Ethan Klein vs. Joe Rogan

Overview

Ethan Klein vs. Joe Rogan refers to a feud that took place on Twitter in which Ethan Klein of h3h3productions called out comedian and podcaster Joe Rogan on the topic of health and vaccine misinformation. Klein then self-escalated the event by comparing his body to Rogan's, claiming that they are of equal physical fitness, which incited more discourse and memes online in early 2022.

Background

On January 4th, 2022, Ethan Klein tweeted a five-tweet thread about Joe Rogan and his health, specifically how he handled catching COVID-19. The initial tweet^[1] in the thread received over 33,000 likes and 5,500 retweets and quote retweets in two days (shown below).

Developments

The initial tweet thread was received negatively by many in the H3 fanbase and abroad, with the most common reply to the thread being an image of Klein from previous sketches and episodes of the podcast where he was not looking physically fit. This caused Klein to tweet an image 14 hours later on January 4th, 2022, in which he attempted to claim that he and Rogan have the same body type, as shown in the picture^[2] with Klein's clothes photoshopped on top of Rogan, earning 42,000 likes in two days (shown below).

Though Rogan himself did not respond, a wash of online personalities did in his stead. For example, Lauren Chen, a pop culture respondent, weighed in on January 4th via her Twitter^[3] with a quote retweet in which she replied that Klein has the "muscle tone of flan," earning 16,000 likes in less than two days. Klein then responded with a tweet that was ratioed, to which Hasan Piker, one half of The Leftovers podcast with Klein, also joined^[4] in, each earning over 23,000 likes in two days (shown below).

Since the initial tweets by Klein, many people on Twitter took the opportunity to take shots at Klein and his health. One prominent example is in the tweet^[5] by @ManletThorin, who tweeted a GIF of the goblin leader from The Hobbit proclaiming that it was Klein, earning over 2,500 likes in two days (shown below).

Ethan Klein after proclaiming Joe Rogan to be less healthy than he is pic.twitter.com/epwH0JuWds

— Manlet Thorin (@ManletThorin) January 4, 2022

Search Interest

External References