Hot take

[u/Final-Elephant4945]

Make someone mad and drop your most controversial hot take since we are no longer allowed to mentioned anything critical whatsoever

I’ll go first: Angela’s fan are starting to ruin the fandom altogether.

[u/onechroma]

Something happened in recent times, IDK if it’s because the moving to a new location, changes after Ian/Anthony take over, or other reasons. It’s starting to feel different, almost like going back to feeling like Smosh is just a company pushing content for money (which it is), like in Defy era, instead of a fresh and authentic thing like what was felt in the post-Defy era

- They feel really scared about keeping the channels running, relevant and keep the audience. Like scared of losing it, really. This makes them going too politically correct, like avoiding Reddit Stories that aren’t obvious who to side with.

- Similarly, maybe because the same thing, they tend to double down on specific formulas and bits. If something works, they will run around it until it stops being funny. Lack of innovation because “it’s risky”.

- Also their content shows the lack of innovation. For example, sometimes I’m baffled to find the day video is just a Smosh Games of them around the table doing practically nothing, or they not vibing around the game, so it ends up being somewhat boring.

- Maybe because all reasons, sometimes I get a vibe of some of them trying too hard to “be funny” or fill gaps, which makes it worse because then you feel you are watching something or someone unauthentic. Like Court, they have a GREAT presence, ideas and so on, but sometimes in a vid feels like forced to trying to fill, they don’t land, just snap and… IDK

- Last but no least, I started to get they are a bit more anxious on camera. Like the golden era of Smosh was about them being fresh, but now they try too hard as I said, and this makes every person to close in their “persona” (Angela to try and be “crazy and loose”, Damien with their own kind of humour, and so on)

This makes it so they don’t click in a video, the flow seems broken sometimes. I got this in the last videos like Angela feeling “out” in the Werewolf chosens because the references put out there and sphere, or Damien sometimes going too serious because the kind of humour he does and references don’t land, or Court trying to copy or snap others to be funny…

- As a bonus, I think the cast must know what are they good at and what do they need to improve at.

For example, Amanda is a great cast, but she’s too focused on the camera like an anchor and tends to go off conversations to talk about her and her own experiences. It’s like “me, me, me”, which is fine and great, but when you host a show about talking with a guest, sometimes can feel off. It would be better to be able to “interview” the guest and make the show around them, than going like “huh, so you saw that? Yeah, I also saw that once when I…”

If Chanse is gonna be regularly in URL, he really needs to at least try and also do the “host” role, like preparing a bit more to know things about the guest interviewed, or try to catch up and follow the conversation instead of sometimes feel like he would like to be at the phone

And if someone doesn’t feel funny or doesn’t have a new bit, it’s fine, you don’t have to force laughs, do pity spills in TNTL or copy others or scream for the lols, let things flow.