),'"#-&#*+("*$-&##!#(.),*$*((0/**"1'%.+')%.-*/-*#( 0#+') #/ 0 ® JUNE 26 - JULY 2, 2015 VOL. 37 / NO. 32 LAWEEKLY.COM | PHOTO BY TIMOTHY NORRIS upposedly Anthony is the heartthrob and Ian is adork- able. That’s exactly how they 13 | come across on a Friday LA evening at their Beverly Hills studio, Ian in his quirky sneak- WEEKLY How the goofy YouTube duo SMOSH turned their ers and Anthony exposing the waistband of his Calvin Klein briefs. very dumb videos into a media empire SAnthony occasionally dons man jewelry; // Ian doesn’t really work out. They’ve been friends since sixth grade and business 2, 2015 June 26 - July partners since 2005. For four years they were roommates. Ian Hecox and Anthony Padilla are, in a lot of ways, like most 20-something best friends — the dif erence being that they’re millionaire stars of the most successful brand ever born on YouTube. They’ve been posting short, PG-13 comedy sketches online, under the name // www.laweekly.com Smosh, for 10 years. Fan art litters the walls and desks of one of their dedicated spaces inside the of ces of parent company Defy Media, each homemade doll, gauzy illustration and gushing letter profess- ing a middle- or high-schooler’s undying adoration. Smosh’s 3,000-plus videos have accrued 7.4 billion views. The global popu- lation is estimated at 7.3 billion. Yet Hecox and Padilla, both 27, didn’t enter the high-rise of ce through a service entrance, nor did they arrive in a tinted- window SUV. “It’s very dif erent from being a traditional TV or movie celebrity,” Hecox explains. “People see them on billboards and will be like, ‘Oh, you’re that famous guy! Can I get a photo, even though I don’t care about what you do?’ For a YouTuber, people don’t know who you are unless they actively watch your videos.” Still, many watch their videos. Smosh’s original YouTube channel currently has 20.7 million subscribers, making it the fourth most popular channel on the site (it has reached No. 1 three times in the last de- cade). The brand’s collection of channels and websites has 34.7 million subscribers total and receives 5 million views daily. 7.4 Income for the Smosh brand is unlisted, 7.47.4 but it’s estimated to bring in $3 million to $5 million a year from YouTube ad shares alone. There’s also ad revenue from their independent site Smosh.com, plus funds from sponsorships and merchan- dise. Forbes fi gured that in 2013 Smosh earned $10 million — all of this from such trivialities as a skit about a drunk guinea pig, a fake ad concerned with selling tubed ground beef and a series of ballads about Boxman, who became part cardboard box BILLIONBILLIONBILLION following a horrifi c accident, and then ran for president. Smosh now has fi ve thematically dis- tinct content channels, a separate network for fans’ own content, a blog, an app (1 million downloads), a video game (2 million downloads), four music albums, a robust merchandising division and a staf of writers, directors, producers and cast members. The guys are currently producing a longer-form, serialized show VIEWSVIEWS under the new YouTube Originals um- VIEWS brella. And at a glitzy event at Westwood’s By Jane Borden Village Theatre on July 22, the day before the huge YouTube conference Vidcon in Smosh’s Anthony Padilla, left, and Ian Hecox got their start lip-synching the Pokémon theme song on YouTube. Anaheim, the mega-brand will premiere its fi rst fi lm, SMOSH: The Movie. ( 14 » | »13) While other digital stars have community of creators.” less confi dence, capitalizing on person- barricaded behind handlers and image surpassed Smosh’s YouTube subscriber In the last few years, more and more ality rather than fi nesse. Fortunately, a consultants. 14 numbers or make more money by retain- traditional media outlets are scrambling dedication to dramatic craft is not an “Stylists?” Padilla parrots my question to | ing sole ownership of their sites, no other for digital domains. In 2013, DreamWorks essential ingredient in YouTube magic. make sure he heard it correctly. “Like, they enterprise has built a brand as large, diver- bought AwesomenessTV for $33 mil- In fact, it can be a detriment. “We’re not pick your clothes? And haircut?” sifi ed and, if you’re under 30, recognizable. lion. Last year, it sold just a quarter of the making cinema,” Blumberg explains. Hecox interjects, “No, we don’t have Two bozos with a webcam are now a media company to Hearst Corp. for more than $81 “We’re making content that connects with that.” WEEKLY empire. The movie isn’t a culmination million — meaning the company’s value an audience.” He says the content itself “I think that’s silly, actually,” Padilla adds. LA for Smosh but rather one more arm of grew tenfold in about a year. Also last year, “doesn’t need to be far out of reach of that Hecox agrees. “Finding things to wear is the beast. If the old Hollywood analogy // involves climbing a ladder, the new one owes more to Walt Whitman — “Smosh is large. Smosh contains multitudes.” — even Padilla and Hecox if this is the only time the transcendentalist observe the hungry, poet’s work will be used to sum up a couple hungry hippos in a video of dudes who try to plunge a toilet with a called “If Board Games doughnut. Spoiler alert: They fail. Were Real.” The movie chronicles Hecox and Pa- June 26 - July 2, 2015 June 26 - July dilla’s ef orts to remove an embarrassing video from YouTube by literally jumping into the website. Along the way, they run into other YouTube personalities, includ- ing Jenna Marbles (15 million subscrib- ers), whose living room they land in. Hecox and Padilla play versions of themselves — their selves of four years ago, aimless 23-year-olds without Internet stardom. The fi lm was written by Eric Falconer www.laweekly.com www.laweekly.com // (Blue Mountain State, How I Met Your Mother) and directed by Alex Winter, the writer-actor-director best remembered for playing Bill S. Preston, Esq., in Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure — which makes him experienced in the very specifi c genre of slackers who break the space-time con- tinuum and launch themselves on a bogus journey. But Winter says the similarities end there: “This is more stripped-down hu- mor. Ian and Anthony have an old-school charm.” The fi lm was fi nanced and produced by a collaboration between Defy Media and AwesomenessTV, both digital-media com- panies with large footprints in the teen- what the Internet’s for.” audience market. Its budget is described That said, Hecox is currently struggling by Barry Blumberg — Smosh’s chief cre- “Smosh has helped redefi ne how with a hair decision. When he’s informed ative of cer, an executive producer on the of the irony of the wax fi gures — that icons movie and the head of content at Defy — massively popular an online star can be, of a fl uid and inconstant medium will be only as “intelligent.” It was shot in 18 days. transformed into statues — he replies, “I When asked if making a feature fi lm will and that impacts the entire community have to change my hair soon, but now I’m alienate Smosh’s DIY online fan base or like, ‘Shit, my wax fi gure’s gonna have this discredit the duo as too Hollywood, Padilla of creators.” —Kelly Merryman, YouTube hair.’#” responds that it wouldn’t be in the interest Padilla: “You don’t have to do anything.” of producers or marketers to present them Hecox: “Well, I want to, so#...#.” that way: “They want to capture the audi- Warner Bros. Entertainment invested $18 audience’s capabilities” — especially since Padilla: “OK, you want to, then.” ence we already have.” The movie won’t be million in Machinima, an online gaming- it aims to resonate “in a community where in theaters; it will be released digitally and video outlet. Disney paid $500 million for a lot of people think they’re also content In 2005, when Hecox and Padilla were in eventually on DVD — which, believe it or Maker Studios, which produces YouTube creators.” high school in Sacramento, they googled not, the IRL-starved teen mega-fans have channels, among other services. And The guys don’t claim to want traditional their names and discovered that someone specifi cally requested. Viacom acquired an undisclosed minor- fame anyway. “Not at all,” Hecox empha- had taken a video from their MySpace “Yeah,” Hecox adds, “we’re not that good ity stake in Defy Media, part of which sizes. “Our situation is nice because we page — of them lip-synching the Mortal of actors. They don’t want us for our skill.” is owned by Lionsgate, which last year still have a level of anonymity.” Kombat theme song, the second of only In a survey commissioned by Variety formed an alliance with digital-content “Yeah, we’re kind of reserved people,” two videos they’d made at that time — and last summer, 1,500 teens, ages 13 to 18, giant RocketJump Studios. The assump- Padilla adds. “We don’t want to be the life posted it to a fl edgling site called YouTube, were asked a series of questions about 20 tion a few years ago was that digital talent of the party and have people staring at us where it had already accrued a couple celebrities — 10 traditional stars popular would be invading traditional media, but all the time.” thousand views and hundreds of com- with teens and 10 YouTube stars.