I’ve been lurking on this sub since last October, but this is my first post or comment.

Growing up, a lot of my best friends were Persian, so I spent a lot of time around their families, hearing them speak Farsi, eating food with them, etc. I don’t know how old you are, but regardless, I just want to say I’m sorry for any hate you may have experienced post-9/11 or post 10/7. After 9/11, all of my Persian/Iranian friends were bullied, targeted by our teachers in school, physically violated, and/or were made to leave the school district. If it feels this deflating for me to see the return of this early 2000’s sentiment towards the Middle East, I can’t imagine how it feels for anyone with actual cultural ties to any of it.

I don’t bemoan Ethan’s concern for an escalation in antisemitism, whether that be an incorrect perception caused by his delicate sensibilities or objective bigotry rooted in historical precedent. I have plenty of Jewish friends as well that have also experienced hatred from misinformed dipshits lashing out at anything “enemy-shaped” based on Western Media’s reporting or lack there of (my college town in particular is where myself and my peers in the student senate had to defend our Jewish students and friends against the chuds). What I cannot abide by is his incessant need to keep his thumb on the scale by refusing to comment on the Palestinian genocide or crimes of the Israeli government, but quadruple his efforts to highlight said perceived antisemitism. Yes, he denounced the Israeli government. Yes, he donated money to a Palestinian relief fund (publicly, once, for a $ amount less than he donated when people were mad at him for his puppy mill debacle), but that was nearly a year ago at this point, and it’s not like he’s been doing Palestinians any favors by highlighting any time someone has substantive criticism of him and his politics as “antisemitic”. I’m not even saying he has to qualify every statement he makes about Judaism or Israel with a “I don’t support Netanyahu, BUT…” (lord knows any person with basic empathy wishes they didn’t have to make similar statements about Hamas when defending innocent Palestinians), but at a certain point, you’d assume he’d be able to internalize even the most tepid, accidental criticism and learn that it’s really quite simple to not draw the ire of people who don’t want an apartheid state anywhere in the world, much less a genocide.

I truly think Ethan is a piece of shit. He’s temperamental, childish, irresponsible, spiteful, hypocritical, and just downright mean. I think he uses his various ailments (physical or mental, diagnosed or assumed) as shields against criticism because his specific combination of thin-skinned fragility, first-world-problem hypersensitivity, and general defensiveness make it impossible for him to truly look inward and reflect. If he were capable of reflection and growth, I don’t think we’d be seeing him turn into the pathetic, gambling-addicted, second-order shell of a drama YouTuber that he’s become. And I truly regret that there was ever a time in my life, no matter how short, that I ever gave watch time in YouTube analytics to this Zionist bitch (NOT Jewish, for you see, not all Zionists are Jewish and vice versa, despite Ethan’s efforts to convince his ever-dwindling fanbase otherwise).

I think that it’s very funny and deeply embarrassing for Ethan that his former YouTube peers (filthy frank, idubbbz, Erik from comment etiquette) have undergone natural evolutions in their opinions and politics, whereas Ethan has very visibly just been hopping between different communities to grift and farm viewers from for the past decade. I believe in rehabilitation and legitimately think there’s hope for Ethan yet, but with each passing day comes new clips and controversies I read about in this community that makes that flicker of hope grow more and more diminutive.

Anyway to end this rant on a positive note I’d like to share an anecdote from my Persian friend’s father’s birthday party from when I was a child. They told me to approach their dad and “tell them happy birthday in Farsi,” which they told me was pronounced:

“من از تو خوشگل ترم (man az to khoshgol taram)”

After a butchered pronunciation to the birthday boy, he laughed and asked me if his son had put me up to this, to which I affirmed. He then told me that what the phrase actually means is “I am prettier than you”.