User:Atbryan61/Why Smosh Has Declined

This article explains why Smosh has went from being the most subscribed YouTube channel down to the eighth.

Why Have They Declined?
Since YouTube's beginning, the competition for the most popular genre of videos has continued. Over the years the genres that have been shown to be the most popular have been music, comedy and video game playing. On and off from 2005 to 2013 comedy seemed to reign as the most popular YouTube video genre, making channels like Smosh, Ray William Johnson and NigaHiga the most subscribed on and off at the time.

From May 17 to June 12, 2006 Smosh was the most subscribed channel for 26 days until they were surpassed by Judson Laipply. They regained the status of the most subscribed channel for the second time on April 26, 2007, holding it until September 24, 2008 for 517 then being surpassed by NigaHiga. Smosh then became the most subscribed channel for the third time on January 12, 2013 until August 15, 2013 being surpassed by PewDiePie.

Whenever Vevo (channels made for musicians) was created music, which has always been a popular video genre, seemed to start to become more popular than comedy. Currently out of the top ten YouTube most subscribed YouTube channels, half are Vevo channels.

PewDiePie, who is now the most subscribed channel on YouTube channel for over 1,200 days, is mainly a video game playing channel. This shows that video gaming has also seemed to have beaten out comedy.

Even out of the top twenty most subscribed channels only three are comedy based, HolaSoyGerman at number two, whinderssonnunes at thirteen and nigahiga who fallen to the nineteenth most subscribed channel.

Smosh was purchased by Alloy Digital in 2011, which became Defy Media in 2013. Many fans have stated that Smosh has became less funny over the years and that a lot of videos seem the same. This is most likely due to company's standards of what is appropriate and that videos were not written by just Ian and Anthony alone like in the past. Being owned by this company was even one of the reasons that Anthony departed from Smosh on June 14, 2017. He stated in the video on his channel, Why I Left Smosh, that the company "put all of my creative decisions through a filter" and that Smosh has became a brand.

Though Smosh has not had any sort of massive decline in subscribers, they have not had a rapid increase in subscribers like in years past. This could easily and most likely be because of the reasons stated above. In addition, many fans believe that Anthony's departure caused smosh to decline further.