The Hype House is Imploding
And once again, we are all reminded how fragile and complicated internet fame can be for young creators.
If you’ve been on TikTok in the past few months, you’re bound to have encountered the Hype House. Its creators, perhaps the most notable being Dixie and Charli D’Amelio, Addison Rae, and Chase Hudson (also known as “Lil Huddy”), are no stranger to the “For You” page, doing trendy dances in trendy outfits from the bathroom of their L.A. mansion. Since its creation in December 2019, the collab house (a group of creators all making content and usually living together in the same house) has gained over 13 million followers. For a while now, it had seemed as if there was no slowing down for the Hype House — its creators had the internet world in the palms of their hands.
But in the past week, that seems to have completely changed, and now its future is uncertain. Rumors and allegations have rapidly spread across the internet and have been covered by many of YouTube’s popular drama, or “tea,” channels. At the center of everything are two of the Hype House’s co-founders, 21-year-old Thomas Petrou, who had been part of Jake Paul’s now-infamous “Team 10” collab house, and 20-year-old fitness influencer and model Daisy Keech. On March 28th, Keech posted a video called “Truth about the Hype House,” in which she alleged that Petrou and the other co-founders had not properly credited her for her role in founding the house and had intentionally excluded her from business deals and press opportunities. The internet exploded. The Hype House’s TikTok page was instantly flooded with the comments “#CANCELTHEHYPEHOUSE,” “#CANCELTHOMAS,” and “#JUSTICEFORDAISY.”
It’s not the first time Petrou, who has served as the manager of the house, has gotten into trouble. When a video of Dixie D’Amelio saying that Petrou wouldn’t let her eat until she posted a TikTok surfaced, many on the internet were outraged and calling for him to be “canceled.” Even before this incident (which Petrou has since spoken out about, claiming that he was only joking) and Keech’s video, both his character and leadership style had been criticized online.
Petrou has since posted a video of his own to the Hype House’s YouTube channel, called “The REAL Truth About The Hype House,” where he responds to Keech’s allegations. I’m not going to explain everything here, but it is worth noting that their stories are extremely different on virtually every account. Since this video was posted, some have continued to believe Keech, while others are supporting Petrou. It is worth reading the comments on both of their videos if you want to know more about how people feel about each’s account.
The Experience of Women on the Internet
While the internet has not yet decided which account is the “right” one, this situation still raises the important issue of how female creators are treated on the internet — and in the business world in general. Keech alleges in her video that her financial and creative contributions to the Hype House were continually discredited by Petrou and Hudson (who according to both Keech and Petrou was another co-founder), and that he told her lawyer that she “was just another hot Instagram model with a shelf-life.” And this would be just another example of female creators, influencers, and entrepreneurs being ignored and discredited for their work. At the beginning of this year, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences was criticized for its largely-male nominations, despite the existence of several critically-acclaimed films directed by women. Silicon Valley is notorious for its discrimination against and lack of recognition of women. Last year, Taylor Swift released the song “The Man,” reflecting on the double standards women face in the music industry and imagining how her treatment by the media would be different if she was a man.
Sexism and double standards on TikTok definitely exist as well. For example, whenever female creators post something that can be interpreted as provocative, they are inevitably greeted with an influx of comments that say “this is why I don’t want a daughter.” But when male creators make similar videos, these types of comments are much, much rarer. When 15-year-old Charli D’Amelio posted TikToks with her friends on a trip to the Bahamas, she was harassed and objectified for wearing a swimsuit.
Of course, it is worth noting that while both Keech’s and Petrou’s videos consist of mostly allegations(both have posted screenshots of some texts, however), and many believe that the situation is simply “word against word,” the experience she describes with sexism is something that many women, both within social media and other industries, have faced — and is something that is especially damaging to young creators on TikTok.
For Digital Creators and Influencers, Fame Is Always Fleeting
Two days after her video about the Hype House was posted, Keech posted a tour of a new house. And now, with the future of the Hype House uncertain (complicated even more by the fact of breakup rumors between Charli D’Amelio and Chase Hudson and the fact that the creators who don’t live full-time in the house are currently quarantining back at their own homes for an unknown length of time), it’s clear there is a cool new collab house in town: The Clubhouse BH (BH standing for Beverly Hills), co-founded by Keech.
If this story sounds familiar, it’s because it is. About three years ago, a little something called “Team 10” was the talk of the internet. The first widely known collab house, Team 10 was founded by former Disney actor and internet star Jake Paul when he was just 19 (remember that Petrou was once a part of Team 10). When word got around that Paul had mistreated former house member and his maybe-maybe not girlfriend Alissa Violet, the online world went into a frenzy. A music video called “It’s Everyday Bro” which featured Paul and the other members of Team 10 bragging about their newfound wealth and fame and talking negatively about Violet, was released (it currently has 263 million views on YouTube). Soon Violet and other YouTubers such as RiceGum and FaZe Banks started a collab house of their own: The Clout House.
Despite however popular Team 10 was at the time, it eventually faded from the internet’s consciousness, with creator after creator leaving. The Clout House, too, seems to have disbanded (Although there now is the FaZe House?).
But believe it or not, there was another collab house before Team 10. Years ago, the group Our Second Life, also known as O2L, was all the rage, boasting creators such as Connor Franta, Kian Lawley, JC Caylen, and Ricky Dillon. There was also MAGCON (not a collab house, but more so a “tour group”), a group of famous Vine stars such as Nash Grier and Cameron Dallas.
And in fact, when you look back, you realize that in the relatively short time that online social media platforms have been around, we’ve already gone through several generations of internet stars. The online world is constantly churning out new creators for us to pay attention to, and at such a fast pace that we often forget the people who are replaced.
There is always an “it crowd” on the internet. Years ago, it was DIY and beauty YouTubers Bethany Mota, Eva Gutowski, Alisha Marie, Meredith Foster, and Teala Dunn. Or Vine stars Lele Pons, Anwar Jiwabi, Hannah Stocking, Brittany Furlan, and Rudy Mancuso. Or Musical.ly stars Lisa and Lena Mantler, Ariel Martin (Baby Ariel), Jacob Sartorius, and Danielle Cohn. Or Team 10’s Jake Paul, Tessa Brooks, and Chance Sutton. Just last year it was the “Dote girls,” with YouTubers Emma Chamberlain, Hannah Meloche, Ellie Thumann, and Summer McKeen, and, yes, Lori Laughlin’s daughter Olivia Jade, who had all been sponsored by the Gen-Z shopping app Dote and would post photos at Coachella or on vacation together.
Now it’s Charli and Dixie Damelio and Addison Rae. Or David Dobrik and the rest of the “Vlog Squad.” Or Emma Chamberlain and her two best friends Olivia Rouyre and Amanda Pavillard. Or the Clubhouse. Or the Sway House.
But we don’t know how long their fame will last for. And while a select few creators have proven it’s possible to stay relevant for a long time (think PewDiePie or Shane Dawson), many (if not most) eventually get left in the (virtual) dust. On the internet, it is increasingly taking less and less time for creators to gain fame. YouTube star Emma Chamberlain posted her first video on June 2nd, 2017. Less than a year later, on April 22nd, 2018 she posted a video thanking her fans for one million subscribers. Now, in April 2020, she has over 8.7 million subscribers. Charli D’Amelio first started her TikTok account in June 2019. Now, in April 2020, she has over 46 million followers.
But on the flip side, it is much easier for someone to lose their fame or even have it blow up in their face. This is especially true in the era of “canceling,” in which you can get “exposed” for something you’ve done and have people resolve to strip you of your fame. Although people have managed to recover from this (think the James Charles vs. Tati Westbrook scandal of 2019), there will always be both career and personal damage from having the entire internet decide to “cancel” you or having your personal information and texts spread all over the web. And if you don’t do damage control, you can slide into irrelevancy fast.
As of now, the future of the Hype House is uncertain. Maybe it will be able to rebuild, or maybe its audience will instead leave and support the up-and-coming Clubhouse Beverly Hills. But one thing is certain — right now, there is a group of children and teenagers who are going to replace all people we care so much about right now and become the next generation of internet stars. And they probably don’t even know it yet.
Artist Andy Warhol said that “In the future, everyone will be world-famous for 15 minutes.” That future may be here.
