Smosh is an American YouTube sketch comedy - improv collective, independent production company , and former social networking site founded by Anthony Padilla and Ian Hecox. They began posting videos on Smosh's YouTube channel in and quickly became one of the most popular channels on the site.
As of , [update] the channel has over 10 billion views and over 26 million subscribers. Since , the Smosh brand has expanded to consist of multiple channels, including a Spanish-language channel ElSmosh , a channel focused on gaming content Smosh Games , and a variety channel Smosh Pit , while also expanded to a larger cast featured throughout their content. The Smosh channel has experienced three different spans as the most-subscribed YouTube channel : from May to June , April to September , and January to August In , Padilla left the channel to pursue independent ventures and focus on his own separate channel.
On November 6, , Smosh's then-parent company Defy Media abruptly closed without warning. Six days later, the Smosh cast released a video announcing that production of Smosh, Smosh Pit, and Smosh Games content was still ongoing, and that existing videos would be finished and other content would be released independently on those channels. After four years of ownership under Mythical, it was announced in June that Padilla had returned to the channel, and that he, along with Hecox, had bought the company back from Mythical, re-establishing Smosh as an independent entity.
The franchise began when Anthony Padilla built a website in , smosh. Over the course of its lifetime, it gained over 24 million views, becoming the most-viewed video on all of YouTube at that time.
It was later removed for copyright infringement. Over the course of the next few years, Smosh began to diversify. They started making short YouTube skits, such as their annual video series Food Battle , which shows Hecox using a pink-frosted sprinkled doughnut and Padilla choosing a variety of foods voted on by fans, [ 16 ] [ 17 ] and That Damn Neighbor , which were primarily filmed in and around a house in Rosemont, California.
