Rhett and Link Say No to Hollywood and a Bigger Yes to Their Multimillion-Dollar Content Business

Entrepreneurs: Rhett & Link

Biz: Mythical Entertainment

Tilt: Comedy

Scene: YouTube – Rhett & Link (5.21M), YouTube – Good Mythical Morning (18.7M), Facebook (4.8M), TikTok (4.6M), Instagram (3.5M), X (920.2K), merch, membership

Snack Bites: 

• Rhett and Link met in the first grade when they bonded over a shared humor and creativity. 
• About six years after graduating with engineering degrees, the duo united for a new YouTube channel. In their first video, they dropped a boulder into a dam.
• Since their early days, the comedic duo has been among the internet’s most popular channels. Their Mythical Entertainment brand employs over 80 people.

Why we stan: Rhett and Link know who they are and what they want to do. Initially, they launched their YouTube channel as a way to get into traditional Hollywood entertainment. But after two decades of building a content business, they’ve given up that goal and are doubling down on the “internetainment” their loyal audiences love.

The Story of Rhett and Link

Rhett McLaughlin and Charles Lincoln Neal III have been making people laugh for almost 40 years. The YouTube stars, known more commonly as Rhett and Link, met in the first grade.

The pair bonded over a shared sense of humor and creative drive. According to Grunge, they conducted mock interviews at their school and experimented with cassette tapes. At age 14, they began to write a screenplay. The duo even formed a blood oath to “create something together,” as TheWrap described.

Comedy wasn’t the only talent they shared. By their senior year of high school, Rhett and Link had developed a knack for math and science. Between that and Rhett’s dad refusing to pay for film school, Rhett and Link found themselves in the College of Engineering at North Carolina State University. After the roommates graduated at the start of the 2000s, they found jobs – Rhett in civil engineering and Link in industrial engineering.

By 2006, however, they were back working on the same project, a YouTube channel. One year after their first video – they and some friends dropped a boulder from a dam – the pair had their first branded content deal. 

Rhett and Link have built themselves into internet icons in the years since, consistently ranking in the top five of the highest-paid YouTubers. In 2023, Forbes reported their earnings as a remarkable $35M and their total followers at 51M.

All this success came from Rhett and Link doing the same thing that had brought them together when they were 6 – making themselves laugh.

“The vast majority of what we’re doing is just unscripted stuff where we’re just being ourselves,” Rhett told TheWrap. The pair offers their audience what they refer to as “internetainment,” roughly defined as the collection of goofy ideas that pop into their minds. It could be reviewing day-old tacos, dropping a boulder from a dam, or playing Dungeons and Dragons with an exorcist. 

“The sort of guiding principle is make something for yourself, and you’ll attract an audience that is like-minded and appreciates it,” they say.

“We used to ask the question, ‘Why is this popular?’” Rhett told Fast Company. “But then you start to understand that if it’s popular, it must make sense to enough people.” 

Their “internetainment” certainly seems to have made sense to enough people. The company they started in 2006, Mythical Entertainment, has grown into an 80-person business built on advertising, branded integrations, touring, publishing, [and] merchandise, according to Business Insider. 

Rhett and Link and their company operate many YouTube channels, including their podcast Ear Biscuits, a cooking show, and their extremely popular daily show Good Mythical Morning, which has 18.7M alone. 

In 2019, Mythical Entertainment acquired the famed internet comedy property SMOSH for $10M, expanding its business to over 70M subscribers and 250M monthly views across 14 YouTube channels, per The Hollywood Reporter.

All the while, Rhett and Link have pursued projects offline. The two are responsible for two New York Times bestsellers. 

But they haven’t achieved every goal they set out to accomplish. For many years, the two wanted to work in Hollywood. “We thought [YouTube] was still a stepping stone,” Rhett told The Ankler. “What we were doing on YouTube really started to get traction. We still had this idea in the back of our minds that we needed to ascend to that level” of Hollywood success, “which felt like it was the next level,” they said.

But after numerous rejected pilots and screenplays, canceled comedy shows, and a cooking show that involved extreme studio pressure, Rhett and Link have moved on. 

In early 2024, the duo put out a video titled We’re Done to announce the end of their attempts at Hollywood success and a redoubling of their efforts on YouTube, including plans for a YouTube TV show they’re funding themselves. Rhett explained to their audience, “We’re stopping asking permission to be ourselves.”

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