Ethan Klein of comedy duo H3H3 and YouTube star Trisha Paytas were victims of a swatting attempt, which occurred live during a March 23 broadcast — but Klein didn’t seem fazed by the incident, at all.
In the age of social media, swatting is becoming all too common an occurrence for high-profile content creators, who are often targeted by disgruntled critics or internet trolls.
Swatting refers to a very serious type of harassment, in which someone will deceive an emergency dispatcher to send a large amount of armed law enforcement officers to someone’s home under the guise of immediate danger, claiming a murder, robbery, or other such crime is taking place.
These types of calls have resulted in serious injury and even death to the intended target, and are even criminal offenses in the United States and Brazil — but that isn’t stopping some angry critics from repeatedly swatting Ethan Klein.
During a March 23 episode of their “Frenemies” podcast, H3H3’s Ethan Klein and YouTuber Trisha Paytas were swatted, resulting in a surprisingly chill phone call between Klein and law enforcement that went down as fans were watching.
“Yeah, we’re okay,” Klein said after answering the phone. “I know we’re just — I keep getting swatted, so… yeah, everything’s just fine over here. Thanks for calling!”
“We just got swatted,” he laughingly told Paytas after hanging up. “It’s been happening so much now that they just call me and be like, ‘Are you okay? We just got a call.’ Because then, if I don’t answer, they have to come.”
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“I’m just trying to be calm about it,” he continued. “Obviously, it’s annoying. It’s happening like, a lot. But at least now, it’s like, cool. They call me immediately, but if I don’t answer, they come.”
As Klein stated, this is far from the first time he’s been swatted; the comedian has been the victim of such attempts numerous times in the past, the latest when his mother-in-law was visiting from Israel.
Luckily, Klein has good rapport with his local authorities, although that doesn’t make the situation any less grim for him and his family.
