Chapter Five:

A Desperate Need For More Content

SMG4 took his time to let it sink in as he started up at the sky, watching as Mr. Yeast's ride faded from sight. The meme man glanced at SMG3, who looked at him back without even a hint of smugness on his bearded face.

"How could he not want to collab with me?" SMG4 said with a cracked voice.

"Well, I tried." SMG3 remarked, "Don't look at me, it's not my fault that he didn't want to collab with you."

And the meme man began to think, feeling all kinds of thoughts in his head that he could hardly describe. Was he not with it anymore, despite all the memes he'd made before and after his appearance had changed, despite all the subscribers following him and despite all of the friends that he'd made in the years since he met Mario?

He looked at the view count from the collab, recalling how much people still loved him, and his sorrow became replaced by another emotion, one that was stronger. SMG4 clenched his fist and shook his head.

"No. I just need to make more content." He said, "A lot more!"

The meme man looked around; spotting Frankie the Toad close by. Frankie must have been watching the collab and had been among those who tried to grab the flying boat, hence why he seemed to be getting back to his feet.

And an idea sprang to mind, SMG4 moved towards Frankie and picked him up, leaving the area. SMG3 pulled out his remote, watching the two depart, before summoning the portal leading back to the Internet Graveyard.

It was time to do another stream and look after the Graveyard's residents, the memes weren't going to take care of themselves and SMG3 had retired the place's previous protectors.

SMG4 returned to the castle with Frankie and the content creator got out the video-making equipment, then he turned to the not-so young Toad in glasses and looked at him firmly. What he was about to do was important, there was no room for error. Content had to be made!

"Okay, Frankie." The meme man said, "We're gonna be making lots of videos together, so let's see what you're made of with that YouTube skill of yours."

"Uh oh, looks like I'm in danger." Frankie remarked sarcastically.

SMG4 handed him a laptop and then set up the video equipment. "Alright, let's get to the content creating!" He said, "Show 'em what ya got, Frankie."

And without another word, with the computer up and running and the equipment, Frankie began making videos as SMG4 watched. The little Toad made a video about him playing Minecraft, which was quite simple if you thought about it.

SMG4 watched with a widening grin as the camera rolled and the Toad kept playing, what could even go wrong now?

Very soon, the video would be in the uploading process as Frankie neared the end of his video. And SMG4 stood over his shoulder with a manic smile as he said, "Yes. YES!"

He had to resist the urge to break out into a fit of evil laughter, SMG4 had a pure heart and would never do something as nasty as the gang's enemies had done over the years. He wasn't crazy like Francis, nor was he full of rage like Waluigi, selfish and attention-seeking like Bob or nuts like SMG3 was.

They finished producing the video and posted it to YouTube, along with maybe a little more videos, all involving Frankie playing a video game. SMG4 looked at the subscriber count, wondering what would happen...

...and then, the subs went down by several numbers.

"LMAO! My man fell off hard." SMG3 said in the comments.

No, this would not suffice. SMG4 began to think, he had Frankie with him and he was not going to stop, he was not going to lose his fame and relevance to a fellow meme guardian who used to be his number one enemy in the days they resembled their avatar.

The meme man's head began to bubble with so many ideas, he needed a lot more help than from just one Toad. There was a lot of work to do. SMG4 smacked a fist into his palm and chuckled, it was time to take action.

"WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHH!"

Wario heard Waluigi scream and came running, seeing his lanky brother holding the phone, with absolute shock in his eyes. Something must have really surprised him if he was going to scream like that. Waluigi tugged Wario's elbow and said, "It's SMG4."

"Eh, what's-a going on?" Wario asked, activating the laptop, "Why would you start freaking out over SMG4 like th... WAH?!"

The anti-Mario's eyes filled with shock as he looked at SMG4's "newest" videos and the subscriber count, this had to be some sort of joke if he was going to start making gameplay videos featuring some Toad named Frankie playing video games like Minecraft.

Who wanted that when everyone wanted to see memes and fun misadventures with Mario?

Wario took a look at one of the videos and listened to Frankie's voice before he let out a scream, the video was so cringe and Frankie was so annoying, how could he and Waluigi even put up with something like this, it was so ugly.

"This just isn't right?" Waluigi said, "And we're no-good criminals..."

"Bah, SMG4 has lost his edge." Wario said, "Perhaps its time FOR WARIO ACTION!"

He looked at his brother, "And no, you don't need to take on that super deity form and start blowing stuff up, Waluigi. The world doesn't need that, not after all that happened when you went crazy a couple of years back and brought an apocalypse on the Mushroom Kingdom..."

Meggy was stunned.

She'd tuned in to her computer when she received a ton of notifications related to SMG4's channel and tuned in, only to find very cringe-inducing gameplay videos involving Frankie.

What was going on with SMG4 now, had he gone completely mad over SMG3 getting more viewers and the fact that he'd done a collab with that Mr. Yeast guy?

'Oh man...' She thought, petting Loaf as he jumped up on the table, 'I hope you manage to fix this and get more subscribers, SMG4.'

A few blocks away at the hotel, Bob was in a state of shock, seeing what SMG4 was doing. He watched some of the videos featuring Frankie playing Minecraft until his ears bled from listening to that annoying Toad voice and he shut it off.

"SMG4..." Bob remarked, "You have some serious issues, bro. That is so cringe, you're going to lose subscribers."

Over at the Mario Bros' house, Luigi was baffled by what he was seeing on SMG4's YouTube channel. He couldn't even formulate his thoughts into words, especially as the meme man rarely did gameplay videos, but the ones that he was doing were not his style.

SMG4 made memes and wacky videos based on wacky adventures with Mario, he wasn't a Let's Play channel.

No, the Let's Play content belonged somewhere else, like that Hobo Bros channel.

Luigi switched off SMG4's YouTube channel, wanting to face-palm with irritation, and it wasn't because Mario was eating spaghetti as usual nearby. It wasn't that. Luigi was concerned with their friend's video-focus and, perhaps, his mental health as well...