Overview

The Ethan Klein CPS Controversy and Denims Feud refer to discourse surrounding Ethan Klein's allegation that an anonymous "snarker" called child protective services (CPS) on him to claim that one of his children contracted giardia from eating dog feces left on the floor of his home. The incident was shared by Klein during an episode of the H3 Podcast on March 7th, 2025, and elaborated on in a video on the h3h3productions YouTube channel on March 10th. The CPS call stems from a story Klein told during a February podcast episode, during which he shared that his newly adopted dog Olive had Giardia when she was given to them and that he suspected his youngest son may have contracted it, as he was feeling sick. Klein later confirmed that his son did not contract Giardia. In his video calling out the anonymous CPS caller, Klein suggests that communities related to Twitch streamer Hasan Piker, including leftist streamers Denims and Bad Empanada, helped perpetuate the giardia story as fact, possibly inspiring the call. Klein also called out Reddit for allowing an H3 hate or "snark" page to harass him and spread misinformation, urging the platform to close the page as it had with other snark pages, namely Piker's and Trisha Paytas'.

Background

Ethan Klein vs. Hasan Piker / Hamas-Israel Controversy

At the end of 2024 and through January 2025, Ethan Klein, his wife Hila Klein and the crew of the H3 Podcast became the increasing target of criticism by supporters of Palestine in relation to the Hamas-Israel conflict, who consistently made posts calling Klein a zionist for showing sympathy towards both Israel and Hamas, sharing support for a two-state solution to the conflict and making claims regarding the conflict that they found troubling.

These users commonly posted their criticisms to Reddit, including the /r/h3snark subreddit and several drama subreddits like /r/fauxmoi and /r/youtubedrama, some of the mods of which were called out in an investigative piece by PirateWires^[1] titled "The Terrorist Propaganda to Reddit Pipeline" that investigates the presence of pro-Hamas propaganda on Reddit.

Leftist and communist streamers like Denims, Bad Empanada and Mike from PA routinely took part in criticizing Klein. This harassment was addressed by the H3 Podcast as it came out, with Klein becoming very critical of his former co-host Hasan "HasanAbi" Piker, a far-left political streamer who used to co-host the podcast Leftovers with Klein. Klein believes Piker is an extremist and spreads Hamas propaganda on his stream.

On January 31st, 2025, Ethan Klein posted a video titled "Content Nuke – Hasan Piker" to YouTube,^[2] garnering over 3.1 million views in a month. The video is a critical takedown of Piker, which looks to highlight the ways Hasan allegedly promotes terrorism and extreme content on his stream by watching Houthi and Hamas propaganda videos, giving slanted takes on the conflict between Hamas and Israel, radicalizing his audience to become communists, once platforming and uncritically interviewing Timhouthi Chalamet, also known as Rashid, a man suspected of being a Houthi terrorist, and more.

The video also criticizes other socialist and far-left streamers like Frogan and Denims, as well as Twitch's CEO Dan Clancy, who Klein believes favors Piker and acts antisemitically in the way he manages Twitch.

Initial Giardia Claim

On February 17th, 2025, episode 111 of the H3 Podcast went live on YouTube.^[3] Around the 19:40 mark, the host, Ethan Klein, talks about how his newly adopted dog Olive came to them with giardia. Klein says that his youngest son Sunny and his wife Hila have contracted giardia as well, explaining that Sunny is at the age where he will crawl around and put anything in his mouth and he was feeling sick. Giardia can spread on surfaces, meaning you do not have to ingest feces to contract it.

Later, Klein claimed that neither Sunny nor Hila contracted giardia and that he just speculated that they had giardia.

Developments

CPS Call

On March 7th, 2025, episode 119 of the H3 Podcast went live on YouTube.^[4] During the episode, Klein claims that child protective services were called to their home in relation to the giardia story. Klein claims that the CPS agent believed the call, which was anonymous, to come from someone they know, but Klein believes they were lying.

Purportedly, the caller told the agent that their child, Sunny, contracted giardia because they have an unclean house that their dogs defecate in. The CPS agent purportedly complimented the cleanliness of their house, investigated the situation and set a follow-up date to interview his two eldest children, Bruce and Theodore.

In the video, Klein calls out leftist streamer Denims, who is often associated with Hasan Piker, for spreading disinformation regarding the giardia.

Following the release of the podcast, Klein announced via an Instagram Story that he was looking to file a police report regarding the CPS call to report it as fraudulent, which purportedly allows you to see who made the call.^[8]

March 10th, 2025 h3h3productions Video / Denims Criticism

On March 10th, 2025, Klein posted a video to the main h3h3productions YouTube^[5] channel titled "this is so f*cked up," garnering over 580,000 views in a day. In the video, he recounts the giardia story, shows evidence that a "snarker" made the call and suggests that Reddit should do something about what he calls a "harassment campaign" against him perpetuated on several H3-focused snark pages, namely /r/h3snark,^[6] which went on an indefinite break after one of their mods started giving insider information to Klein. After the break was announced, many of the users purportedly moved to /r/h3h3_productions.^[7]

At the start of the video, Klein shows a clip of streamer Denims reacting to a clip of streamer Bad Empanada claiming that Klein lets his dogs defecate around his house and that his youngest child, Sunny, crawled into the dog poop and contracted giardia. Denim asks, "Is this true?" The chat and Denims comment as if Sunny did catch giardia, with many in the chat suggesting someone call CPS on Klein. Klein points out that the Denims stream took place on March 1st and the CPS call was made on March 3rd.

Later in the video, around the 18:04 mark, Klein shows a clip of Denims reacting to the March 7th episode of the H3 Podcast and arguably trying to minimize the impact of the CPS call. In the clip, Denims criticizes Hila Klein for telling the CPS agent that she doesn't want him to interview her kids at school because she doesn't want to give them traumatic memories. Denims suggests that children don't remember things that happen to them between three to five years old. She then looks up when children make lasting memories and finds that most children start forming memories around 3-and-a-half years old, but continues to claim she's correct in her original assertion.

Klein goes on to talk about the alleged harassment campaign perpetrated on Reddit, sharing screenshots sent to him by an ex-snark moderator of Discord DMs sharing the address of their studio and a screenshot of a comment suggesting the harassment is okay because it stops Klein from pushing Israeli propaganda. He then wonders why the Hasan Piker and Trisha Paytas snark subreddits were removed for harassment, but he has not been, suggesting it is because he is not 100 percent aligned with the extreme pro-Palestinian voices online.

The video garnered significant support from Klein, including from people who Klein has been known to criticize and feud with, including YouTubers The Quartering, Joey Salads and Tipster. Klein's tattoo artist, Daniel Silva, also commented showing his support for the Kleins, writing that his house was clean and that they inspired him to want a family.

Online Reactions

Response To March 10th h3h3productions Video

The CPS incident inspired widespread discourse online, including increased criticism towards Twitch streamer Denims.

On March 10th, 2025, X^[9] user @Awk20000 posted a clip from a recent Hasan Piker stream in which Piker denies having anything to do with calling CPS and denounces whoever did that and anyone who supports it, saying, "There is no world in which I would ever fucking entertain that … let me tell you why I would never do that, because I’m not Ethan fucking Klein,” garnering over 600 likes in a day.

That day, X^[10] user @JustSoTippy posted a meme about Denims reacting to the h3h3productions video, portraying her as Momo, garnering over 960 likes in a day.

Related Entries

H3 Twitch Banned For Streaming Hasan Piker Content Nuke

H3 Twitch Banned For Streaming Hasan Piker Content Nuke refers to Twitch moderation's decision to suspend the h3h3productions Twitch account for 30 days for streaming the Hasan Piker "content nuke" on a loop, which is a takedown video on Piker by h3h3productions and Ethan Klein. The content nuke started streaming on the site on March 5th, 2025, and the suspension happened that day during a live broadcast of the H3 Podcast on YouTube. The account was suspended for streaming content that "encouraged or glorified extreme violence," which is a part of Twitch's guidelines. Klein attempted to appeal the ban, but it was denied, then reinstated later on, with Twitch support claiming the suspension was a mistake. The ban went viral and inspired discourse online about Twitch's allegedly unfair moderation practices, supporting the theory that Twitch displays favoritism towards creators like Hasan Piker, as the content shown in the content nuke that "glorifies extreme violence" largely comes from Piker and other Twitch streamers, including Frogan and Denims. The news of the ban also notably garnered a reaction from Elon Musk, who seemed to agree that Twitch's moderation team is biased. Notably, the ban came only a day after Piker had a 24-hour ban lifted for saying during a stream, “If you cared about Medicare fraud or Medicaid fraud, you would kill Rick Scott."

Search Interest

External References