Smiling Friends - did u smile

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did u smile

  • yes

    Votes: 1,793 93.3%
  • no

    Votes: 218 11.3%

  • Total voters
    1,922
I would've loved if the show had organic growth and didn't go so viral on X and Reddit so it could be more of a sleeper hit that got picked up from the 3rd season after cancellation rather than the creators themselves ending it premature.
If anyone is to blame it's Reddit for infantilizing the whole show into a parody of itself within a few years.
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There's a reason why memes like these exist. Fandoms, outside of getting more eyes on the show, have no positive impact on any show.
I've never felt a need to talk at length in a community about any show I liked, maybe with my friends but our interest in media rarely lines up.

I understand wanting to discuss a show, create memes and buying merchandise.
But it is apparent many "fans" make the show part of their personality.
As an outsider to say the Marvel movies, as someone who never watched any of them, any memes about it or references to it in unrelated comment sections either fell flat for me or annoyed me.

Same kind of deal with the Anime Jojo's Bizarre Adventure, where if a show is referencing it in some way you got the entire comment section sperging out about it.

A recent minor gripe I had was encountering Undertale fans in the comment section of Pokemon OST videos.
And they're also just annoying to read since they just talk about Toby Fox and how great he is for creating the ost for one of the pokemon games.

I can think of more examples, point is fandoms ruin the show they're about 100% of the time, either by annoying outsiders or consuming the content over and over and then talking shit about it when there's a small dip in quality.
 
What's everyone's take on the theory that this is actually a set up to an April Fools prank or an elaborate publicity stunt?
 
If they really feel like they were running dry on good ideas, it's probably a good thing they decided to stop it ahead of time. I mainly wish they did a proper finale to give some sense of closure (or as close to closure as you can get with an episodic show).
 
I'm not an expert but I think all four of those shows have drastically different intentions and styles despite being sci-fi.
Sure, futurama was more of a futuristic slice of life thing, star trek was military sci fi, and doctor who was general sci fi variety adventure, but they all served the same "What new sci fi concept/alien are we going to explore this week?", which rick and morty also does. They're not identical obviously but there's a pretty big intersection in the venn diagram of sci fi shows.

Like, if someone enjoys doctor who and futurama for the exploration aspect, they're more likely to enjoy star trek and rick and morty than say battlestar galactica.

Someone who likes star trek for the military stuff will probably enjoy stargate or battlestar galactica. Again, not a perfect intersection, but it does exist.
 
What's everyone's take on the theory that this is actually a set up to an April Fools prank or an elaborate publicity stunt?
The theory that I'm currently subscribed to is that they saw the show had amassed a massive unwanted fanbase of redditors and Bluesky users that they despised so they said fuck it.
 
Obligatory

In all honesty I'm actually glad if they're ending the show because it means they were aware of how burnt out they were getting, and they're willing to not let the show be flanderized and become a meme.

Especially for Zach, who is a legitimately talented animator and probably doesn't want to be "the funny voice guy" for the rest of his life.

I hope Critterclipz gives Dolly an ending as well (:_(
 
What makes this time different since they've pulled stuff like this before?
Given the amount of people involved, I cannot imagine the “oh, we actually still have seasons coming” secret would actively last more than a few hours.

And I dont think Adult Swim or WB or whoever would go along with an idea like “we’re gonna pretend to end the show and make everyone sad”.
 
Zach and Michael finally saw those pictures of Charlie with top scars and decided it was time to end it. Also the subreddit sucks
No joke, I wouldn't be surprised if they saw the beginnings of the cringe fandom and said NOPE, let's not wait for a Pickle Ree moment, let's kill it now
 
Nothing really surprising, it became obvious they both despised the fanbase the show was cultivating. Zack was actively telling people to burn Charlie Funko Pops and YouTooz, and knew they were one step away from becoming the next Rick and Morty. That and the Pop Up promo where they were like "you retards really aren't gonna queue up for this, right" only for redditors to wait 12+ hours to get in. On top of that, the Cool Autistic Gamer and Dolly stuff made it clear how much they resented fans. Smart move getting out on top and looking forward to whatever the decide to make next.
 
I wonder how much of it can be attributed to exhaustion from content creators kissing ass and asking Zach or Michael to be on the show in some way.
 
What's everyone's take on the theory that this is actually a set up to an April Fools prank or an elaborate publicity stunt?
In the announcement there are moments where Zach has the exact same tone of voice he does whenever he's lying about shit like Herculad on OneyPlays. I hope it's all just a bit but I wouldn't count on it.
 
Sucks, but not really that much of a heart break, it's better to leave in a high note.

We obviously don't every detail on what went down, and we most likely never will, but I for one I believe that they've reached a wall.

The thing about Smiling Friends is that it is a show that is very easy to be cynical with:

"oooh, you gonna have another absurd scenario with a character named "blurpitt plarp" doing Zach's goblin voice, and then it's going to scream and ran off screen in a 2 frame animation."

And if anything, Hadel and Cusack are cynical guys, they were probably shooting down ideas left and right because "we already did this" or "this feel the same shit like before".

That the problem with Smiling Friends, the show was more about the absurd, not so much about characters and stories, and the thing about absurdist humor is that it reaches a ceiling pretty fast, just ask Aqua Team Hunger Force.

So, I think they don't want to spin plates, and fine, we got a pretty fun show and we move on.
 
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