I'm Ethan Bradberry — Young man in red and black striped sweater pointing at camera at night

I'm Ethan Bradberry

2015catchphrasesemi-active

Published August 31, 2026

"I'm Ethan Bradberry" is a shouted self-introduction from a November 2015 YouTube prank video that got a second life in March 2016 after h3h3 Productions mocked its over-the-top delivery. Within days the aggressive intro fueled a run of remix edits, a dedicated subreddit, and a soundboard button, making it a signature audio drop of early 2016.

catchphrase memes audio memes prank memes youtube viral 2016 memes

Overview

The joke works entirely on tone. Ethan Bradberry's introduction is delivered like a threat rather than a greeting, and editors loop, chop, and layer the shout over unrelated footage for absurd effect1. Common versions include green screen edits where his head floats over other clips, mashups where the audio replaces a movie line, and rapid-fire cuts that repeat the phrase back-to-back5.

The audio's life as a soundboard clip helped it stick around long after the original prank fell off. My Instants added a dedicated button so anyone could trigger the shout in a browser, which pushed it into Discord calls and stream chats3. The remixes lean on the gap between Bradberry's serious delivery and whatever trivial thing they're bolted onto, which is exactly the contrast h3h3 Productions picked apart in their reaction4.

Origin & Background

Platform
YouTube (source) / YouTube (viral spread via h3h3 reaction)
Creator
Ethan Bradberry
Date
2015

On November 25, 2015, the YouTube channel MoeAndET uploaded "Would Your Child Know How To Escape A House Fire!? (Social Experiment)," a fog-machine prank framed as a safety test1. The video opens with Ethan Bradberry aggressively announcing his full name straight into the camera before the setup starts. About a month later, on December 24, 2015, a small YouTube remix cut the intro together into a repeating loop, an early sign that the shout itself was the funny part, though it didn't spread far at that stage5.

How It Spread

Momentum picked up on March 3, 2016, when h3h3 Productions posted a reaction where Ethan and Hila Klein poked fun at the menacing delivery. Within two weeks that reaction pulled more than 600,000 views, pushing the clip in front of a much bigger audience4.

The next day, March 4, 2016, editors piled on. One YouTuber posted a version that had Bradberry introducing himself on loop for a full minute6, while another uploaded a green screen version of the shout so anyone could composite him into their own scenes7. By March 10, 2016, the /r/imethanbradberry subreddit was live as a home for the growing pile of edits2. Two days later, on March 12, 2016, My Instants added a dedicated soundboard button for the clip3, and by March 13 a YouTube search for the phrase already returned over 1,000 results8.

How to Use This Meme

Typically, editors take the isolated audio of Bradberry yelling his name and drop it over unrelated video, often as a hard cut or a punchline at the end of a longer clip8. Green screen versions of his head are commonly composited into scenes so his body appears in the frame while the shout plays7. For chat and stream use, the My Instants button is the standard way to trigger the audio live3.

Frequently Asked Questions