According to a investigation of recent uploads on the Smosh Games Channel, it seems the cast has thrown out all attempts to actually play or discuss a game and have opted to simply make surprised faces and hope one or two of them are good enough for a YouTube thumbnail.
“I saw my name on the call sheet but didn’t see any sort of description on what we were doing today,” said Damien Haas, long time Smosh cast member, “when I got there though they just told me to look shocked as if something crazy had just happened. I was a little confused at first, which I guess they saw on my face. They told me that look was good but not quite expressive enough.”
Although Smosh and many other YouTube channels have used a sort of thumbnail format where one person looks shocked while another person is either an attractive woman or just straight up a picture of boobs, this is sort of a whole new tactic on its own.
“We’re just really trying to streamline our process,” said Anthony Padilla, “When I decided to buy back the company with Ian, this was on our new big ideas to help make the brand more profitable. You see by just making the whole video about us getting the thumbnail we’ve eliminated all the hard work of coming up with an actual idea for the video. If the thumbnail looks outrageous and silly enough people will just click on it regardless. Why waste time being creative or funny anymore.”
Padilla, who recently bought back the company with his estranged partner Ian Hecox, was seen stretching out his jaw after spending the day rehearsing for new videos by opening his mouth all the way and raising his eyebrows for hours.
“Honestly I’m a little disappointed in the content change,” commented Shayne Topp, “I really felt like we’ve been making some of our best, most inspired content lately. People don’t understand the craft that goes into scrolling reddit for a good AITA post and then having 3 people talk about them for an hour.”
Hard Drive reached out to Ian Hecox for comment but he just kept looking at us like we’d just stepped on his foot.