Caleb Hammer is a YouTube and TikTok personality who has made his mark on the internet with his ruthless financial audits. Caleb is not a certified financial advisor or planner and does not have any background in finance beyond his own personal situation; to his credit, he openly acknowledges this. However, he allegedly uses this questionably-acquired position of power and influence to manipulate his financially vulnerable guests. Claims from former guests include unforeseen harassment from his audience, discomfort during the filming process, [Caleb] attempting to solicit them for OnlyFans content, sexual harassment, and sexual assault. Amongst these claims, critics continue to call out their issues with the base ideology behind his content, the type of audience + conversation it invites, and Caleb's negligence surrounding the Creator-Fan Power Dynamic.
Video posted on July 5th, 2023 by Dante Welch
THE HIGH LEVEL RUNDOWN
Caleb started posting on Youtube in 2022 and quickly found his niche making videos dedicated to "financially auditing" people.
His original videos show more of what looks like his "true character" - somebody who wants to help and is earnest and compassionate in how he handles himself with people who are seeking his advice.
He has now risen quickly in popularity, but it's because of his increasingly abrasive, bullying, "shock-value" nature that seemed to really amp up over the last 8-12 months. Many viewers were already starting to question his morals and the basis of his content on his subreddit because of this shift, but he has since deleted and continues to delete all conversation surrounding it.
Between July 2nd-6th, 2023 information began coming out about Caleb sending a voice message to a former guest (Zeke) which documents him asking that guest to do OnlyFans with "a friend of his" very explicitly.
All of that discourse was, once again, deleted from his subreddit to stop any further discussion and stop people from asking him about the objectively disturbing and verifiably documented claims.
A video was posted on July 5th with evidence from A DIFFERENT guest of his show saying he proposed OnlyFans to her as well. This video also calls out the fundamental issues with his content and the type of audience it invites. It was created and posted with zero knowledge of the actively unfolding situation regarding Zeke. This video, in tandem with the active discussion surrounding Zeke, kicked off a "lockdown" on Caleb Hammer's subreddit.
Every time the video was posted it was removed, and anyone who asked about the situation got banned or had their comment/post deleted.
After this happened, Caleb (who is the moderator of his own subreddit) posted twice. Once asking for opinions on if its "creepy" to offer OnlyFans to his former guests, and another to "thank" everyone for their responses (despite deleting and deflecting everyone's very real criticism and evidence).
A subreddit called r/CreepyCalebHammer was created and people who had been banned from his space started to gather there to discuss the situation.
Screenshot from 7/5/23
Caleb Hammer contacted the creator of the video (Dante Welch of HGHH) on July 6th, 2023 asking him to meet up and "clear his name." Dante proposed an interview at a neutral location despite Caleb's attempt to have him travel to his studio to record it himself and, in Dante's opinion, try to control the narrative further.
Upon arriving to the interview, Caleb refused to roll the cameras and instead opted to read through the interview questions and, directly to Dante/HGHH, deflect personal involvement and blame. Dante and his team have a secret recording of this meeting, as they anticipated that the story would again be twisted and/or covered up by Caleb.
Dante/HGHH setting up for the Caleb Hammer interview in Austin, TX on July 6th, 2023.
Caleb did agree to remove part of his video per HGHH's criticism surrounding his exploitation of guests, a clip where he suspects a guest could be pre-diabetic and tests their blood sugar mid-episode. Later, he confirmed that this deletion did indeed happen.
However, ALL other issues have remained unaddressed. As of Sept 15th, 2023, Caleb has only sparingly posted on Reddit about the accusations to either further deflect blame, paint others as delusional/unstable, or double down on his stance.
Dante/HGHH refrained from posting about Caleb Hammer since their meeting in July 2023 in hopes that he was being honest in his answers to them when they met in person, but Caleb continued with his old ways and has still not truly addressed the issues. Caleb also said he would likely be willing to meet up 2 weeks from the original meeting (July 6th) for a recorded interview and/or for HGHH to "shadow" his show; Dante Welch followed up on this offer and received no response from Caleb.
In September 2023, Dante again began posting about Caleb Hammer and his lack of accountability on the very real issues that were discussed with him in-person. This was met with intense harassment from Caleb's fans, unsurprisingly, given that Caleb has sanitized his subreddit and socials to avoid any inquiries/discussion from fans within his highly moderated echo chamber. Dante's initial TikTok in reference (below) quickly garnered over 100k views before it was allegedly mass reported and removed the same day it was posted.
TikTok posted by Dante Welch on 9/12/23
On September 15th, 2023 HGHH sent an email to Caleb Hammer + Team with the original interview questions and one final request for comment. They informed him of the recording they had of their previous meeting and that it would be cited in the following article.
What is "Financial Audit"?
Caleb Hammer's "Financial Audit" is a 1-2 hour long podcast-style interview with someone, typically in a very bad financial situation, in which Caleb brutally dissects and commentates on the guest's spending habits. He pays these guests $50-$100 to appear on an episode.
To follow Caleb's lead and give an equally "brutal" review of the show - "Financial Audit" involves cherry picking vulnerable guests that are in difficult financial (and often, life) situations, getting access to all of their personal financial documents, and shaming them on the internet for his primarily-male audience to enjoy. His videos have resulted in the intense harassment of the guests who unknowingly stepped into his exploitative trap and do not contain much truly helpful, actionable advice for these struggling people when you take into context the true nature of their situation and the backlash they will undoubtedly receive once they are purposely painted as an "idiot" on the internet. Sure, not everyone on his show has had an inherently bad experience, so Caleb and his fanbase swear by the effectiveness of their "tough love" and believe that his guests deserve to be yelled at (and subsequently harassed by commenters after the episode airs) because they "asked for it" and are "being stupid with their money."
Caleb's Audience, the Comment Section, and Power Dynamics
The flippant misogyny and lack of empathy is quite easy to spot in his Youtube comments, particularly on episodes featuring younger women and/or POCs. Some guests have reported that they were also bombarded with these types of remarks in their personal DMs following the release of their episodes. The guest's screenshots below also highlight her general discomfort and confusion around Caleb's abrasiveness and how to react in the midst of filming the episode.
Messages to HGHH from a former guest describing her experience during and after her episode of Caleb Hammer's "Financial Audit"
In our July 2023 discussion Caleb claimed that, although he is aware of the risk his guests face by coming on his show and that they may unknowingly experience potential downsides, the number of "positive DMs" and personal finance "success stories" he sees from fans outweigh the potential negative personal experience of any guest.
iPhone Recording from July 6th, 2023
His editor, Brandon Gorrie, also argues that these guests essentially "need" to go through the "hate mail" and bullying if they want to have a financially stable future (although this is yet to be proven). He also makes a questionable statement regarding the "voluntary" nature of their guests' participation.
iPhone Recording from July 6th, 2023
On TikTok, it's even more evident that Caleb's content appeals to a slew of unsavory characters. There are plenty of comments exuding similar misogynistic sentiments or thanking Caleb for showing them someone worse off than them because it "makes them feel better." There are also a large number of comments containing dogwhistles used by those associated with the alt-right to insinuate racist and anti-semitic remarks. At the very least, it is absolutely Caleb's responsibility to moderate his comment sections and stay on top of this kind of harassment towards his guests. In my opinion, Caleb should be doing far more to ensure that these hateful commenters don't feel empowered to make these statements based on his perceived lack of empathy, shame tactics, and crude portrayal of guests; right now, Caleb appears to be incredibly complicit and, quite frankly, totally fine with it. Which is precisely the problem - why doesn't he view this as a legitimate problem?
Dogwhistles in the comment section of one of Caleb Hammer's recent TikToks
And while it's true that you can't control the actions of others, I do think it's your responsibility as a content creator with a platform to be mindful of the content you make and who it's attracting; if bad people feel empowered to say hateful things on your content about the guests you expose to them and you are not doing anything to remedy it or look inwards at your own contribution to it, then you are absolutely complicit.
The role that creators play in the actions of their audience members has recently been a topic of conversation amongst the streaming community, with Ninja (18.6M Twitch followers) and Ludwig (3.1M Twitch followers) both firing back against "claims that content creators are 'not responsible' for their audience’s behavior."
This concern was brought up with Caleb Hammer and his team during the in-person meeting, so it is well documented that he has been aware of this since, at the absolute latest, July 2023. Caleb's editor, Brandon Gorrie, once again chimed in with a questionable stance that all of their commenters are "grown adults" and they are not in any way responsible for their actions.
iPhone Recording from July 6th, 2023
In this conversation, Caleb claims that in the past, he has turned off the comment section on videos if the "guests can't handle it". In this same discussion, Caleb touted that most of his guests are also fans of his. So why is it their responsibility to anticipate potentially horrendous backlash and personal attacks, and then subsequently voice their discomfort and make a difficult request to the person they are a fan of and would rather not "disappoint"? Why would the creator himself bear no responsibility for being even slightly mindful of the Creator-Fan Power Dynamic at play?
iPhone Recording from July 6th, 2023
When HGHH LLC began talking about this situation on TikTok again in September 2023 in response to YouTuber Nickisnotgreen ("Greenisnotnick" + "hesaidus") alluding to a new video coming soon about Caleb Hammer, they were met with a flurry of direct personal attacks and comments containing hateful undertones in defense of Caleb.
Comments on Nicole and Dante's TikTok videos from September 2023
Some of these people even went back to a TikTok posted on 8/20 containing a clip of HGHH's July 2023 conversation with Caleb in which Nicole Slaski ("coolndizabled") is confronting him about his negligence surrounding the creator-fan power imbalance. Many of these commenters were under the assumption that Nicole had been a guest on his show and was voicing concerns about her own experience directly to Caleb. Unfortunately, this highlights an even more concerning lack of empathy amongst this sect of his audience.
Comments on Nicole Slaski's ("coolndizabled") TikTok video
It's unfortunately anticipated at this point that many in his audience would voice their displeasure for any woman confronting Caleb in this way, but the fact that they would still do that, even under the assumption that this person was speaking on behalf of her own lived exploitation, is quite disheartening to see.
In actuality, Nicole was speaking to Caleb about a now-deleted (per the advice of HGHH) section of his Youtube video; in the clip, Caleb tests his guest's blood sugar without prior consent or knowledge, solely based on the fact that he could see in his transaction history that this guest bought Mountain Dew on a regular basis. The guest appeared embarrassed but wanting to "go with the flow" in the clip, and the general consensus from the comment section was that they liked this guest because he wasn't trying to be defensive and was agreeable in overall demeanor. However, some viewers did immediately express their disapproval of the stunt.
Differing opinions from commenters on Caleb's blood sugar test stunt before it was removed from the episode.
Leading up to that clip of the conversation that was posted on TikTok, Caleb had claimed that he and the guest were "friends" that just texted that morning and that the guest hadn't said anything about discomfort with the segment. In the same sentence, Caleb also says he is not sure if that's the guest who texted him because he didn't have their number saved. Caleb's editor, Brandon Gorrie, chimed in with his stance that "he could've been pre-diabetic" and Caleb was just "helping him."
iPhone Recording from July 6th, 2023
Nicole argued that it is not their place to do that when the expectation of the guest is advice on their finances. She also says that they are blatantly disregarding the immense effect of the inherent power imbalance when a guest, who is also a fan (as they claim), doesn't outright say they aren't entirely comfortable with something but still hesitantly obliges without fully understanding the implications based on the perceived power the creator has over them before, during, and/or after the interview.
iPhone Recording from July 6th, 2023
OnlyFans
Caleb's now-deleted Reddit post vaguely addressing/trying to get ahead of the OnlyFans accusations on July 5th after Dante's Youtube video was posted
As if everything discussed prior isn't already concerning enough, there have also been 2 former guests that have already spoken out about being solicited for OnlyFans content by Caleb after appearing on his show. This appears to be a clear abuse of his platform and power. This is a man that knows all of his guests financial information - he knows that they are "desperate" and need money - and he then allegedly exploits that vulnerability to funnel them into shady deals with "people he knows." Caleb initially addressed this controversy on July 5th, 2023 with a now-deleted Reddit post (above); almost all of the comments on it were expressing their disapproval and concern for lack of boundaries with his guests. Caleb deleted it and followed up with a new message that twists the narrative and erases everyone's valid criticism.
Caleb's follow-up post and a comment on another now-deleted thread in the subreddit
Caleb has identified "his friend" that does OnlyFans as a male, but as it stands now there is no known identity for this person he was attempting to connect guests with.
Summary of the OnlyFans Accusations
There are currently 2 former guests that have spoken out about Caleb's antics. If you would like to share your story, contact us at media@hotgirlshavehobbies.com
FORMER GUEST 1 - ANONYMOUS (FEMALE, AGE 20)
A former guest of Caleb's show sent messages to creator Dante Welch detailing her experience during and after her episode. She recounted being uncomfortable with Caleb's editor during filming, who she thought was his "roommate" based on her perception of the situation at the time. She also told Dante that Caleb asked about her interest in pursuing an OnlyFans collaboration. She had never done OnlyFans before and clearly communicated that she was uninterested in his offer. Although she says she was not pressured further on this, she was uncomfortable with the proposition. She also detailed Caleb's proposition for her to appear on his "dating show."
This guest's story emphasizes that Caleb was willing to offer this OnlyFans "opportunity" to any guest, regardless of if they had previously been involved in the space or not.
FORMER GUEST 2 - ZEKE (MALE, AGE 19)
This guest alleges sexual harassment and assault by Caleb. He has detailed his experience across social media in an attempt to get people to hear his story, but his unfiltered demeanor has been twisted against him to paint him as a "crazy person" with "no basis for his claims." However, he has since acknowledged his missteps in communicating his grievances, and his claims at the center of the "drama" remain unaddressed and supported by a mountain of evidence. Zeke posted the following voice memo from Caleb in which he explicitly asks him if he would want to do OnlyFans with an unnamed male "friend."
Voice memo from Caleb Hammer to 19 year old Zeke
Zeke, who was only 19 at the time, claims that Caleb coerced and pressured him into sexual conversations and subsequently assaulted him after multiple attempts to communicate his discomfort. He claims that after the assault, Caleb made him sign an NDA and then went on to gaslight him and his audience about the experience for weeks to come.
As mentioned, Zeke has already been very outspoken online about his experience with Caleb Hammer. This has been met with intense harassment from Caleb's fans and a warped narrative around him being an "unreliable source" that is solely "clout chasing". However, after examining the full breadth of the accusations, evidence, and Caleb's strategic deflection of the issue, it is abundantly clear that this still needs to be addressed and remedied.
Caleb and his fans' deflection of Zeke's allegations have been based on the fact that:
1. "Zeke threatened Caleb's life and doxxed him"
Zeke has acknowledged that he was overcome with emotion, frustration, and the lack of accountability taken from Caleb. He says those statements, which he himself has already posted and addressed, were a reflection of his own declining mental state due to the severity of his experience and are not legitimately violent threats. No one condones the behavior/words exhibited in these instances, even Zeke himself, but it continues to be used as an illegitimate reason to disregard everything else Zeke has detailed and shown evidence of leading up to it.
2. "Zeke said himself that he's doing it for the drama" + "Zeke is a clout chaser"
This claim comes primarily from a joke Zeke made in an Instagram story in which he uses a "dramatic", "theatre-esque" song while posting about what happened with Caleb. The joke he makes about "doing it for the drama" refers to the song he is using on the stories. However, the narrative that he "admitted to only doing it for drama" has been heavily amplified by both Caleb and his fans.
A "Secret" Stream, Private Discord Server, and $700 Consultations
It has also been alleged that Caleb Hammer may have a secret camera* that streams the uncut, live versions of his "Financial Audit" show to a paid audience. This is based on a statement from a former guest of the show who noticed odd behavior and Caleb being active on Discord throughout the filming of their episode. This claim was validated through a search on the Wayback Machine (Internet Archive) that shows a previously active webpage (crawled 12/15/22) on Caleb Hammer's site that advertised a Private Discord server for $50 that included a live stream viewing of "Financial Audit."
*It is unknown whether all guests have/had any prior knowledge of a "secret" camera being used to stream during filming, if indeed true.
Screenshot of the "Private Discord" page on 12/15/22 and a "Welcome" page found on Caleb Hammer's active site on 9/15/23
There are also active webpages for both this Discord server and private consultations that appear to still be searchable on the web as of 9/15/23.
Screenshots taken on 9/15/23 of Caleb Hammer's private consultation page and private Discord page
When asked about this Discord during their in-person meeting, Caleb told HGHH that he doesn't "do the Discord." Caleb also claims that his "Mentorship" sessions no longer exist and that he has refunded anyone who tried to book a session.
iPhone Recording from July 6th, 2023
The Bottom Line - Dear Caleb
Let's be clear here, we don't want to "take down" Caleb Hammer as a person. We want to take down a toxic version of Caleb Hammer that is hurting others, deflecting blame for his actions, and purposely tailoring his content for, frankly, those who enjoy seeing someone be punched down on - and that's not the real you, Caleb. Be better. You don't have to succumb to the algorithm and the advice of people that aren't truly looking out for you. Right now, you and your brand scream BULLY CREEP. The accusations are not going to go away by not addressing it, and your platform isn't going to become a safer and more respected place by not making changes. Make genuine strides towards growth and betterment. Otherwise you are, at the very least, always going to be at least complicit in the cover-up of real issues and allegations that have been very clearly outlined to you. Many details and screenshots were redacted in this article for the safety and privacy of those speaking out, but Caleb has seen and heard it all. He may have done a great job of erasing the story within his audience, but at the end of the day, he knows that he has a lot of explaining to do. He said it himself, he's all about personal growth - here's your chance, Caleb.
iPhone Recording from July 6th, 2023