Thieves, Liars & h3h3

Ethan and Nila from H3H3 are basically the South park of YouTube. They parody the most outrageous things going on in the community. And despite the fact that they are primarily a comedy channel, they often manage to make a point about the way that we ought to behave. In this video, we're gonna look at what has made H3H3 so popular, and we'll focus on Ethan in particular, because he's on camera far more than Hila is. To start off, let's begin with the most obvious thing that you'll Notice when watching H3H3. They often get their point across using parody. Two handed great.

SW is the biggest sword we make, but don't let its size fool you.

As there's nothing awkward or clumsy about this awesome sword.

So my name's Ethan Klein, and I am the CEO of Vape Nation. I appreciate vapes, just because, you know, it's healthier.

Parody that H3H3 does is that, like South Parks, it's often in service of a moral point. For instance, sometimes H3H mocks people who beg for likes on YouTube, showing how ridiculous it is to insist that someone like a video before even watching it.

So I am challenging you guys. I want to hit 200,000 likes on this video. Can we do that? I don't know. You guys should definitely go down the like button right now. It's nice, because I'm going to blow your mind. So hit the like button and let's get into the video. I'm challenging you guys right now. Can we please get 500,000 likes on this video?

If I shout louder and beg for.

Likes harder, YouTube will be sure to promote my videos. Okay.

Other times, they parody people who overact emotions to get more views on YouTube.

Oh, my God. This is. I can't believe I've been missing this all these years. That's okay. The thing is that, um, I could see red this whole time.

Actually, the power of parody is that it lets people come to their own conclusions without direct commentary. So all you have to do is reenact something in a more absurd way, and it forces the person watching to change their perspective on something that they might have taken for granted before. For instance, in their video, Vape Nation, H3 took the stereotype of a vapor stoner character to the extreme, and it was so popular because a lot of us actually know someone like that. But what makes H3H3's parodies not just funny, but culturally relevant are the targets that they pick. They often choose manipulators, hypocrites or people in power that are taking advantage of those not in power. For instance, Sofloantonio was basically stealing people's videos on Facebook and YouTube. He'd find a video on a smaller page, put it on his own and repeat that process about a hundred times, then reap the benefits of the growth and potentially even ad revenue. The problem was that these little creators who were having their content stolen without seeing a dime had no recourse until H3H3's video came along.

Succeed. When he first uploaded this video, he realized that there was a lot of trouble. Now, if you look closely here, there's a download button plugin. Is that not the most hilariously incriminating thing you've ever seen? Soflo is the one person that would have a download plugin. I steal this video and I steal this video and I'll sue you for defamation for saying I've ever stole a video.

Outrageous has started crediting any collaborations that he's done and he's even shared other people's videos rather than outright reposting them. Now, there's no way to go back and give the original creators the exposure that they deserve from the videos that were stolen, but at least it stopped going forward. Now H3 has done a number of expose style videos in the past, exposing a scammy counter strike gambling site and standing up for Hugh Mungus and Ken Bone when the entire Internet seemed to vilify them. I bring this up because there is a charisma point here. When you stand up for the little guy, when you use your voice to call out manipulative manipulation or abuse, where you see it, people look up to you and it's usually not easy to do. In high school, it's nerve wracking to stand up for the kid being bullied in the workplace. It's scary to tell the boss that he shouldn't yell at a colleague. But when you have the courage to say what you're doing is wrong to someone who's in power, you become a hero to everyone who was thinking the same thing but didn't have the guts or the platform to say it themselves. And the reason that most of us don't always call out the things that are wrong when we see them is that we're scared of the blowback. When you stick your neck out to do what's you become a target yourself, whether it's of the bully in school, the boss at work, or even the media. And that's kind of what happened to H3H3, they got sued for copyright infringement and threatened with a two year court proceeding that was going to cost a lot of money. Then the plaintiff offered to drop the case if H3H3 paid $4,000 and never spoke about the case again. Now that would have been the easy route to take. Instead H3 fought it. Here's why.

In their own words was $4,000 and we're like, this is horrible. This is a bad precedent. This lawyer is going to run amok, not just with us, but anyone on YouTube. He's going to just hit up, like he can hit up Leafy and be like, oh, I saw you made a video about Joey Sell. It's perfect. I'm going to message Joey Sells, be like, hey, I got H3 to pay up, so I'm going to get leafy to pay $10,000 easy. It's like this whole thing has always been bigger than us in my mind.

To be clear, refusing to pay $4,000 was not in H3H3's best interests. That paying up and shutting up would have saved them two years of legal headache. But the moral compass of both Ethan and Hila told them that it was wrong to give in when it isn't convenient. Sometimes it's a big deal, like fighting a drawn out lawsuit to protect fair use. Other times it's a smaller deal, like not lying about bad traffic or your alarm not going off when you're late for work. It comes down to integrity, making sure that your beliefs, your words and your actions match throughout all areas of your life. And that means that there will be some uncomfortable situations sometimes. For instance, it's very easy to call someone out on YouTube or to talk crap behind their back.

And Joey Salads, you are pretty much the worst person in America right now as far as I'm concerned.

What's much more difficult is to have that same level of honesty when you are face to face with that person. In his 20 minute interview with Joey Salad, though, after he made this video, Ethan kept that same level of criticism up and, and he laid some pretty heavy charges on Joey without getting enraged or overly emotional. He was the same guy to Joey's face as he was when Joey was thousands of miles away. And that is quite frankly a very rare trait.

This is probably the most fucked up thing that I've ever seen on YouTube and probably the most fucked up thing you've done. And even worse than like Keemstar saying like the N word, you're actually creating like hate and like spite and real racism in the world. So you see the impact you're having on the world, which is quite clearly a negative impact. You are having a negative impact on the world, Joey. You are having a negative impact on this world, Joey. How does that make you feel? That you're selling fucking hate. You're basically selling hate. Is that cool? Looks like shit. But you keep doing it.

In the end, that direct, honest approach got Ethan to what we all wanted. The truth.

Bert, your newest prank has been proven to be fake. Are all of your pranks fake? No. How many of them are fake? I would say the old pranks. A lot of those older pranks. Only the old pranks. So the only. Only this new one, the new one right now that just got proven fake. That's the only one of the new ones that are fake? No, that wouldn't be the only one. But which other ones are fake? Say. I'm not gonna tell you, but let. Joey, let me. Let me be frank with you. Everybody knows that shit's fake. The only people who don't know it's fake are people who are not even gonna watch this video to begin with. You have nothing to lose by coming clean. I'll admit to you, the Black Lives Matter 1 was fake. There you go.

That's really the key message of this video. H3H3 does a great job of telling the truth. Their parodies show us the absurd truth of the subjects that they pick. Their expose show us the truth of the powerful preying on the less powerful so that do something about it. Ethan even tells the truth about his own shortcomings, as we all should.

This feels mean. It's feeling. I plan for this to be funnier. Let's just wrap it up. I mean, we goof on people, but, like, the way I handled the leafy thing was stupid. Yeah. Guys, excuse me for this goofy ass pedo mustache. Do you not have something better to do with your time? Now if you'll excuse me, I'm gonna go talk shit about somebody's YouTube video, which is clearly a much better use of my time. Already losing weight. I'm up to a four, I think, right now. Did I go up? Has my attractive scale gone up since we started? It's gonna take time. It's gonna take some time. It's a process. Okay, 3.6. Let's say.

The final rap battle in 8 mile. Ethan is aware of his shortcomings. And since he demonstrates a high, both self awareness and honesty in calling himself out first, he becomes more trustworthy. One thing, living in line with your principles when it costs you money and time and potentially your career is another. And like I said, that is called integrity. And it's in the situations where you stand to lose something important, that integrity is truly tested. That's where the people that H through H3 calls out fall short. They cut corners to make money with fake videos, they steal other people's videos for easy cash, or they create sites that basically allow 13 year olds to gamble to make a quick buck. H3, H3 is different because they refuse to do the wrong easy thing.

We had a month, like six months ago where we worked all month, non stop, okay, we killed ourselves this month. We made three reaction videos almost to completion, and we scraped all of them. We're like, this is stupid, this is shit. These people don't deserve it. This reaction is not good, it's not genuine. We killed it all. I feel like as a responsible person, you need to be like, okay, we can make a video about this. We can make a great video about this that's going to get millions of views. But does this person really deserve this? You know, and do I really need to live with the fact that I did this to that person? A lot of the times his answer is a no.

We all like to get mad at hypocrites and thieves. We get fired up about it. But with the pressure on, with money or reputation on the line, it's far too common that we become the very types of people that we despise. And that's why when we see someone who lives by their own principles at personal cost, we get inspired. We trust them. And in a sea of fakers and cheaters, we gravitate to those people that that is charisma. Now, you might not have a YouTube channel, but every now and then your integrity will be seriously tested. And the only way to do the right thing is to prepare yourself in advance to know your values and stick to them. Even when it would be so easy to cave in the moment. So I invite you now to think if there's some way in which you are currently damaging your integrity or in which you're going to be tempted to damage that integrity in the future. Maybe, for instance, you're not being honest with your significant other. Maybe you're a sweetheart to someone's face and horrible behind their back. Maybe your friend group or your company is involved in some shady dealings that you're not comfortable with, but you haven't spoken up about it, whatever it is, consider doing the thing that you know is right, the thing that is scary to even think about doing. And while the short term pain might seem like too much to bear, just remember that you're setting an example for everyone around you and the ripple effects from that are bound to make the world a better place. If you like this video and want to see more like it, make sure to click the subscribe button now. That way you'll be more likely to see our videos on the homepage. And if you really don't want to miss any, go ahead and hit that notification bell as well. The whole goal of these videos is to help you become your most confident and charismatic self, and I hope that this video has helped take you in that direction. If you have any suggestions of people or topics that you'd like me to cover, let me know in the comments. Personally, I'm just counting down the days until we get to Game of Thrones season and seven, and I could do some more breakdowns on that, but if there's anything in particular that you have to hold me and you over in the meantime, definitely let me know. I hope that you've enjoyed this video and I look forward to seeing you in the next one.