YMMV / Smosh

• Alternative Character Interpretation: In "This Video is Offensive", was the cat at the end being sincere when he affirmed his intention to complain about how the word "pussy" was offensive to cats, or was he being sarcastic?
• Aluminum Christmas Trees: Despite how inaccurate later generations of Pokemon makes it seem, the "Charizard can't learn FLY" gag was actually TRUE in the original games. Only since Pokemon Yellow could Charizard learn Fly.
• Anvilicious:
  • The sole purpose of "MOVIES ON DRUGS" was to get across a Drugs Are Bad moral. However, the video seems to know how dumb it is.
  • "NAVAL CANNON" is one giant Take That! against American Gun Culture, showing many of the absurd lengths gun enthusiasts will go to justify owning their weapons (albeit with naval cannons instead of regular firearms), framing themselves as heroes and pinning responsibility of their misuse on the victims.
    Shayne: Was this... easily avoidable and senseless tragedy... our fault?
    Ian: No! If he has a cannon he could have protected himself.
    Shayne: Yeah. I guess we're real American heroes.
    Ian: We did a good thing today.
• Audience-Alienating Era: For many, Smosh entered a nearly decade long decline following the brands acquisition by Defy Media in 2013. While their content from 2014-early 2015 was largely seen as good, around roughly late 2015 opinions on their content became more split. The increased focus on the divisive "Smosh Squad", the overabundance of "Every [Blank] Ever" videos, the ending of their popular "Food Battle" series, an increase in political commentary in their videos, their controversial Big Damn Movie, and the eventual departure of Anthony from the brand in 2017, after feeling Defy Media was stifling the channel's creativity. This would reach an apex when Defy Media went under, with Smosh Games opting not to rejoin the group as full-time members, before eventually leaving entirely and starting their own channel. After being bought by Rhett & Link and given much more creative freedom, their subscriber count and viewership would end up dropping substantially, with many newer videos being flooded with comments about how "old Smosh was better". This would only come to an end when, in early 2023, Smosh made the surprise announcement that Anthony would be returning to the group, and that he and Ian had bought back Smosh from Rhett & Link, with many videos both old and new being flooded with comments about how "Smosh was good again" now that they're Revisiting the Roots.
• Archive Panic: Having been uploading for around a decade and a half (as of 2021), you will have to spend a very long while watching if you want to understand all of the in-jokes and references to previous Smosh videos. Fortunately, Smosh videos are standalone for the most part.
• Awesome Music: Assassin Creed. As we're speaking, it's getting more and more positive comments.
• Base-Breaking Character: The extended "Smosh Family" that joined in late 2014, specifically Keith, Olivia, Noah, Courtney, and Shayne. Many viewers find the extended family to be just as amusing as Anthony and Ian and feel they add a bit more variety to the videos rather than just having Anthony and Ian playing every character. Just as many however see their inclusion as the first signs of the group undergoing the Audience-Alienating Era it was in for nearly a decade, with their supplanting the original duo in many videos, and neglecting the already existing supporting cast like Stevie, Peter, Ian's mom, Lee, and Jason.
• Broken Base:
  • There's a divide in fans about the content Smosh produces. Some people still like what Smosh does today, but many fans insist that Smosh declined after the addition of the Smosh Squad, or even earlier, and finding only a handful of sketches from 2015-2017 decent.
  • Smosh's gaming channel, Smosh Games. Is it an entertaining spin-off with promising updates, or is it just another generic gaming channel with the Smosh brand name on it in an attempt to create a Cash-Cow Franchise?
  • Anthony's new haircut. Is it awesome or a loss of his one defining trait?
• Crosses the Line Twice: Smosh has several moments which poke at dark or sensitive subjects, but it works due to their World of Ham and reliance on Rule of Funny:
  • The episode in which a leprechaun invites Ian into a white van. The van begins to shake and Ian complains that he's hurting him... cut to inside the van, and the Leprechaun is pouring gold coins into his hands. A cheerful tune plays at the end, like something you'd see in a children's show: "Always trust a man in a big white van!"
  • The how-to video on covering up a murder involves Anthony plotting to blame a murder on a black guy. The black guy's over-the-top reactions with accompanying humorous title cards (such as "WTF?!", "YOU SCREAM LIKE A BITCH!", and "SLAMMER TIME") make it dark but humorous.
• Ensemble Dark Horse: What was originally a one-off joke character in the post-Anthony video "WE'RE IN GAME OF THRONES W/ CLEVVER", Courtney Freakin' Miller (played by Shayne Topp and not to be confused by Courtney Miller) quickly became a favorite among viewers, becoming a recurring character in the process.
• Fanon Discontinuity: Older Smosh fans tend to discredit any videos made either after the introduction of the "Smosh Squad" or after Anthony left in 2017.
• Harsher in Hindsight: The brief music video in "Anthony Is Mexican" which shows Ian mourning over Anthony being gone can be a bit hard to watch in light of Anthony's retirement.
  • The Adult Magic School Bus short features Miss Frizzle reuniting with all but two of her students, with those two students being Keesha and Phoebe. In The Magic School Bus Rides Again, Phoebe has been replaced by another character, though Keesha still appears.
  • In "NO SPOILERS", Ian and Anthony go to a moviegoer who's planning to see a fake Black Widow movie (as the video was uploaded in 2014), and "spoil" that Stan Lee will make a cameo in the movie. The moviegoer shrugs it off, saying that Stan Lee cameos in every Marvel movie, and that they're all the same. By the time an actual Black Widow movie was announced for Phase 4 of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Stan had passed away two years earlier, making said movie the second MCU film to not have his usual cameo.
  • In the video “Try Guys vs. Do Dudes”, Shayne challenges Ned Fulmer to divorce his wife, which he nervously hesitates and declines. About 9 months later, Ned was found have cheated on his wife with associate producer Alex Herring for some time.
• Hilarious in Hindsight: In Every Walking Dead Ever Smosh accidentally predicted how the episode Honor of Walking Dead would end.
  • Their Taken parody from 2012 revolved around the idea of how odd it would be for a Liam Neeson-type to go to the same violent lengths to save a dog as they would a human, with numerous characters pointing out that a dog shouldn't be worth that much death. Two years later, we get John Wick- a movie in which the main character *does* seek to get revenge over the loss of a dog... and it feels totally justified.
  • The video “What If Board Games Were Politically Correct?” features a PC counterpart to Mr. Potato Head called Genderfluid Root Vegetable. In 2021, Hasbro announced a gender neutral version of the toyline, though the characters Mr. And Mrs. Potato Head are still offered.
  • The Angry Birds references in "The CRAZIEST iPhone Reveal," "REAL MARIO LAVA FLOOR," and "MY BATHROOM DISASTER," become this thanks to The Angry Birds Movie and its sequel, which feature Ian and Anthony as the voices of Hal and Bubbles.
  • In "THE ADVENTURE TIME ADVENTURE" Anthony and Ian decide that they will both be Finns. In the future there will actually be two Finns.
• Hollywood Homely: Ian is frequently described as being ugly and unattractive, but he's average-looking at worst.
• Just Here for Godzilla: A good number of So Random! fans come on the channel to watch the videos for Shayne Topp and Damien Haas, whose characters were considered Ensemble Darkhorses when the show was still airing. Even more so when their former costars come on the channel every now and then for a reunion. Matthew Scott Montgomery even guest starred on the sketch “One Letter Off Disney Movies” and several other videos with Damien and Shayne on the main channel. Suffice it to say, Shayne and Damien keep the So Random! legacy alive through Smosh.
• Moment of Awesome: Defeating Ryan Higa with a dual X slash in Pokémon Theme Song Revenge.
• Most Wonderful Sound:
  • "SHUT UP!"
  • "If you think your favorite food can beat my pink-frosted sprinkled donut, then YOU'RE GOING DOWN! *viciously scarfs down donut*"
• Nausea Fuel:
  • A double whammy occurs when an actress pukes after Ian describes a Facebook post about somebody using a toilet which hasn't been flushed and ends up overflowing on him.
  • 'Lie Detector' has Ian falling into a barrel of radioactive waste. He spends the rest of the video without any skin on his face... complete with close ups!
• Nightmare Fuel: Has its own page.
• Older Than They Think: "Smosh" was Anthony's username when he first posted flash animations on Newgrounds before YouTube came into existence.
• Paranoia Fuel: In "Apple Vision Pro SUCKS!", the titular headsets all have Steve Jobs legacy within them....literally. Literally as in each Apple Vision Pro headset has a fragment of Steve Jobs's very soul embedded in them, causing wearers to occasionally see visions of Steve or experience his past memories through the headset. And when it becomes night, the fragment becomes bloodthirsty and tries to hunt you down. Now imagine walking down the street at night wearing your new Apple Vision Pro and suddenly seeing the former CEO of Apple chasing after you with a knife.
• Rescued from the Scrappy Heap: Mari got a lot of hate when she was first introduced as the new hostess of Smosh Pit Weekly, but after a few episodes passed, people warmed up a lot to her. (The fact that the show got rid of a few annoying elements may have helped as well.)
• Seasonal Rot: Some long-time fans feel their more recent videos show a notable decline in quality compared to their older ones, with a more prominent emphasis on gross-out humor, sex jokes, and other techniques perceived as immature.
• Special Effect Failure:
  • In "5,000,000 Subscribers," the guys presented a Mockumentary about the production of Smosh on a Hollywood soundstage, NOT in the Sacramento suburbs they call home. They showed themselves shooting an "outdoor scene" on green screen, and it was, again, painfully conspicuous.
  • "Stuck In A Toilet!" featured a pretty weird one - at the end, Anthony shuts the car door on his genitals. His genitals are obviously blurred out, but if you look at the reflection in the door itself, his fly is very clearly not open. It does, however, result in a hilariously new definition of Right Through His Pants!
  • Hilariously lampshaded in "Good vs. Surprisingly Good!"
  • "JURASSIC POKEMON" takes this as far as it can go.
• Squick: There are many things that can be... outright disgusting:
  • In "What if Holidays Were Real", Billy and his friend finding out where Easter Eggs really come from... The Easter Bunny's excrement.
  • Some of the titles like "DRINK YOUR PISS". Definitely disgusting.
  • In "Every School Cafeteria Ever", one of the students drinking mouthwash. His friend thought the blue stain came from candy.
  • And a bunch of other things besides those things mentioned.
• Tear Jerker:
  • The end of Anthony's Draw My Life video was funny and heartwarming, but there are some depressing moments throughout, such as his mother suffering from panic attacks and his grandmother dying when he was 14.
  • The ending of Stranded, at least through the eyes of the stranded guy.
  "There's no chance of survival. There's nothing left to hold on to. I've lost all hope."
  • Anthony Padilla departing from Smosh. It was eventually revealed that Ian and Anthony had a falling out after the latter's departure, much of which was due to unresolved tension that festered in the coming years. Additionally, Anthony did everything he could to distance himself from the brand. Otherwise, he would've made at least one guest appearance during the 7 years he was absent from Smosh.
• They Changed It, Now It Sucks!: With the addition of five new regulars on the main channel, known as the "Smosh Squad", who were also given their own series "Every [Blank] Ever", many viewers were shocked at the change in formula in their skits. Then, Anthony and Ian ended their annual "Food Battle" series in 2016, a staple tradition for a decade, marking off the last long-running series they had since the conception of their channel. Then Anthony left, Smosh Games disbanded, and Mari left to join NewElement6 with Smosh Games, making the channel a modern day example of the Theseus's Ship paradox since Ian Hecox is only original cast member left and the older sketches have been left in the past.
  • Fortunately, based on the waves of positive comments they received, the double-barreled announcement that Anthony was returning to Smosh and that he and Ian had managed to reacquire the Smosh brand with the intention to Revisiting the Roots with more sketch comedy, things are starting to turn around.
• Unintentional Period Piece: Many of their videos reference or outright focus on trends or media that were popular at the time of their original upload date, such as Jersey Shore, The Twilight Saga, Skrillex, Flappy Bird, the Slender Man, etc.
• Unintentionally Sympathetic: The Most Annoying Kid. He is a high school student who is constantly punished for his actions and we are supposed to owe this as karmic for being "Annoying", but most of the time the punishments are disproportionate and unfair. To the point that he ends up being considered a Woobie pretty much by accident.
• What Do You Mean, It's Not for Kids?: Ian and Anthony never intended the channel to be targeted towards kids, as the videos are often filled with Family-Unfriendly Violence, swearing, and a plethora of dirty jokes. Despite this, Smosh found its biggest audience in young children anyways.

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