The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
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Why we need h3h3

SINGLE REVIEW

 This February has been the 
time to be alive for indie rock/
emo/shoe-
gaze lovers 
everywhere. 
All of the 
sad boys are 
crawling 
out of their 
introverted 
online per-
sonas and 
are tweeting 
“#blessed.” 
The space goth girls are 
emerging from their black 
holes as they develop into 
their fan-girl alter egos. And 
this can all be blamed on the 
fact that not only has the lo-fi 
band Teen Suicide released a 
single, but their fellow emo/

indie cross friends, Pity Sex, 
have released a new song as 
well.
 Titled “Burden You,” Pity 
Sex’s new single does exactly 
that. Britty Drake’s soft voice 
cocoons your entire thought 
process and the only thing 
you can pay attention to is the 
music. The band attempts to 
pull off a shoegaze grunge 
sound and they do it so well 
with simple yet meaningful 
lyrics combined with dirty-
sounding bass lines all laced 
with some spacey guitar rifts.
 The lyrics in “Burden You” 
are delivered softly, but they 
slowly creep into your head 
and create a tunnel connect-
ing to your heart. Britty Drake 
sings about young love and 

inside the simple lyrics she 
gives you everything you’ve 
ever wanted. She addresses 
unrequited love, confusion, 
regret and the want to feel 
wanted in a way that’s not 
extremely cliche. Drake sings 
in a way that feels personal, 
like she’s whispering in your 
ear. Hearing her sing the lyr-
ics “I’ll always think of your 
lips when I’m moving mine 
against his. I wanna know, I 
wanna know that I’m running 
in your mind also, don’t let me 
go,” puts your heart in your 
stomach and fills your lungs 
with flowers.
 “Burden You” creates a 
sadness that never felt so 
good.
 - SELENA AGUILERA

Ethan and 

Hila Klein are 

relationship goals

By JACOB RICH

Senior Arts Editor

They met on Birthright.
He was a Jewish-American kid 

with a quick sense of humor and 
a bit of a belly. She was a charm-
ing, shy Israeli taking a week off 
of her required military service. 
They didn’t hook up, but they hit 
it off — they spent the whole week 
of their trip talking and laughing. 
When he got back to the United 
States, an e-mail from her was 
waiting for him. A year later, she 
left her homeland to be with him 
in the sunny city of Santa Cruz, 
and they’ve been inseparable ever 
since.

Now, eight years later, Ethan 

and Hila Klein are YouTube’s ris-
ing power couple. H3h3Produc-
tions, their comedy channel, has 
nearly 1 million subscribers and 
over 100 million video views, 
about a quarter of which (accord-
ing to SocialBlade) happened in 
the last month. To say their work 
is blowing up would be a huge 
understatement. Lately, their new 
videos have been routinely voted 
to the number one position on 
Reddit’s video aggregate site r/
videos, while more and more big 
YouTubers are giving the couple 
shout-outs on Twitter and on their 
own channels.

It’s almost impossible to sum-

marize 
what 
h3h3Productions 

videos are generally like. In recent 
months, they’ve been all over the 
place, from elaborately edited 
“.exe” videos to rants to comedy 
essays to skits. I guess you could 
think of them as somewhere 
between Adult Swim’s “Tim and 
Eric” and “Mystery Science The-
ater 3000” — irreverent, surreal 
and charmingly lo-fi.

But what really put h3h3Pro-

ductions on the map were their 
“reaction” videos. On first glance, 
they just look like any other video 
response on YouTube — Hila holds 
the camera, while Ethan talks into 
it as he buffers through a video. But 
h3h3Productions is much more 
than just an exploitative commen-
tary on popular videos. Their reac-
tions blur the lines between satire 
and skit, comedy and tragedy. The 
second their catchy ’80s-tinged 
intro song ends, you know you’re 
in for genius improvisation and 
weird, uncomfortable video edit-
ing. It’s avant-garde digital com-
edy at its most bizarre.

The reaction videos started in 

2013 when Ethan saw “Girls who 

Read,” a pretentious video slam 
poem making the rounds on Red-
dit.

The poem, presented by a 

chubby British guy, posits the 
author as a classy gentleman who 
prefers a woman’s intellect to 
her “tits or ass” — well, as long as 
they’re drop-dead gorgeous like 
the actress in the video. Ethan was 
infuriated by the poem’s hypoc-
risy. I have to agree — that video 
sucks. It’s a stunning example of 
male superficiality and the double 
standards set for women. 

Hila grabbed her camera and 

got to work. 

“Now look at this chubby little 

hunk here,” Ethan says, pointing 
to an overweight girl in the cor-
ner of the video’s frame. “If she’s 
over there reading books, I bet he’s 
not making this poetic little video 
about her. I bet she could be smart 
as fuck. No, he chooses the CUTE 
girl who reads.”

Since then, the couple has 

applied their unique formula to 
dozens of cringe-worthy, obnox-
ious and toxic targets on You-
Tube. They were among the first 
to point out the bizarre, embar-
rassing eccentricities of recording 
artist DJ Khaled, the exploitative 
immorality of YouTube’s “urban 
pranksters” and the uncomfort-
able sexual overtones of the oh-so-
fake “kissing prank.”

Ethan and Hila’s videos each 

have an unmistakable look to 
them, thanks to the couple’s 
unique and outrageous style. 
They’ve 
become 
somewhat 

famous for their thrift-shop cou-
ture — beanie caps, turtlenecks, 
sunglasses and what Ethan calls 
the “Chub ‘n’ Tuck” (the act of 
tucking high-waisted sweatpants 
under one’s gut) are all essential 
aspects of the charming h3h3Pro-
ductions aesthetic. Further amp-
ing up the couple’s lovable style 
is Hila’s art, which is often on 
display in the background of the 
reactions. 
Her 
neon-drenched 

surrealist brushstrokes fit in per-
fectly with their offbeat dress.

The 
first 
h3h3Productions 

video I saw was “The Tai Lopez 
Conspiracy,” an absolutely savage 
comedic takedown of the “here in 
my garage” guy (you know the ad, 
he’s the get-rich-quick salesman 
that shows you his Lamborghini 
and lectures you on the impor-
tance of “KNAWledge”).

The video was a rollercoaster 

of emotions to say the very least. 
It started out simple enough, 
with Ethan taking jabs at Lopez’s 
meme-worthy speech patterns. 
This wouldn’t be nearly as funny 
if Ethan didn’t have the per-
fect satirical tone. While many 
of h3h3Productions’s reactions 
are certainly condemning, they 

almost never feel mean-spirited. 
It’s a testament to the guy’s come-
dic instincts that he can toe the 
line of, in his own words, “Goo-
fin’ and Gaffin’ ” on others’ videos 
without resorting to bullying.

Soon, things got crazy. Sud-

denly, Ethan was convulsing on 
his chair like in “2001: A Space 
Odyssey” while frightening, clum-
sily edited fake ads of Lopez’s face 
surrounded Ethan’s and a bright 
yellow “TRIGGERED” sign rose 
from the bottom of the screen. I 
laughed so hard I almost dropped 
my laptop.

But then, the tone changed 

again. After some quick Google 
sleuthing, Ethan was able to reveal 
that Lopez’s luxurious Hollywood 
Hills mansion wasn’t, in fact, 
owned by Lopez at all — it was a 
short-term rental, easily available 
for cheap film shoots via a website. 
All of a sudden, Ethan’s video felt 
more like muckraking journalism 
rather than a bizarro-comedy.

Of late, it seems like h3h3Pro-

ductions’ videos have taken on 
this journalistic role more often. 
As cheesy as it sounds, Ethan and 
Hila have almost become Inter-
net detectives. They certainly 
haven’t removed themselves from 
comedy, but exposing shady busi-
ness practices, dumb clickbait 
and harmful, obnoxious “pranks” 
has become an essential aspect of 
their videos. In 2016, their most 
popular videos have been on their 
very public feud with SoFloAnto-
nio, a profiteer who illegally steals 
other creators’ YouTube and Vine 
videos and uploading them onto 
his ultra-popular Facebook page, 
“SoFlo.” One of h3h3Produc-
tions’ SoFlo videos even features 
a straight-up investigative inter-
view between Ethan and a content 
creator whose video Antonio stole 
and profited off.

This, and Ethan’s rant about the 

terrible business practices of the 
litigious Fine Brothers have pro-
vided tent poles under which You-
Tube’s creators can stand together 
— their anti-corporation, pro-cre-
ator rhetoric has clearly resonated 
with the Internet.

There’s a reason h3h3Produc-

tions has an enormous fan base, 
their own thriving subreddit and 
a Patreon pulling in nearly $5,000 
a month. They represent a chal-
lenge to the status quo. They’re 
changing the terms of what can 
be done with YouTube comedy, 
one video at a time. This is really 
hilarious stuff, people. And by act-
ing as a last bastion for the ethical 
creator, they’ve managed to rally 
those who believe in YouTube as a 
medium of quality entertainment. 
The Internet is h3h3Productions’ 
oyster, and I can’t wait to see what 
happens next. 

MUSIC VIDEO REVIEW

 As well known as FKA twigs 

may be for visually striking, 
otherworldly 
music videos, 
“Good to Love” 
is remarkably 
minimalist. It’s 
just her, a bed 
and a camera. 
The degree 
to which she 
can stretch 
this medium 
speaks to the artistry of twigs, 
not only as a singer and a dancer, 
but as a director as well.

For its minimalism, twigs still 

manages to bring an ethereal 
quality to this video. The sheets 
seem alive as they’re pulled and 
tossed, and clever camerawork 
blurs the line between skin and 
cloth. It’s a powerful reflection 
of her music, acutely preoc-
cupied with lust and love. Her 
muses, however, are always 
peripheral. “Good to Love” is 
no doubt a plea to a lover, but 
it’s twigs who is center stage. 
Everything here is by her, for 
her, of her. It’s a solo sex scene 
on her own terms.

The most consuming part of 

this video — and all of her videos 
— is of course twigs herself, spe-
cifically her movements. They’re 
startlingly deliberate, yet still 
feel organic. She resembles a 
marionette as she throws her-
self around with the sheets. As 
the camera moves to her face, 
we get a flush of deep emotion 
with only a glance of the eyes. 
The result is a video that says a 
lot with a little. twigs might be 
a “sweet little lover maker,” but 
she has some big ideas.

- CHRISTIAN KENNEDY

A-

Good to 
Love

FKA twigs

Young Turks

Thursday, February 25, 2016 — 3B

“The Graduate” 

in this series, three daily arts writers in 

varying states of mind do the same activity 

and write about their experiences.

this week’s event:

Part 1: “The bathrooms down at the end of the hall,” I feel like this means something intense. Also s/o 

to Ms. Robinson for fucking inventing the term MILF. MRS ROBINSON YOU’RE TRYING TO SEDUCE 
ME. Every god damn line in this movie is beautiful. On a side note why do they make this pathetic dude 
out to be a track star newspaper editor straight A student I’m not feeling like this man is all those things.

 Part 2: Ben, you’ll never be young again. The one-liners in this film are changing. Every damn 

line has a profound effect on the total course of my life. I’m just worried about my future. 

Buzzed wonders how the filmmakers made this underwater diver scene and now 

I’m questioning how they make any scene. Or anything. Ha. Hoffman just 

walked into the hotel for an affair and it’s similarly life changing. Mrs. 

Robinson is the kind of forward woman I need in my life. That 

would definitely be life changing. Oh my god who is this 

woman and does she actually exist. I need to date 

older women. Not older like “oh she’s like 

21” older like “she’s married with two 

kids.” Wait that sounds a little 
Freudian shit that was bad.

Part 3: I wonder if the same 

situation played out in 2016 if it would 

play out the same. Are we at a point in society 

where we can accept a man having a casual 

relationship with his girlfriend’s mother, have we finally 

gotten to that point America? God. We need Bernie at a time 

like this. Which brings me to the point that Bored pointed out — he 

could have been an extra in this. The man was as young and able in 1967 as 

he is in 2016. Wow.

Part 4: The vibe of the landlord in Berkeley is great. He’s probably the most stable 

character in this movie, which must stand for something. And now Kate Moss just comes 

in and screams her head off in the most terrifying shot I’ve seen in years. She sounds like she’s 

dying but she really is just upset at something so small and insignificant as Dustin Hoffman having an 

affair with her 45+ year old mother. That’s such a big deal. Children are starving in Africa dammit. And 
now Hoffman wants to marry this poor girl. The emotional strain must be a lot, so I apologize to Kate. 
But now she’s agreed to marry him so I guess that means it’s probably not that bad.

Part 5: This may be entirely unrelated to this movie, but every time I see this movie I want to move 

somewhere west of Texas. That just seems like an entirely different style of living, an entirely new 
atmosphere of life. Imagine waking up in Denver, Colorado. How would who I am and what I stand for 
change. Coming for you, Denver.

Part 6: The movie’s over: (add spoiler here). The Sound of Silence again coming in and changing my 

existence. And that last shot is so perfectly done that I think I am yet again: changed. Buzzed says it’s 
about the banality of life and that alters the world for about the 20th time this evening. But it’s ok. After 
this I can get some food.

-Daily Arts Writer

Here is a just a stream of thought: The beginning of this film 

is so brilliant – it’s not really iconic as it is unnerving in a 

really friendly way. Like, everyone is being so nice to 

him but it’s terrifying. I never want to grow up.

This plastics line works so well.

I see so much of myself in Dustin Hoffman, 

except the whole older-woman-seductress-
attraction part, but I guess it’s something to 
aspire to.

The Robinsons’ mini-bar has a little orb that 

says “BAR” on it, like I didn’t know it was a 
bar. Come on!

This song that Mrs. Robinson plays is HOT.
“Did you know I was an alcoholic?” *Gasp* 

“What?”
The iconic scene “are you trying to seduce me” is 

the PERFECT scene for 1967. Braddock comes to the 

conclusion that Mrs. Robinson is trying to seduce him, she 

says she’s not, but of course she is. Mike Nichols must have 

been slapped down a ton between “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf” and 

“The Graduate,” with studio folks telling him that he’s ruining film but NO he was transforming it.

Ben Braddock’s reactions to Mrs. Robinson in the whole initial interaction are priceless. He’s got 

such a command on whimpers and little cries, it’s fantastic.

10 years before Darth Vader, we had Benjamin Braddock. His breathing during the scuba scene is 

wonderful. It’s like he’s really heavily sighing with disdain at how dumb this gift is.

“Are you here for an affair, sir?” “Huh?” “The Singleman party?” “Ah yes”
Benjamin Braddock has got to be a stand-in for baby-boomers and just discovering how messed up 

life is with his discovering how disastrous the Robinson family is—Mr. and Mrs. Robinson don’t sleep 
together, they got married because she got pregnant, she got a degree in art but lost her interest, and, 
of course, the whole Elaine plotline.

Fun fact: Katharine Ross is married to SAM ELLIOTT. I wish I were married to Sam Elliott. 

Seems like such a cool dude. Oh, they’re making out, but she was just crying. Do you think Bernie 
Sanders is an extra in this movie? This is not Berkeley. This is USC. Choose a less iconic building. 
Richard Dreyfuss! I love Richard Dreyfuss. Elaine making moves! Part of me is doubtful that a 
person like Dustin Hoffman could ever pull this all off and then part of me feels ashamed that I 
would ever doubt Dustin Hoffman.

I love Dustin Hoffman.
This montage of Benjamin trying to find where the wedding will take place is so great, fueled by 

that great Mrs. Robinson soundtrack.

And of course, THIS FINAL SCENE IS GLORIOUS. In the words of Baked, this is such a hippie 

movie. They’re just flipping off authority and society. But of course, it ends with sadness. Oh well, we 
all die.

- Daniel Hensel

This is the third night in a row I’ve gotten drunk, and 

it’s the weekend before midterm week. My jewish parents 
are rolling in their graves, but they’re still alive. Is it bad 
for to get crossfaded for these? I hope not. This movie is 
absolutely amazing. That intro sequence though. I’m really 
feeling the existential ennui right now. Mrs. Robinson is 
such a babe. We just looked it up, and this movie made 
SO much fucking money. Dustin Hoffman is so fucking 
perfectly awkward. How’d you even do this? God, four 
loko qSA A bad choice. The single fame boob gets me every 
time, so funny, “Oh jesus Christ.” I really want to stop 
drinking this four loko. Anne Bancroft is like a soulless 
husk. She reminds me of my exes badum chhhhhhhh

Whoops I just told Danny what’s going on in my 

personal life. That’s okay, that guy’s alright. RUSHMORE 
(that was the devin faraci style, fucking deal with it 
EDITORS) totally ripped this part in the pool off. I want 
to work for Vulture if you’re reading this, fucking give me 
an internship you motherfuckers. Fyck you. This movie is 
just like, human beings are disgusting. I’m embarrassed at 
how drunk I am. Good thing we’re all going to die and life 
has no point, the central thesis of this movie and my life.

-Daily Arts Writer

baked.buzzed.bored.

A-

Burden 
You

Pity Sex

Run for Cover 

Records

