#oh and buckle up this isn't even the only discourse i have in my askbox today

[jovenshires]

lowkey kinda frustrated by the lack of transparency from smosh idk if this is a common thing for all online content groups but this is personally jarring for me as someone who also is also a dropout fan :///

i totally get that. i've been a fan of smosh for like... six-ish years now so frankly im kind of used to their lack of addressing things atp. that isn't to say it's a good thing or even an excusable thing - im just saying it's something i've learned to live with.

i think it's easy to forget that smosh is a company. at the end of the day they are making decisions that they think are best for their business, what will make them the best monetary gain and what will keep the most viewers in their pocket. i can't say that i particularly agree with all of those decisions, but i also can't say that we as the fans should be allowed to dictate what they do. especially (and i say this knowing my perception personally revolves around the small subset of us here on smoshblr) when the fan base calling for transparency and accountability is a minority. as loud as smoshblr and smoshtwt seem, there are 26.5 million subscribers to smosh (and that's just the main channel - 46 million between the main three channels), most of whom aren't even aware of any of the things they're not taking accountability for. i've seen this happen with countless youtubers and online groups i've been a fan of. i won't name-drop them, but people often do what's best for their brand, not what's morally right. it's a hard thing to come to terms with, but we are just viewers consuming a product. they get to decide what to do with that product; we get to decide whether or not we consume it.

not to mention, it is a company run by real people. people whose relationships and friendships impact their choices. they may not address certain things and they may sweep things under the rug to protect people they care about. once again, i'm not saying whether this is morally good or bad or that it's okay (it's not), i'm just saying that it is a factor that they probably take into account.

now, once again, none of this is an excuse. i'm not going to say that smosh is the pinnacle, end-all, be-all of upstanding companies or that they shouldn't be transparent or that we should stop trying to ask for some semblance of change. this is a well-earned critique at this point. even with everything going on right now, this is not the first time (and i'm sure it won't be the last time either) that smosh has simply avoided addressing controversy. there used to be a master post that i had pinned to the top of my page of all the issues with smosh and who was addressing what and lemme tell you, it wasn't great. i've seen companies much more graceful and overall better at handling their messes. dropout is a great example, and try guys and starkid both come to mind as well. hell, even ogsog has been way better than smosh at this, and they spawned from them. this is a very real problem with smosh as a company and i totally understand frustration and disappointment. i'm with you, trust me.

i think this is something we all have to recognize, contend with, and then draw our own lines in the sand for. we can't dictate what the entire fandom does, and we definitely can't dictate what smosh does, as much as we may want to. all we can do is keep attempting to hold them accountable for their actions and deciding what we can and cannot abide by.

tl;dr: i think that's a very fair critique. i'm frustrated too. i hear you <3