This post is abnormally long and unrelated to any current ethan klein events, but it's about the parasocial structure of H3 and snark and i feel it may be interesting to some people in here!

TLDR; H3 rewards immersion in the show and fandom, snark rewards observation and critical analysis. The format of the past show fostered the exact type of audience that would want to work against its current state

i'm basically been stuck inside due to a snow storm today and in my boredom, i have found myself enamored with my ongoing interest in this sub and the original snark sub. i wanted to make a post about it bc i think it is a very interesting and counterintuitive effect of ethan's behavior.

So, i was a casual h3 fan from frenemies until about 2022, and i became more active (meaning, watching almost every episode) around early 2023. Looking back now, the timeline of my H3 support is very interesting to me as my increased time spent watching H3 coincides almost identically with the timeline of my poorly managed mental illness.

I am in my early 20s now so I am definitely on the younger side of the H3 fanbase and i was never friends w anyone who was also a fan of H3. this was always strange to me because the topics covered on the stream were often things that were very big for my age group (like colleen ballinger, shane dawson, james charles, trisha paytas, etc.)

side note: i knew one other person who was a friend of H3 and she was accused of SA. very interesting anecdote in hindsight.

however, because of this H3 was kind of my own separate space of entertainment which played a very large role in my life when i began to self isolate more. as my depression and OCD worsened, H3 was both a distraction from my life and the one place where i felt interested and engaged.

the way ethan would hyper focus on one topic/person/story for weeks at a time was something i liked a lot as my OCD leads me to ruminate and hyper focus on things in this way on my own. H3's structure made me feel like this obsessive focus on random online topics was normal/fun and made me more parasocial with Ethan as I felt like we were similar in that way.

H3 was obviously a very neurodivergent friendly podcast. The lack of intentional structure and focus for long portions of episodes leading to meandering conversations and jokes is the perfect match for an ADHD brain. The intense, long term focus on specific situations is also perfectly suited for an autistic brain and certain types of OCD. This is very similar to Hasan's structure, so it makes sense that both fanbases are very neurodivergent.

When October 7 and the subsequent leftovers episodes happened, i was politically aligned with Hasan but this didn't really interrupt my support for H3. I didn't really intend on getting my israel/palestine information or discussion from H3 or ethan for obvious reasons. I figured his emotional and relational ties to israel made the situation very difficult to handle, especially at the beginning and i had faith that over time he would develop his perspective further.

Looking back now, the faith i had at that point was likely related to how i felt ethan mirrored me cognitively. I saw enough of myself/my patterns in him that i assumed a higher level of maturity and empathy than was ever present.

Interestingly enough, october of 2023 was when my mental health began to take a nosedive which probably made me more forgiving of ethan and reliant on the isolation and distraction that H3 brought me.

When he began to talk about the situation again more frequently in the spring/summer, i had become more educated and passionate about Palestine as the conditions were so visibly horrific and worsening constantly. however, i just unfollowed him on instagram and would skip over the political convos on the podcast.

When he began to be more hostile towards Hasan, i started to get more frustrated. i had seen hasan defend him constantly and the clips he was sharing were obviously disingenuous.

I had also begun to make progress on my mental health at this point and had made changes to how i engaged with social media as it had become a clear issue with my ocd. I had been focusing an abnormal and unhealthy amount on certain subreddits that were not relevant to my life and were largely negative.

There had been another influencer that i had been a fan of that had changed drastically and began to say/do things online that i disliked and i joined her snark page. I would spend hours thinking about it and read every comment and post obsessively. However through therapy and medication, i was able to recognize this behavior and self correct. I blocked her on my other social media, left the subreddit and blocked reddit on my phone and computer for a few months.

so, when ethan was spending time on the show and his instagram stories talking about random reddit posts and comments, i recognized the behavior. at the same time, he was talking about "snarkers" constantly.

in my experience on the other snark sub i was on, i definitely noticed how unnecessarily cruel and speculative people could be. there were constant posts about her appearance, clothes, body, voice, relationship, etc. that i never appreciated. my issues with her lied in her behavior. I assumed H3's snark was the same way, so i avoided it.

Then, one day after a particularly intense episode sometime around the sabra tier list, i decided to post to the H3 sub. I hadn't been on reddit in months, but as a fan i wanted to express concern with ethan's relationship to reddit/twitter and inconsequential statements. unsurprisingly, my post was deleted and when i asked the mods why, i was muted.

I made a post in hasan's sub about this, and was downvoted to oblivion for obvious reasons. everyone in the comments was saying snark was full of posts like this and i should go there. i was reluctant for the reasons i mentioned before, but i went. and low and behold, it was actually full of well reasoned and even empathetic criticism from former fans.

Obviously, it has been a while since then - around a year and a half. I am over the original feelings of sadness, disappointment, frustration, and concern that i had about H3 at that time, yet i have continued to visit this sub and occasionally comment and post.

it is probs a side effect of my ocd, but i have been fascinated with my own interest in this sub. what is it that makes me sustain my interest? why do i still care?

strangely enough, i have found it is the same thing that made me interested in H3 in the first place. There is a continued focus on a topic i am already interested in (the palestinian genocide), it is centered around calling out harmful behavior of people with large influence, and it is critical of parasocial dynamics in a nuanced, thoughtful way.

i also still see my own harmful patterns in ethan, which has kept me interested as well. thankfully, i am much more self reflective than he is so i have been able to prevent myself from behaving in the ways he does. It is just a unique experience to see someone i used to resonate with progressively become a worse version of himself while i have been on the opposite path.

however, what is so fascinating to me about this situation is how his own behavior and action propagates the conversation and criticism in this sub.

when i first joined, i figured his crash out would resolve within a few months time. clearly i was terribly mistaken. he has continued to get worse and worse in his behavior and the harm he has caused others at every step in the past two years.

while i no longer check this sub everyday or know the details of his current state, i care enough about Kaceytron, Frogan, and Denims to continue to check in. I also am obviously still focused on the Palestinian genocide, and this sub is a strangely good place for updates and information on that.

i am in a much better mental space now and as i look back on my tumultuous journey of mental health and healing, H3 plays such an interesting role in my internal landscape. the podcast soothed me in my worst moments while also working as a corrosive force in my own habits. as i got better, this sub was a place that helped contain my obsessive spirals. It also distanced me from the parasocial nature of the fandom.

i mentioned how H3 is structured almost perfectly for neurodivergent minds, and while that is still true, now it seems (more than ever) to be structured perfectly for lonely neurodivergent people. It is so emotionally driven in its output and content that it creates this false feeling of connection between ethan/the crew and the fans.

this sub also functions as a nerodivergent playground, but it is separated from the false community aspect that the H3 space elevates. It makes perfect sense that this place is populated by primarily fallen fans, its content caters to the same people that outgrew the show and care about its harmful impacts. The moral failure exposed in Palestine just served as the inciting incident for most of us to step away from the show and the lawsuits served as the source of continuation in criticism.

Ethan fostered the exact audience that would feel compelled to fight against him.

if ethan was smarter, i would wonder if that design was intentional. unfortunately, i think it is simply a reflection of his state.

ETA: obviously my conclusions aren't the case for everyone!! everyone here has a different experience/perspective on the situation. this is more about the larger mechanics of parasocialism and online behavior i have found through my experience!