my-name-is-boneless

[my-name-is-boneless]

im in the midst of enjoying the new smosh games video and then i saw this comment 💀 HONESTLY... someone cooked here 😏

[my-name-is-boneless]

husband (courtney) and wife (shayne)

[my-name-is-boneless]

husband (courtney) and wife (shayne)

[my-name-is-boneless]

Chocolate… Is my thiiiiiiiiiing 🍫✨

They always said it was a mans jOb 🧍‍♂️

I’m a lesbiAn I’m a lesbiAAAn 👩‍❤️‍💋‍👩🏳️‍🌈

LESBIAAAAAAANS love chocolate 👩‍❤️‍👩🍫✨

“Hey Mr. Lesbian Wonka 🤩 can I come into your factory😜?”

“Sure, Kid! 🤪Anyone’s allowed! All you need is.. 😐 the golden ticket”

“Hey, Lesbian Wanka can I get another gold ticket✨🤩✨?!”

“YEAH! 🥳 Are you a lesbian 👩‍❤️‍👩?”

“YEAH👩‍❤️‍👩👩‍❤️‍👩👩‍❤️‍👩👩‍❤️‍👩💃👩‍❤️‍💋‍👩👩‍❤️‍💋‍👩👩‍❤️‍💋‍👩!”

“COME ON IN🤩! And that’s the golden ticket🏆🎟️!”

CHOCOLATE 🍫🤩✨🍫 IS FOR WOMEEEEEEN 💃👸🍫✨👸 too *tilts hat*

[my-name-is-boneless]

Shayne: I looked at Courtney like a child and I go...

[my-name-is-boneless]

SHAYNE SAYING "OUR CATS" I AM GOING TO END IT ALL

u can donate here!

[my-name-is-boneless]

I'm watching smosh's painting stream for Palestine's Children's Relief Fund, and they raised over $50k in about 40 minutes, which is truly amazing and an incredible amount of money. I think this is a primary example as to why it's so important for creators to speak on this and platform this cause.

[my-name-is-boneless]

My thoughts on the Damien situation, from the POV of someone who’s relatively uninvolved with posting on social media:

As a newer fan of Smosh myself (I watched some videos in 2012, but haven’t really kept up since, and only started regularly watching the last year or so), I went through the backlog of content that they have because I enjoyed their more recent videos. Zayna, a newer Palestinian fan, did the same and found this joke in an old TNTL disappointing and wanted him to address it firsthand and make his stance clear.

For anyone saying Damien has already made it clear that he is in support of Palestine: it’s not a given that the fan who brought up the clip would have already known about Damien’s stance on Palestine. Yes, he’s talked about it in a couple of his streams and posted Insta stories about it, but a newer fan of Smosh, not necessarily Damien himself, wouldn’t know about those unless they were looking for it because they are:

temporary (IG stories only have a lifespan of 24 hours unless you take screenshots) or

a few minutes hidden under several hours of game streams on a separate platform (he talked about Palestine several months ago and has streamed a lot since, unless you know the specific Twitch stream and the timestamp when he talked about it or had clips of it, most casual fans wouldn’t know either)

In his defense, Damien himself has recently said that more fandom stuff has reached his timeline than he would like, so maybe he thinks more people know about his activism because of that. However, even if Zayna did know, wanting a straightforward statement apologizing for the insensitive joke (because bringing up the "Israeli-Palestinian conflict" [as it was called back in 2019, not accurate to what has been going on for 70+ years and counting, which is an ethnic cleansing] for shock value, as he himself said, is insensitive) is not an unreasonable request.

More under the cut

When all you have is 240 characters per reply, the things that you do choose to say matter even more. When you parse out everything in Damien's replies, he doesn't come out looking too good. Yes, he did apologize for the original joke. In his replies, he said:

using it as shock value was in poor taste and naive of him,

it was in poor taste back in 2019 and he wouldn't make it now

(in response to his first couple of replies) he is sorry for reacting in frustration and he'll learn from it,

and, in his final reply, his parting words were "With all my heart, I hope for safety for your loved ones. Be well."

However, he also says and does things that undermine his apology in the same replies:

questioning why the clip was brought up in the first place, as if bringing up old content wasn't something fans regularly do with things they're interested about and as if it's not still a public video fans can easily find,

bringing up that the fan in question had 19K followers, a fraction of the followers he has as a public figure,

saying that this conversation could have been done in private, as if an initial DM request wouldn't be buried in his other requests as a public figure, and as if he doesn't have the capability to start a DM himself to clarify things after the initial reply/post,

saying that the original tweets tagging him should have been deleted after his first response when he never asked for that, and just assumed it would happen for some reason,

deleting his replies a couple of hours later,

and blocking Zayna and several others who were only interacting with Damien through quote tweets (I'm not sure how quote tweets work, do they notify the OP?), some who don't even say anything remotely critical of him - in his defense, blocking is not inherently a bad thing, it just means that he doesn't want any further interactions from them for whatever reason. However, silencing any Palestinian voice isn't good, to say the least.

Damien has always been a proponent of “trying to understand and see from different perspectives” so his response here surprised me, personally. I get that he has a fear of being misunderstood, but jumping to the conclusion that the other party is purposefully trying to be incendiary is the opposite of that.

I'm not going to try to make excuses for him. He knows better. He's been a content creator for years. He knows he has more influence than any normal fan would. His autism is not a part of this conversation either. Mental illness is an explanation for behavior, it doesn't absolve you of the consequences of it. If you're citing Damien's autism as an excuse for his behavior, you have to also account for Zayna's autism.

People are also bringing up the possibility of Damien getting death threats as a result of this, which we have no proof of and won't have proof of unless Damien himself decides to disclose that. He has only stated that he is taking a social media break, which has been a long time coming, not necessarily only because of this, because he has been busy and tired in recent months. What we do know has happened is that Zayna has received death threats (weird of people to want the death of a Palestinian when the original argument they're defending Damien for is that he is in support of Palestinian liberation).

This isn’t an issue of cancel culture, it’s an issue of accountability and frankly, hero worship of Damien in the part of people attacking Zayna and other people on Twitter.

When the only people who had spoken about their support of Palestine in their own words, however briefly, are two or three cast members, some people are naturally going to put them on pedestals. This hero worship of Damien has been exacerbated by his image as the most politically correct member of Smosh, and Smosh’s (until recently) silence about the issue.

While we're at it, for people saying Smosh's sudden outward support for Palestine and joining Creators for Palestine is in response to backlash about Damien, or only in response to the block list going around:

It's only been a few days since the Damien's whole ordeal. Smosh is not that fast, and historically, their response to backlash would have been either complete radio silence or unlisting or privating the TNTL that the clip is from, combined with silence.

I’m sure Shayne, Ian and Courtney have been working on it for more than a few days, based on their liked posts, to get everything straightened out with the organization themselves and adding their names to the list of creators.

People have been asking for Smosh to be more public about their views on Palestine. Some of the cast members have said their piece on their personal social media, but their views could have changed. Those posts were made shortly after the events of October 7 brought even more media attention on Palestine and the Gaza Strip, which was not necessarily in favor of Palestine because of the effects of U.S. propaganda. It's been several months since then and people have a lot more information now, and more clarity.

Up until now, the only indication of Palestinian support not from social media is a brief statement from Ian who said something along the lines of "travel watermelon", while they were talking about their rejected roasts during Anthony's Funeral After Show in December, which are codewords that were used in TikTok for Free Palestine. However, this is heavily censored, behind a paywall, and temporary, because of the nature of their live shows. This support of CFP is the bare minimum of what Smosh could do, but the bare minimum is more than they were doing before.

They listed Smosh as the name under their $15,000 donation to CFP, not just Shayne, Courtney and Ian, which could be intentional, referring to Smosh as a whole company, or just referring to the three that have posted about it as a collective. Unless Smosh makes a full statement about it, themselves, it's still up in the air.

The timing of it is unfortunate. Damien has been silent about it so far, making his original posts about Palestine seem performative to some. However, it’s only been a few hours and he is on a social media break. The only thing he has briefly gone back online for is to promote something he's doing with Nintendo, which he could have been contractually obligated to do. He may or may not say something when he fully comes back from his social media break, but for now, that's everything we know. People can make their own conclusions based on all of this.

I am being very intentional with every single word I say on here, as to not be misconstrued in any way, however, if I missed anything or anyone else has anything to add (constructively, like images of either the actual conversation had by Damien and Zayna, or the cast and crew's support of Palestine prior to CFP, not outright anger and disagreement), please do. If anyone has any genuine questions about the situation, please feel free to message me directly and not bring it into this post, which is supposed to be a civil discussion surrounding more facts and events, less speculation. If I feel those questions have relevant points to add on here, I will add on in reblogs.

[my-name-is-boneless]

I'm sorry that I L I V E D

I'm sorry that I experienced

GRASS GROWING

under my NAKED. FEET.

I'm sorry that I'm a

FAIRY

LIVING in a ~MAGICAL WORLD~

GO, TREVOR. GO.

[my-name-is-boneless]

yk as much as i wish smosh wouldve done something sooner and even with the timing coinciding with the circulating blocklists, i respect that it started with shayne and courtney, two people who arguably have more eyes on them (bc of the recent wedding debacle). it means more people see it. i also really appreciate the 15k donation, that's actually really cool of them. i wish they'll do something on their main platform but at this point i'm counting this bare minimum as a win.

better to have more people talking about palestine imperfectly than not at all because at least it's pushed further into public consciousness. the israel government has benefited from palestine not being talked about for DECADES. so honestly, it's a start.

furthermore, on top of all this, please appeal to your country's government regarding any policies that affect the situation - call your reps, attend protests, donate to local refugee initiatives. getting internet celebrities to speak up and funnel funds into palestine is one thing, but affecting ACTUAL POLICY is much more powerful.

[my-name-is-boneless]

Hey everyone! I, as well as many of you I assume, very happy to see Shayne and Courtney post this on their instagrams in support of Palestine and taking part in the ‘Creators for Palestine’ initiative, which is 50+ content creators coming together to raise awareness and money for Palestine. They have already raised over $400k for PCRF and now expanding to charities that are actively on the ground in Gaza and Rafah!

I just thought i’d make a collective call to action post and encourage others to donate! I know times are tough, but if you or anyone you know can donate and help, click here. No amount is too small and everything makes a difference. If you can’t donate, sharing the link and spreading the word also helps! Thanks for sharing and supporting, free Palestine 🇵🇸 ♥️🖤💚

[my-name-is-boneless]

we’re gonna get shaymanda and spommy for dirty laundry. y’all. oh my god.

[my-name-is-boneless]

[my-name-is-boneless]

‪Shayne is so freaking lucky to get to kiss BOTH Courtney Miller and Spencer Agnew.

when I find you shayne. 🫵

[my-name-is-boneless]

That was incredible omg- Hooo! Can't wait to process that tomorrow 🫡🤭

SMOSH congratulations on such an awesome performance 👏 so so so proud and impressed by all of you! And a massive shoutout to Syd & Olivia and Shayne WHO WROTE AN INSANE MASTERPIECE! in conclusion:

[my-name-is-boneless]

gentle reminder from Courtney about boundaries now that their relationship is public

[my-name-is-boneless]

Just finished the new Smoshcast episode and im so glad they briefly talked about the whole weird stalker thing. I've seen so many times where fans will go to the craziest lengths to get information that you literally wouldn't ask for in day to day life.

I also wanna say that i hope i don't catch anyone being weird to Courtney bc how some people treat them makes me so sick. And when the announcement went up i was honestly so nervous for them bc i did NOT wanna see a new influx of weirdo's just due to their marriage. But luckily i haven't seen much of that since the announcement.

Anyway I'm very happy for barbie and ken and their two cats. And sorry og shartney shippers, you guys actually WERE on to something 😭‼️