Anthony Padilla Eats His Last Meal

Padilla intentionally chose nostalgic foods for his 'last meal' because he believes they can trigger vivid memories and allow his entire life to 'flash before his eyes,' connecting deeply with past emotions and experiences.

He states, 'I put a lot of nostalgic things on this list today because I feel like I don't know, there's something about that time in my childhood... I want my whole life to flash before my eyes from the the food that I eat.' He later notes, 'It's not actually necessarily the flavors as much as the feeling.'

Padilla views thinking about death daily not as morbid, but as a way to appreciate life more fully, making discomfort less scary and every moment more valuable by providing a 'finishing point.'

He explains, 'I feel like it makes me appreciate living more. It makes discomfort feel... less scary and more like it's just part of the process of life. I think that having a finishing point makes me appreciate every moment in between more.'

After reacquiring Smosh, Padilla and Ian realized the enduring 'magical essence' of their brand was not just clever comedy, but the authentic friendship captured on screen, which resonated deeply with their audience.

Padilla states, 'We realized that the the thing about Smosh that we we kind of went back to the beginning... what's been the the magical essence of Smosh that's made it so special to people over all these years and we realized it was really the the comedy rooted in friendship elements of it.'

Padilla consistently experiences a feeling of 'dread' before creative projects, which he identifies as self-imposed pressure to meet high standards and live up to external and internal expectations, especially after gaining success.

He admits, 'I still feel dread before any shoot whatsoever... I think it's a little bit of wanting to live up to I think pressures put on me, but pressures I put on myself.' He clarifies, 'I only dread doing the things that I care about when it's something that I very very much care about the success of.'

Due to his mother's agoraphobia and his grandmother's passing, Padilla took on significant responsibilities like grocery shopping with food stamps at a young age, leading to a 'parentified' experience that shaped his relationship with responsibility and stress.

He describes, 'I learned responsibility at a young age, not because I wanted to... it's forced me to have this layer of of responsibility in a way where I I was almost parentified in some ways.'

Padilla and the host discuss how individuals, especially those with early life traumas, can be both repelled by and attracted to high-risk, high-reward situations, seeing them as opportunities to prove resilience or re-experience heightened emotions.

The host states, 'people, they stay away from their traumas, but they're also really attracted to their traumas.' Padilla confirms, 'I feel like I found myself gravitating toward things that scare me and things that are kind of high-risk, high reward.'

For a decade, Padilla's self-esteem and identity were tied to the constantly climbing numbers of Smosh's viewership. When numbers stagnated or declined, it felt like a 'rock bottom,' forcing him to re-evaluate his self-worth.

He states, 'I kind of evolved to have an unhealthy relationship with numbers and feeling like I needed to keep momentum up... it became my norm for a positive feedback through numbers and for my self-esteem and identity to be attached to growing numbers.'

Padilla realized he was operating from a 'fear of loss' rather than an 'opportunity to gain' during a period of creative stagnation. This realization, coupled with a 'rock bottom' experience, allowed him to return to making content from a place of 'abundance and creativity.'

He identifies a period where 'I realized that I was only doing things because I was afraid of what would happen if not.' He later found that 'if I'm failing anyway, what does it matter? And that's when I started actually making things from the heart again that resonated from a... place of abundance and creativity rather than that place of fear.'

Padilla finds peace in the theory that consciousness might exist on a different plane, and the brain merely 'taps into' it, rather than being its sole origin. This perspective emerged after observing deceased loved ones and feeling their 'consciousness' was no longer present in their physical forms.

He theorizes, 'what if nothing happens to your consciousness? It's just not being tapped into by your brain... maybe the consciousness isn't in the brain. And maybe the brain is tapping into a different plane of existence where the consciousness exists.'