Smosh

Smosh
Smosh co-founders Ian Hecox (left) and Anthony Padilla (right) in 2014.
Personal information
Born	Ian Andrew Hecox[1] (1987-11-30) November 30, 1987 Sacramento County, California Daniel Anthony Padilla[2] (1987-09-16) September 16, 1987 Sacramento County, California
Origin	Carmichael, California[3]
Nationality	American
Occupation	Actors, Comedians
Website	www.smosh.com
YouTube information
Channel	Smosh
Years active	2005–present
Genre	Comedy
Subscribers	22.7 million+
Total views	6.6 billion+
Network	Defy Media
Play buttons 100,000 subscribers 2007 1,000,000 subscribers 2009 10,000,000 subscribers 2013
Subscriber and view counts updated as of August 7, 2017.

Smosh^[4] is an American sketch comedy YouTube channel created by Ian Andrew Hecox (born November 30, 1987) and Daniel Anthony Padilla (/pəˈdiːə/, commonly called Anthony, born September 16, 1987).

Anthony Padilla created a website called smosh.com in 2002. He was later joined by his friend Ian Hecox. Soon afterward, they began to post videos on YouTube in the autumn of 2005 and became one of the most popular channels on the site. As of August 2017, the Smosh channel has over 6 billion video views and 22 million subscribers, making it the 12th most subscribed channel on YouTube.^[5] The Smosh team has expanded to include others to handle animated, other language, and video gaming content videos, and the sketches have included more actors. After Padilla left Smosh to pursue his solo YouTube channel in June 2017, Hecox became the only co-founder that is currently an active member of the Smosh team.

The Smosh channel has experienced three different spans as the most subscribed YouTube channel. The first period spanned from May to June 2006, the second spanned from April 2007 to September 2008, and the third span lasted from January to August 2013.^[6][7][8] Smosh has more subscribers than any other American Youtube Channel that is not a Vevo channel, or a channel owned by Youtube itself.

History

Formation and Pokémon Theme Music Video: 2002–2006

The franchise began when Anthony Padilla built a website in 2002, smosh.com,^[9] and made several different Flash animations. He has stated that the name Smosh came from an incident where he mistook a friend explaining a mosh pit, as a "smosh pit".^[10] Other content creators in the pre-YouTube era would also upload videos to smosh.com, including future YouTuber TomSka. Later, his friend, Ian Hecox, joined the venture. Padilla and Hecox first met in their sixth grade science class. They became friends, and quickly discovered their knack for comedy. In 2005, they joined YouTube and made several videos together, lip syncing the theme songs to Mortal Kombat, Power Rangers, and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. At first, these videos were not intended to be posted online, but after they sent them to their friends, they started a YouTube channel.^[10]

One of Smosh's earliest videos, "Pokémon Theme Music Video," was released on November 28, 2005. It followed the same style as their other earlier videos, featuring the duo lip-synching the original English theme song for the Pokémon anime. However, the video instantly became much more popular than any of their other videos; over the course of its lifetime, it gained over 24 million views, becoming the most-viewed video on all of YouTube at that time.^{[11][12][13][14]} It held that title until it was removed due to a copyright notice.^[14]

The success of their Pokémon video and other videos led Smosh to be featured in the "Person of the Year: You" issue of Time Magazine, published December 13, 2006 and on Time.com.^[13] In March 2007, a user named Andii2000 re-uploaded the original Pokémon video; it has over 15.8 million views as of October 2016.^[15] Due to the channel's continued success, and Smosh's partnership with YouTube, the two recreated the video in November 2010, this time changing the words to be critical of The Pokémon Company taking down the Pokémon theme video.^[16]

YouTube success: 2006–2012

Over the course of the next few years, Smosh began to diversify. They started making short YouTube skits, such as their annual video series Food Battle^[17] and That Damn Neighbor. Smosh continued to grow in popularity and became one of the most subscribed channels on YouTube.^[18] In 2009, Smosh prepared a massive redesign of Smosh.com, added a games section, and put extras in the video section. In January 2010, Smosh launched the "Smosh Pit" feature, a blog that consists of various pieces of pop-culture trivia, and written comedy. In addition, 2010 saw the channel launch 3 different Smosh-based web series: Ian Is Bored, which started as a collection of comedic videos by Hecox, but then turned into both Hecox and Padilla making vlog like videos, and renamed Smosh Is Bored; Ask Charlie, where people ask Charlie, from their January 2010 Charlie the Drunk Guinea Pig video, random questions; and Lunchtime with Smosh, a comedy series featuring Smosh getting and eating food from various places, and answering Twitter questions from their fans on Twitter. Some of Smosh's most popular video series include Pokémon in Real Life and If ____ Was Real.^[19] Also in early 2010, Smosh created the "iShut Up App" for Android phones as part of a Google sponsorship; it eventually made its way to the iTunes app store. In 2011, Smosh was acquired by Alloy Digital (now Defy Media).^[14]

Expansion and Padilla's departure: 2012–present

In 2012, the duo started three new YouTube channels, ElSmosh, with Smosh videos dubbed in Spanish, Shut Up! Cartoons, with various animated videos, and Smosh Games, with gaming-related content hosted alongside Mari Takahashi, David "Lasercorn" Moss, Matthew Sohinki, and Joshua "Jovenshire" Ovenshire.^{[14][20][21][22][23]} Some of Smosh's most popular videos are video-game themed music videos.^[24][25] These songs (along with other original songs) have been released in 4 albums to date – Sexy Album (2010), If Music Were Real (2011), Smoshtastic (2012), and The Sweet Sound of Smosh (2013). In January 2013, the Smosh channel surpassed Ray William Johnson in subscribers.^[26] Smosh released Super Head Esploder X, a video game for iPads, iPhones, and iPods, in February 2013,^[27][28] and in July 2013 started an Indiegogo campaign for an iOS and PC game, Food Battle: The Game.^[29][30] Hecox and Padilla raised $258,777 to hire video game producers to create a game based on their characters and the foods used in their annual Food Battle series. Smosh donated 10% of the funds to three charities^[31][32] in November 2014, as well as releasing the game.

In February 2014, Smosh released a mobile app to access Smosh videos and other content from their website,^[33] and in late 2014 an Xbox One app.^[34] Later in 2014, a fan run channel Smosh France became an official Smosh channel.^[35] In March 2015, Smosh re-launched the Smosh Games Alliance, a multi-channel network where fans join to enjoy network benefits in exchange for a percentage of the ad revenue.^[36] In 2015, the duo announced Noah Grossman, Keith Leak II, Olivia Sui,^[37] Courtney Miller, and Shayne Topp,^[38] as new regular cast members for Smosh videos. A sketch series, called Every (Blank) Ever, has been released every two weeks since May 2015.^[39]

In January 2016, a web sitcom was launched on the main Smosh channel. Part Timers is a comedy-drama which takes place at a fictional children's arcade and pizza place called Pork E. Pine’s, which takes inspiration from Hecox's first job at Chuck E. Cheese's.^[40] Each episode presents a challenge that the team must overcome to keep the business going. The series features regular Smosh cast members, Grossman (as Pete), Hecox (as Ian), and Padilla (as Anton), in addition to Cat Alter (as Mads), Jade Martz (as Ella), Casey Webb (as Dinger), and Natalie Whittle (as Lori).^[41] The series was released every Monday on the Smosh channel from January to May 2016.^[41] During the month of February, new cast member Boze was added to the Smosh Family, joining the cast of Smosh Games.

On June 14, 2017, Padilla announced he would be leaving Smosh to pursue independent video ventures due to a "lack in creative freedom". Hecox will remain with Smosh, and has stated "I'm really looking forward to taking Smosh to the next phase, and we can't wait for people to see what we have coming up."^[42]

Films

On September 18, 2014, Lionsgate announced that a feature-length movie was in development,^[43] Smosh: The Movie was released on July 23, 2015.^[44] It is directed by Alex Winter, written by Eric Falconer, and aside from Hecox and Padilla, stars Jenna Marbles, Grace Helbig, Harley Morenstein, Michael Ian Black, Mark Fischbach (Markiplier), and Steve Austin.^[45][46] Smosh also gave their voices as Hal and Bubbles in The Angry Birds Movie, a 2016 film based on the video game franchise of the same name.^[47] Smosh also created the film Ghostmates for YouTube Red.^[48] The movie was released on December 14, 2016.

Channels

Ten Smosh-related channels exist on YouTube, though only seven have scheduled content.

Main channels

Smosh (youtube.com/smosh)

"Smosh" is the original and main channel of all ten channels. It has over 22 million subscribers, and over 6.6 billion views. The channel is where the Smosh team posts skits and other videos starring Noah Grossman, Ian Hecox, Keith Leak II, Courtney Miller, Olivia Sui, and Shayne Topp. Smosh has many complete and ongoing series which include:

• Main Videos (2005–present)
• Music Videos (2005–present)
• Food Battle (2006–2016)
• If [Blank] Were Real (2009–present)
• Behind The Scenes (2014–2016)
• Every [Blank] Ever (2015–present)
• Part Timers (2016)
• Smosh LIVE! (2016)
• SMOSHTOBER (2016)
• Smosh Animated (2016–present)
• The Big What If (2016–present)
• This Week in Smosh (2017–present)

Smosh Games (youtube.com/SmoshGames)

"Smosh Games" uploads numerous videos a week, consisting of Let's Plays and video game commentary shows. Padilla and Hecox appear less regularly on this channel, with fellow Smosh Games members Mari Takahashi, David "Lasercorn" Moss, Matthew Sohinki, Joshua "Jovenshire" Ovenshire, Amra "Flitz" Ricketts,^[49] and Wesley "Wes The Editor" Johnson^[50] handling most hosting duties. It has over 7.1 million subscribers, and over 2.4 billion video views as of October 2016.^[51] Takahashi,^[52] Moss,^[53] Sohinki,^[54] Ovenshire,^[55] Ricketts,^[56] and Johnson^[57] also have their own channels, which are not considered part of the Smosh roster. Since summer 2015, the channel has hosted annual "Smosh Summer Games" and "Smosh Winter Games" events, primarily hosted on the Smosh Games channel with other videos posted to Smosh 2nd Channel as well. The first Summer Games in 2015 introduced Shayne Topp to the Smosh family as a referee, while the 2017 Winter Games introduced Ericka Bozeman. Damien Haas joined later in 2017. In August that year, Sohinki and Lasercorn announced that they would no longer be full time members of Smosh Games, in order to focus on their new project Toaster Ghost. They have not ruled out appearing in future Smosh related videos, though.

Smosh 2nd Channel (youtube.com/IanH)

From "Smosh 2nd Channel" (originally named "IanH", and was used at first for vlogs and other non-scripted videos), Hecox and Padilla upload their side series Smosh is Bored on Mondays, while the rest of the team uploads vlogs on Thursdays, and Put It In My Mouth and Smosh's Seriously Super Stupid Sleepover on Saturdays. It has over 5.3 million subscribers and over 1.4 billion views.^[58] Smosh Pit Weekly was a series on the channel hosted by Mari Takahashi from April 2011 to August 2015, posted on Saturdays.

On July 28, 2017, Ian Hecox announced that Smosh 2nd Channel would be renamed "Smosh Pit" in the near future, and that Smosh Pit Weekly would be revived, with Mari Takahashi returning as the host. Two other shows, WHOA! Nature, starring Courtney Miller and Olivia Holt, and One Hour Song Machine, starring Keith Leak II, were announced.

ElSmosh (youtube.com/ElSmosh)

On "ElSmosh", the team uploads ElSmosh Pit de la Semana (Smosh Pit Weekly), Honest Game Trailers, a series from Smosh Games narrated in Spanish, and new Smosh episodes that have been dubbed over in Spanish. It has over 3.1 million subscribers.^[59]

Shut Up! Cartoons (youtube.com/ShutUpCartoons)

"Shut Up! Cartoons" uploads a number of animated series, created by different animators. It has over 2.0 million subscribers.^[60]

Former channels

AnthonyPadilla (youtube.com/AnthonyPadilla)

"AnthonyPadilla" hosts vlogs uploaded by Padilla. Most videos uploaded prior to 2016 were removed in 2016 when Padilla revived the channel to upload personal vlogs. It has over 2.3 million subscribers.^[61] Since Padilla's departure from Smosh, the channel is no longer associated with the brand.

New AskCharlie EVERY WEDNESDAY (youtube.com/askcharlie)

"AskCharlie", active from May 2010 to December 2011, hosts videos from the Ask Charlie series, where an anthropomorphic guinea pig, named Charlie the Drunk Guinea Pig, answers viewer submitted questions.

Smosh Games Alliance (youtube.com/SmoshGamesAlliance)

The Smosh Games Alliance (SGA) channel is used for extra content for the Smosh Games crew. Originally it utilized fan-submitted gaming content, spotlighting it on the channel, and offered tutorials in "Smosh University". It continues to hosts more vlogs with the Smosh Games crew. It has over 294 thousand subscribers.^[62] No videos have been uploaded to the channel since December 30, 2016.

Schedule

Discography

Studio albums

Awards and nominations

References

External links

• Official website
• Smosh's channel on YouTube
• Smosh Games's channel on YouTube
• Smosh 2nd Channel's channel on YouTube
• ElSmosh's channel on YouTube
• Shut Up! Cartoons's channel on YouTube
• AnthonyPadilla's channel on YouTube
• Smosh Games Alliance's channel on YouTube
• Smosh France's channel on YouTube