[10] In the episode, Paytas bashes the show's upcoming Q&A segment as lazy. The segment was prepared by a new crew hire. The argument then evolves into Trisha wanting more say in the behind-the-scenes aspects and setup of the show, wanting a new producer for the show, and about Ethan taking the show over, explicitly mentioning that he takes an extra 5 percent of profits from the show, which she has mentioned in previous episodes. Paytas ends up leaving the episode early and quitting. This inspired heavy criticism towards Paytas as many demanded that she apologize to Ethan.

Steven Crowder, Sam Seder Debate

On May 28th, 2021, After Dark Episode 38^[13] aired. During the episode, Ethan and Hila respond to a clip of conservative podcast host Steven Crowder criticizing Ethan for saying that you can trust scientists in regards to getting the COVID-19 vaccine (shown below). Crowder calls the clip his "favorite of the year" and mocks Ethan throughout, saying, "You don't have to think about it, bro." Crowder challenges Ethan to a debate at the end.

Notably, at the end of Ethan's reaction, H3 Podcast producer Dan tells Crowder to debate Sam Seder, the host of the Majority Report, a liberal political discussion show on YouTube. Crowder famously backed out of a debate with Seder at Politicon in 2018. This was allegedly at the recommendation of his father, and awarded Crowder the nickname "cold feet Crowder." On June 2nd, Seder reacted to the clip on YouTube^[14] (shown below).

The Kleins continued to criticize Crowder in subsequent podcasts for his arguably problematic rhetoric (example shown below).

On June 21st, Crowder and Ethan had a debate, which Ethan advertised on Hasan Piker's Twitch page hours before posting it (shown below).^[15] In the interview, Ethan teases beating Crowder in the debate and Crowder saying something he'll regret in the heat of action. He also reveals that they had Sam Seder covertly jump into the video alongside Ethan to debate Crowder, with Ethan seeing a debate between himself and Crowder alone as pointless since Ethan isn't equally politically minded and "dumb" in his own words.

Further, Ethan discusses how the debate was supposed to happen on Monday the 14th, but Crowder backed out suddenly around the same time Seder ended his "Majority Report" stream early, leading Ethan to believe Crowder was monitoring Seder's stream that day, expecting him to bombard him during the debate. To counteract this, Seder pre-recorded his Monday the 21st stream and live premiered it at the same time Klein was to debate Crowder, leading him to believe Seder was live at the same time.

Later that day, the debate was posted to the H3 Podcast^[16] channel. Seder is brought into the debate almost immediately, resulting in a nervous look from Crowder. Crowder's producer cuts away to his co-host as Crowder yells over everything Sam and Ethan try to say. They continually call Crowder a coward and tell him to get back on the camera. Crowder then reveals that he was in fact monitoring Seder's stream. He criticizes Seder for only have a million followers and Ethan for bringing Seder in at all before leaving the call.

Crowder received significant criticism for the debate, with many taking to Twitter^[17][18] to call him a coward and make memes mocking him for backing out of the debate (examples shown below, left and right). He also received support from some conservatives who saw Ethan's move as cowardly.

On June 22nd, Crowder aired the debate on his show Louder With Crowder, ^[19] with an additional few minutes at the start featuring Ethan and Crowder talking about their spouses' ongoing pregnancies (shown below). According to Ethan, Crowder used pregnancy problems as an excuse to get out of the debate the first time when he noticed Seder end his show early. Crowder goes on to respond to the debate afterward on his show, continuing to make fun of Ethan and Hila and framing the encounter as Ethan "owning himself" and then bragging about it as if he won. Mainly, he criticizes Ethan for hiding behind Seder. Notably, Crowder cuts parts of the segment where he yells over Sam and Ethan.

Leftovers Podcast

On September 26th, 2021, the H3 Podcast YouTube^[21] channel uploaded the first episode of their new comedic political commentary series "Leftovers" starring Ethan Klein and Hasan Piker. The first episode gained over 1.6 million views in four days and features the two discussing and critiquing a number of conservative news stories (shown below). The show takes place on a set made to look much larger than it is that somewhat resembles the InfoWars set.

H3 Podcast fans largely welcomed Piker to the channel, inspiring fan art and memes featuring Piker and Klein on the /r/h3h3productions^[22] and /r/okbudyhasan^[23] subreddits (examples shown below, left and right).

Online Presence

/r/H3H3Productions Subreddit

The /r/h3h3productions subreddit acts as the main forum for H3 Podcast fans, boasting over 490,000 followers as of June 2021. The subreddit is mainly dedicated to memes both about the podcast and referencing topics in it, and fan art, as well as content that fans want the hosts to react to. The content posted often reflects the latest "big" topic on the show. For example, following Trisha Paytas' departure from Frenemies, the subreddit^[11][12] began posting memes about "the 5%," referencing Ethan's 5 percent extra production costs that caused Paytas to quit the show (examples shown below).

WikiFeet Manipulation and "Foot Soldiers"

On March 11th, 2020, Episode 181 of the podcast was posted to YouTube,^[3] garnering over 1 million views in a year. During the episode, Ethan and Hila discuss and browse the website wikiFeet, a website for foot fetishists to post and rate photos of celebrity feet. A clip of the segment was uploaded to the H3 Podcast Highlights channel on March 12th (shown below).

Following the segment, the Kleins continued to visit wikiFeet occasionally. A wikiFeet^[4] page for Ethan Klein was created and spam-voted with five-star reviews by the podcast's fans, somehow skyrocketing Ethan's rating past the maximum five stars. In a September episode of the podcast with Bobby Lee, for example, Ethan visits the site and shows off a 5.4/5 rating on his page (shown below).

As the bit progressed, Ethan's score eventually reached over seven stars. On November 29th, 2020, Cr1tikal posted a video claiming to be the highest-rated user on wikiFeet^[5] (shown below, left). Ethan responded to this on the next episode of the H3 Podcast, indirectly suggesting that his viewers, given the name "foot soldiers," downvote Charlie's wikiFeet page and upvote his own (shown below, right). Charlie's score lowered significantly.

In subsequent podcast episodes, Klein occasionally calls on the foot soldiers to raid certain peoples' wikiFeet pages and downvote them, most often people who cross Klein in any sort of way.

On May 21st, 2021, on After Dark Episode 37,^[7] Ethan's wikiFeet page was permanently locked at five stars, as discussed on an episode of the podcast (shown below). His page has now been removed entirely. A wikiFeet^[6] page for Hila has since been made.

Sound Bites

The podcast makes heavy use of comedic sound bites via a soundboard throughout, manned by Zach "The Sound Lad" Louis. A compilation of the sound bite origins was uploaded to YouTube^[20] on March 27th, 2021 by Antonio Gonzalez, garnering over 80,00 views in three months (shown below).

Cast / Crew Members

The H3 Podcast has an extensive cast and crew that works behind the scenes and appears regularly on-camera to give their opinions on the show's topics and participated in segments.

Dan Swerdlove

Dan Swerdlove is the producer on the H3 Podcast. He was the first crew member to join the H3 Podcast and was first mentioned on the show on June 18th, 2017.^[28]

Zach Louis

Zach Louis is the soundboard operator and mixer on the H3 Podcast. Zach was first shown working on the podcast on October 5th, 2018.^[38]

Ian "The Salaried Employee" Slater

Ian is the switcher on the H3 Podcast. He also writes and prepares many of the segments for the show. He is active on Twitter ^[29] @908ian and streams on Twitch^[30] under the name WrldWideWasteland. Ian first appeared as an actor on the H3H3 Productions YouTube channel on October 11th, 2018, in the video "I Catfished My Kid On TLC" (shown below).

Love aka "Lovebot"

Love is the social media manager and a co-producer for the H3 Podcast and the only current remote employee that appears on the show, operating out of Sweden. He appears in the show from Sweden through a Double Robotics videoconferencing robot known as the "LoveBot," which is equipped with wheels and can be operated by Love from Sweden.

Before joining the show, Love ran the H3H3 Productions fan account @H3Out on Twitter,^[24] an out of context account that posts clips from random H3H3 Productions videos and podcast episodes. Love originally appeared on a monitor via Zoom. On May 21st, 2021, @H3Out posted a photoshop of his face on a Double Robotics^[25] videoconferencing robot, writing, "Okay… Just hear me out," tagging the @h3podcast account directly, garnering over 3,700 likes in two years. On May 27th, Lovebot was introduced on the podcast for the first time in the premiere episode of "Off the Rails" (shown below).^[26] Lovebot was damaged for the first time at a rage room during a June 11th, 2021 episode titled "I'm so angry" and has since been replaced.^[27]

Love streams on Twitch^[42] under the name YungFika, often streaming from his car. On August 10th, 2022, Love was featured in an article by Dexerto^[37] after he was pulled over by a police officer during a stream. As the officer talked to him, his chat played loud sound effects, including farting noises (shown below).

The top GIF result on Tenor^[39] when you search the term "white" is a GIF of Love wearing white face and smiling at the camera (shown below). The GIF comes from the podcast. On April 15th, 2022, Twitter^[40] user @ohchristo used the GIF on Twitter, getting rapper JID to respond "Lmfao," garnering over 140 likes in nine months. On May 25th, Love tweeted, "I don't know how to feel about this, my face is the #1 result for 'white' on all gif searches," garnering over 3,200 likes in eight months.^[41]

Sam Temple

Sam Temple is the prop master for the H3 Podcast, as well as an employee of Teddy Fresh, a streetwear brand created by Hila Klein that is often advertised on the show. She is the girlfriend of Ian Slater. The two were introduced to each other through the show's "BacH3lor" segment, a version of The Bachelor that Ethan has attempted to run through the podcast with little success. Ian was meant to be the bachelor, but Sam did not formally apply as a contestant, instead DMing him in private, where the two sparked a relationship.

Olivia Lopes

Olivia is a crew member on the H3 Podcast who largely deals with research, creating the show document and setting up interviews. She first appeared on July 15th, 2021 during episode five of Off The Rails.^[31]

AB "Starkilla" Ayad

AB Ayad is a crew member on the H3 Podcast responsible for research and the creation of the show document. He was introduced on the show on August 28th, 2020.^[32] Notably, AB boxed in the Creator Clash influencer boxing event in 2021, losing to Hundar from Cowchop. Before working for H3 he gained notoriety among H3 fans for a video on his YouTube channel, Starkilla, where he defends Ethan from several controversies.^[36]

Cameron "Cam" Grant

Cameron Grant is a crew member on the H3 Podcast who creates the show's graphics, including thumbnails and topical photoshops presented during the shows. He was first introduced on the show in on July 9th, 2021,^[33] although made appearances prior as a fan call-in.^[34] Cam interned at Adult Swim before being employed at H3. In August 2021 he posted a photo to /r/theblunderyears^[35] of himself as a teenager that gained over 10,200 upvotes in a year.

Lena Ayad

Lena Ayad is the wife of AB Ayad. She works as an assistant to Ethan Klein, appears on the show as a cast member and also does work for Teddy Fresh.

Search Interest

External References