Overview

Ethan Klein and Keemstar Feud refers to the ongoing drama between YouTubers Ethan Klein of h3h3productions and Keemstar, puncuated by a 45-minute video in which h3h3 accused Keemstar of slandering other YouTubers, preying upon those with mental health issues, and playing a major role in Etika's Suicide.

Background

In April of 2020, YouTuber SomeOrdinaryGamers published a video called "The Hypocrisy of Ethan Klein" in which he criticized Klein for shaming Jeff Bezos after he donated $100 million to Feeding America. However, on April 18th, h3h3productions posted a video denying the accusation and thoroughly disproving it, gaining over 3.2 million views (shown below, left). This led SomeOrdinaryGamers to delete the video and post an apology, saying he was completely in the wrong (shown below, right).

On April 19th, Keemstar posted a video covering the drama and then accused Klein of essentially committing fraud, accusing him of misusing the funds generated by the h3h3 DLC character pack in Payday 2, which developers of the game donated to Klein's legal battle against Matt "Bold Guy" Hosseinzadeh.^[1]

Developments

On May 19th, h3h3 posted a video titled "Content Nuke" in which he outlined various ways he believes Keemstar has been a bad person over the years, pointing to various controversies Keemstar has created or exacerbated, such as calling an elderly streamer a pedophile based on no hard evidence, saying he couldn't wait to report on TotalBiscuit's death, doxxing other YouTubers, and pushing Etika during his extended mental health struggles and inadvertently contributing to his eventual suicide.

In response, Gfuel, Keemstar's sponsor, seemed to cut ties with the YouTuber.^[6] Keemstar said on Twitter^[2] he would be responding to Klein's video (shown below).

On Twitter, much of the reaction centered around Klein rehashing Keemstar's involvement Etika's numerous mental health breakdowns, with many commenters remarking upon how it was sad that the story had become a trending topic again. For example, Twitter user @minako97news^[3] wrote, "Y’all really couldn’t let my man Rest In Peace. Etika name is only being used as a weapon too cancelled keem & I fucking hate all Parties so here. fuck KEEMSTAR, Fuck h3h3, & fuck the internet. y’all push my man too the edge & we we’ll never get him back let him Rest" (shown below, left). User @letdownmetsfan^[4] wrote, "I hate Keemstar and everything that piece of shit stands for. But H3H3 is an absolute slimeball for weaponizing Etika's death. In his last video, Etika himself did not blame Keem, and his condition was so much more Keem making drama content. Fuck you Keem and fuck you Ethan" (shown below, right). The drama was covered in a thread on /r/OutOfTheLoop.^[5]

Several, including YouTuber Cr1tiKal, criticized Klein for going after Keemstar's sponsor, Gfuel (shown below).

On May 20th, Keemstar responded to Klein's video, calling him a hypocrite and accusing him of selectively using tweets and clips that made Keemstar look like a bad guy (shown below, left). On May 21st, Klein responded by disputing the arguments made in Keemstar's video and bringing up further instances of Keemstar shaming people suffering from mental health issues and rape victims (shown below, right). He also addressed Keemstar's complaint that he went after Keemstar's sponsors by showing numerous instances where Keemstar did the same thing.

Search Interest

External References