maybe you can break your own strings

Firstly, the appearance change line is most likely referring to someone (or multiple someones?) other than Spamton. The way he refers to being made into a living puppet heavily implies someone else turned him into one, along with his general hatred of being a puppet and desire for a new body (NEO). Spamton did not alter his appearance himself, though perhaps it could have made FRIEND lose attention regardless? We don't know for sure, as Pink doesn't say if changing your appearance actually works; we just assume it can because the cats aren't “too smart.”

Now, you could say Spamton's glasses are him changing his appearance to hide. However, if he did do this, it wouldn't have helped him escape. Placing the dealmaker on any of your party members does not prevent FRIEND from continuing to follow the party, who are being chased, so it probably wouldn't have helped Spamton on its own in that regard. However, his glasses do provide the best defense in the game against cat element attacks, which is noteworthy. *

Now, I want to get into more speculative territory, as the benefactor, mantle holder, whoever owns FRIEND, and why Pink knew them are a whole other mystery. I think Spamton may have been chased by FRIEND after signing the contract with Tenna. It gives him a clear motive to run and not come back if he was afraid of FRIEND chasing after him. For one reason or another, he is cut off from Tenna's contact and turned into a puppet. So far, we have not seen FRIEND outside of the dark worlds, and perhaps part of Spamton's motivation in becoming NEO (and, a lightner by extension) was to escape it by getting into the light world. All his previous motivations we knew about for NEO do still exist, there is just one more motivation possibly on top of it.

Pink says the cats get bored of chasing eventually, and I think Spamton is in that category. For a guy that reacts with extreme disgust at any CRT, he has a comparatively tame reaction at the question about his thoughts on cats in his Sweepstakes QnA. However, he gives “free tool tips” about how to deal with cats by describing how items can help you defend against elemental pairs, and the first one he mentions is… puppet/cat. No one asked him to do that. Spamton is not worried about dealing with FRIEND; he already has, and he gives advice on how others can deal with them. Every armor that gives defense against puppet/cat (frayed bowtie, true tie, dealmaker, and the mannequin) is heavily related to Spamton in some way. This could be because he himself uses puppet/cat attacks, but I think both can be true at once. Interestingly, dealmaker, the item most directly connected to Spamton, gives 40% resistance, the most out of any of the puppet/cat armors. (*Both it and mannequin were nerfed to 20% in chapter 5, but I think that's just a balancing thing like twin ribbon's nerf and not lore significant? The bomb attacks are the only Pink attack not reduced by them anyways so I don't know why Toby hates us waaah)

Lastly, I wanted to talk about Mike. We didn't get any new info on Mike, but the new info about FRIEND changes things. Namely, FRIEND=Mike is pretty much deconfirmed, and I think that's a pretty popular theory? We know that both Tenna and Spamton are fond of Mike, Spamton doesn't want revenge against Mike, Mike's room existed before the fake Mike's took over, and Mike is capable of communication, as he was able to warn Tenna about creating the Contract. None of this really fits for an evil pack of cats that hunts and bites you.

I propose that Mike is his own character, and he's not evil or anything. Why he's there, how much he knows, what he looks like… all of that, I can't answer. But, I wonder if he is the one in hiding. If FRIEND is why he disappeared one day from TV World. Did he take the fall for Spamton? Is he the reason Spamton gets to walk free, albeit still horrifically transformed into a puppet? Is Spamton a puppet because he evaded FRIEND? Is this why Spamton keeps what he knows about Mike close to his chest? For Mike's safety? Did Spamton get the Dealmaker from Mike to protect Spamton against cats, or did he make them himself??? I'm writing more fanfiction than theory at this point, but I think it's quite an interesting development in the Mike mystery, and I'm fascinated to see where chapter 6 may bring us.