On the 17th of may a 2006 just 153 days after youtube was launched for the very first time a bizarre channel by the name of smosh will become the platform's most subscribed guys. I guess i'm just going to say i think smash by one of my by by far one of my biggest inspirations, to start just um being more into and making content overall. If not when i was a kid uh, i touched this before at home. We might had cameras and we used to make a lot of content that dog and make and put on the computer and edit it on movie maker.

And whenever i started saying smosh, then i with my friends. We would go to school and we'd film, some and we do like, like oh dude, um a time traveling as a warrior whatever and we go and we go in in the in the living room and we'd go like uh cut and then it would teleport the Guy across and you know, we'd do like you know, with a whopping 2 900 subscribers more than double second place where just 1 469.. This would foreshadow what would become an incredibly successful career for two californian friends who had created this strange comedy channel. They would eventually release a fight out of the video film regain and hold the title in my lore video, though i have a couple extract of something that i did.

I filmed it's in my lore video on youtube. Let's appreciate it's out there somewhere youtube channel for 215 days in 2013 and by 2014 smosh was safely and consistently gaining approximately a hundred million views per month, which would last for a period of over five years. However, we saved five years specifically because in early to mid 2019, something started to go wrong on each and every smosh channel, their unshakable viewership fortress began to crumble, their reliable 100 million monthly views became 75 million, then 50 million then recently just 15 million on smoshpit Smosh games and even their spanish dubsmosh channel it's the same story: 41 million has become 13 million, 18 million has become 7 million, 11 million has become less than 2 million the decline of each all beginning. At the exact same point in time, one last small, small, small, small minion brand okay, because i think sometimes some people can just admit admit to everybody - need to admit themselves that people have a lifespan.

People will make content as pure of a certain amount of time. Right and that's it it's a cycle, they don't do pure content, they're, not all they're, not all into it anymore. That's just the cycle of circle of life. It is how it is man, that's how it is in a story: it's not because they're bad or they're they're selling out their dog just because they just it's just gon na that's just when smosh uploaded their first video over 16 years ago.

They could have never predicted their insane level of success. However, if smosh is unable to turn their current viewership decline around it will make for somewhat of a depressing end to a channel. That's been youtube's most subscribed on three separate occasions. All your content is dodging swipes.

It's never gon na the first time we already mentioned it was mid 2006 and the title was claimed by literally less than three thousand subscribers. Why are you cooking me watching other people cooking me? It came about after two high school friends by the name of ian and anthony, began, uploading bizarre lip-syncing videos to the platform, the first of which being uploaded on the 19th of november 2005, 26 days before the website was even officially launched and was rather still in Beta testing mode in their very first video, the watermark in the bottom left-hand corner, showed that the goal of the videos was to promote their website smosh.com, which had been running since 2002.. It started as a website that i'd made for me and my friends to hang out and talk to each other after school. Smosh became a youtube channel where ian and i made videos together just because we liked to make each other laugh.

Although the goal was to simply make each other laugh, they quickly realized that these videos also made their audience laugh and with comedy in mind, the videos would shift to well-thought-out sketches, creating satire out of relatable life situations such as how not to make a first impression. After losing the position of youtube's, most subscribed channel in 2006, through these new sketch comedy videos, they would regain the title in april of 2007. This time, boasting a much more impressive account of over a hundred thousand subscribers, at which point they would also hire their first staff member with the goal of growing the channel further an impressive feedback for youtube wrong, i'm still done in 2008.. The video is good.

That's right, however: their subscriber count would be overtaken by nigahiga, then fred, who had become the first ever youtuber to reach 1 million subscribers, although overtaken by fred smosh, was still growing eventually coming in closely behind, as the third channel ever to reach 1 million subs. Hey guys, we just want to make a short little video to thank everyone who subscribed to us 1 million. Subscribers is a huge milestone. Smosh were, without a doubt on the cutting edge of youtube in the early 2010s, their thumbnails titles ability to retain an audience through plots where you wouldn't get the joke.

Unless you watched the entire video at the time, there were simply very few other creators who had the same level of knowledge and skill. Subsequently, after losing the title of youtube's, most subscribed channel to fred they'd begin to battle for it once again, then re-overtake fred in early 2011, then shane dawson in late 2011 nigahiga in late 2012, leaving ray william johnson as the only creator with more subscribers than smosh. However, of course, with double the manpower and a superior video style, smosh will become the first channel in youtube history to hit 10 million subscribers and, for the third time, become youtube's, most subscribed channel on the 12th of january 2013, six and a half years after they Had first achieved the title back in may of 2006. throughout 2014 2015 and 2016, 100 million views in a month had become business as usual.

One of the main reasons for this was that smosh had been acquired by a company known as alloy digital, which, as outlined by an article written by deadline, resulted in a forty percent increase in viewership. Alongside this would come new. What did they do? I repeat by an article written by deadlines, resulted in a 40 increase in viewership. Alongside this would come numerous new smosh channels, such as smosh games, which was experiencing its own similar blow-up alongside the main channel smosh, will release a full-length feature film in 2015 and by 2017 the team had grown once again, adding five new members to the main video Cast all of which completed under the management of allo digital, which had since been renamed this instinct because they changed the cast the format, the uh, the content, everything and it still remained successful at a certain degree.

That's that is insane not a lot of creators can do that. That is something you rarely see. Well-Defined media was adding substantial benefits. That is fantastic.

It was doing so at the cost of anthony's creative freedom. He wanted to execute on his own ideas, but stated that everything needed to be put through a company filter. It was someone else's decision as to whether or not his ideas eventually made it onto smosh's youtube channel. For this reason, anthony would announce that he will be leaving smosh, which apparently had been implanting for some time stated that there isn't as clearly excited see.

That's why i said he will be leaving smosh, which apparently had been implanting for some time, as the president would. Rather, have somebody who leaves because he's too creatively exhausted right, who isn't as invested in his own projects or somebody to give you a a dilutive version of themselves over and over again until things die down to milk it dude. This is the best way to do it. The cycle of life raising is what it which apparently had been implanting for some time, as the president of defy media stated that the company has been preparing for padilla's departure for several months and has worked to diversify its programming and cast for even longer anthony wood Announced the departure in a video on his personal channel titled wire, left smosh, explaining in his own words the reason for his resignation.

I've been holding on to these memories and hoping that someday smosh would be like how it was when we first started. Smosh was a brand owned by a company. Smosh being part of a company has put all of my creative decisions through a filter of, what's appropriate for the smosh brand as deemed by the company. This video was uploaded alongside a main channel.

Video titled anthony is leaving smosh in which they explained that his leaving was not a result of them having a fight or anything along those lines. I know a lot of you guys are probably gon na assume he's leaving because we got some sort of big fight or because we hate each other, but i can guarantee you guys has nothing to do with that. Now. You might think that losing anthony was the beginning of the end for smosh the reason the channel began to crumble.

However, the data actually showed the opposite. The channel was averaging around 60 million views a month at the time of anthony's departure, yet will rise back up. Pretty consistently to an average of around 100 million per month a year later, this showed that the success of the channel was perhaps less reliant on the hosts themselves, but rather the content, the team and specifically the management. However, this would also mean that the success of the channel was, to some degree out of the control of smosh's remaining front man aeon, which would become an issue when the parent company defy media randomly shut down overnight.

Sorry, my company uh, went out of business and smosh is currently without a home with a company now defunct. Former member anthony went to town in a personal channel video discussing the ways, but what did that company did for them? Um with the company now defunct. Former member anthony went to town in a personal channel video discussing the ways in which defy media had screwed him over i've had so much to say about defy media for a very long time, but now that defy media isn't a thing anymore. I just have to say everything that i'm feeling i've been oh publicly for so long.

He stated that when defy media bought smosh back in 2011, they paid him in stock, which was completely useless unless the company went public, which it never did. So i sold it for zero. That is such a big. No, no, i feel like though dude dude useless, so i sold it for zero dollars.

Selling for stock means that it's completely valueless unless that company goes public, which it never did. Additionally, after selling smosh to fire media anthony was simply a salaried employee stating that he never saw any of the big money that smosh had been pulling in. We were given salaries at this at this company, which was great super happy with that, but that company was drawing in millions of dollars every year, and i was seeing a fraction of that. I have no idea where all that money went that the company was making in the first episode of the smosh car show shane and ian mentioned that defy media was clearly in strife leading up to the shutdown every couple months, there'd be just massive layoffs, yeah and, Like 30 people would lose their job and we'd all be like.

Oh, my god, this sucks we'd our budget kept getting cut and cut until we were like we're, shooting sketches with nothing. Two months after defy media had become defunct. The channel would have one of their best months ever with 139 million monthly views received from content that had been lined up and filmed while everything at defy was still going well, we got videos that we have already shot on smosh. We have videos, we've already shot on smosh pitch and we have videos we've already shot on smosh game.

However, this level of viewership will become the channel's high water mark, as after this stellar 139 million view month in january 2019, the channel's viewership began to decline quite consistently. There are some pretty obvious, substantial public changes over the last two years, which hinted the reason behind. Why things had begun to go south after 13 years of seemingly unstoppable growth in february 2019? Slightly before the peak that followed the channel's decline, smosh was bought by rhett and link from good mythical morning in the video announcing the acquisition by mythical entertainment, they'd mentioned that smosh now had the ability to do whatever they wanted whenever they wanted to do whatever we Want and we're super super excited. This was clarified in the smosh cars.

Wait, wait they bought them out. Is that what happened? I didn't really. What, if i was in that smosh now had the ability to do whatever they wanted whenever they wanted, we get to do whatever we want and we're super super excited. This was clarified in the smosh cast.

They meant that they were pretty much an independent company only with a little oversight from rhett and link. This is as close to being our own company as it could possibly get, but it's like safer and like like rent links. People are like giving advice and trying to help us like hey. This is some ideas and like be better, but, like you, don't have to do this.

If you don't want, the three members seem to think that having their own creative freedom and control of the channel was going to be a massive advantage. The reality now is that it's kind of just us doing our thing. Yeah link we're like here's. This studio.

We have uh do whatever you want in the process, crapping onto fire media, saying how bad they were saying that they didn't know how to have fun and saying that they were bad at comedy. If i was the principal that would come in every now and then be like stop having fun, you got ta. Do this whatever you're like okay um, and it was tough because they didn't have a sense of humor. They didn't understand comedy.

Yet the data seems to indicate that, while with the fire media, the channel had consistently high views - and it was only when smosh did have the ability to go out on their own, but things began to decline. Just because smosh didn't like the management and leadership when they would defy media, didn't necessarily mean that defy weren't knowledgeable on the topic of retaining an audience. In fact, if there was a lot of adversity, it probably meant that defy media and the smosh team had extremely differing opinions on what should and shouldn't have been posted where the fire media might have actually been the correct one. The whole time the universe seems to work in a bizarre way where being called a terrorist.

This is complete. I might actually yes. I wish i could comment on this. I can't only watch this and listen dude dude having a parent company on a channel owned by multiple people of content.

That's dude! I might actually be the dose of short-term uncomfortability that without you, even realizing gives you the motivation to create something great. Perhaps it was smosh's never-ending wrestling match with defy media that was actually giving them a reason to continue on with the project day after day, maybe swash were trying to come up with the best ideas for no other reason than despite defy media, to prove them wrong. As petty as it sounds, which unbeknownst to them at the time might have actually been keeping the channel's viewership up, we banded together and we were always trying to make great stuff. We were always having fun and doing crazy and we all had this kind of common enemy the whole time we were kind of like uh, these corporate overlords, that are always it felt like an 80s movie, boundless freedom with the ability to do whatever you want.

Whenever you want isn't always necessarily a good thing, freedom is comfortable because there's no adversity, but when there's no adversity, there's no growth. Ian mentioned in that same podcast that, while with the fire media, they had substantially more resources, i got ta, give them credit like we were able to do a lot of stuff and we were able to use a lot of resources yeah. We had good resources. Yeah ian didn't define exactly what he meant by resources.

Perhaps he meant a bigger budget to create sets paying for props and, most importantly, paying for the large team which assisted in making the staff getting stuff done. Uh hiding stuff lined up talking to people uh videos, my video posted back in 2017, when everything was going well on. The channel ian introduces the entire smosh team, consisting of 39 different people, a team that large was certainly going to cost a lot of money and based purely on speculation. Perhaps after leaving defy media, they no longer had the budget to keep everyone on board.

Alternatively, perhaps after the closure of defy had been announced, some of smosh's team may have been proactive in finding new employment before smosh was acquired by rhett link. A third theory could be that, since experiencing a decline in viewership, such a large team may now be financially unfeasible. It's hard to tell exactly how smosh makes their money and they have loads of different channels, each bringing in different amounts of revenue. But if we focus for two seconds on the main channel, i can't imagine it being the type of content that's bringing in massive dollars.

Many of the videos over the last month have been shorts, which don't bring in any money and the skits which are around four to five minutes long. Each probably aren't raking it in either across the rest of their channels, they're gaining a combined total of around 20 to 30 million views a month which, in combination with their other methods, for earnings enough to support stuff. This is still just speculation. Obviously, but the reason we've focused so heavily on speculation is because there are barely any obvious indicators in the case of smosh, as they often are with other creators.

Their viewership is down by 85 percent, but the video quality isn't down by 85 percent. In fact, the videos are no worse comparative to two years ago, when the channel was gaining a hundred million views a month. But maybe this is the problem, a lack of change in innovation. There every blank ever series is still a staple of their channel after over six years and comprises about a quarter of the channel's uploads.

Yet it gained substantial, less views than it used to because people are probably just getting bored of the same old format. Another minor thing is that the videos have adopted a slight political bias over the years with the occasional judgmental self-righteous comment about what is and isn't appropriate to say and using an example of, say, buzzfeed. The most hated brand in existence who's been experiencing massive layoffs over the last couple of years, wedging, a subtle political agenda into videos that people watch for comedy is a disaster waiting to happen. The most interesting thing in the overall decline of smosh is that the channel's viewership is, which is likely run with the help of a substantially smaller team.

Maybe there are just too many moving parts at smosh, too many differing opinions and too many creative minds to concede. On the direction in which the project needs to innovate and change - okay, oh yeah boys - i was nice boys. I actually enjoyed it a lot. I think that was a lot of fun.

Give hmm.