With 38 million subscribers, the YouTube comedy series Smosh is a phenom.
But Smosh's stars didn't always have it easy.
When Smosh wanted to expand with more videos, more channels, and more people beyond its famous cofounders Ian Andrew Hecox and Anthony Padilla, it hired Mariko Takahashi (or "Mari" to her fans), and launched Smosh Pit Weekly.
It's a weekly show that recapped various images, videos, and articles found on the Smosh Pit blog on the Smosh website.
And the reaction was brutally hard on her, her boss Barry Blumberg told attendees at Business Insider's Ignition 2015 conference in New York on Wednesday. Blumberg is chief content officer of Defy Media, the media company that owns Smosh and more than a dozen other entertainment brands.
"Every day for a year, she cried when she read the YouTube comments," Blumberg said. "The comments were
racist (she’s Asian) and sexist (she’s a girl)," he said.
Hecox and Padilla told her to simply ignore the YouTube comments. To stop reading them.
Her bosses liked her and liked the show. "We made like 300 episodes," Blumberg said. She also joined the cast of another show, Smosh Games.
"And now she’s one of the biggest stars on Smosh Games and one of the people fans get the most excited to see," Blumberg said.
Moral of the story: The internet is full of mean people. Don't listen to them and don't let the naysayers chase you away from what you love to do.
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