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Good (mythical) morning. I’ve been a self-proclaimed Mythical Beast since I was 13 years old, watching Rhett and Link on the bus ride to middle school. To this day, Good Mythical Morning is still the YouTube channel I watch most consistently.
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So when I got invited to tour their studio last week, I had one answer: Let’s talk about that.
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Keep reading for the full story.
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— Syd Cohen
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Today’s lineup:
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Press Publish writer Syd tours Mythical’s studio, starting with the iconic ‘Good Mythical Morning’ set / Photography courtesy of Mythical Entertainment - Katrina “Chappie” Chaput
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Rhett McLaughlin and Link Neal started their daily show, Good Mythical Morning, in 2012 with just one other staff member—their first episode sponsored by a tongue scraper.
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Now, Mythical has 35M+ subscribers and 15B+ views across eight YouTube channels, a distribution deal with Netflix, and 90 full-time employees.
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Last week, we got the chance to tour Mythical’s 25K square-foot studio with Mythical’s VP of Production and Post-Production, Terence Deutsch, and the new president Jacob Moncrief.
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Inside Mythical’s LA studio: In 2016, Mythical moved into a studio in Burbank, CA. As its platform grew, launching new channels like Mythical Kitchen, it began expanding into neighboring buildings. Now, the HQ consists of two studios and an art workshop.
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Mythical’s studio is next to other creators like Alan Chikin Chow and Try Guys (and sits down the road from Disney and Warner Bros)—signaling how important proximity and physical space has become for the creator companies that operate as larger networks.
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Good mythical neighbors: Ten years ago, Mythical wasn’t a regular stop on the celebrity press tour, but now Last Meals and Good Mythical Morning are frequent celeb haunts.
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Moncrief told me that they see around 75 celebrity guests per year, something that wouldn’t be feasible if the studio wasn’t in the middle of the greater Hollywood conversation.
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The creator studio model: From set design to post-production to e-commerce, Mythical houses all its departments in one space, creating synergy between departments that were previously not in conversation with each other.
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After bringing brand sales in-house 2.5 years ago, Moncrief said that their brand revenue 4X’d.
“[The e-commerce department] can see the kind of stuff that [Mythical Chef Josh Scherer] is wearing on a daily basis and then say, ‘Josh likes this kind of hat. We're gonna develop a hat like that for Mythical Kitchen,’” Moncrief told me.
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Inside the Mythical art department’s workshop (left) and its Good Mythical Morning set (right) / Photography courtesy of Mythical Entertainment - Katrina “Chappie” Chaput
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Mythical has expanded, but its core mission is the same. Good Mythical Morning has aired daily for 14 years, a feat that many shows couldn’t achieve without hitting stagnation. Moncrief says they guard against that deliberately.
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“We've been very intentional to make sure that the heart of the show stays the same with [Rhett and Link], their relationships, their comedic instincts, but we've been very intentional to not just say this is our top performing format and we're just gonna let it ride,” Moncrief said. “If this is our top performing format, great, how can we beat it out?”
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Before you sign a lease: What ultimately drove Mythical’s studio expansion was their need for more shooting spaces. The shows steadily expanded, the studio followed, and the Hollywood opportunities came as a result of the sum of their efforts.
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While more creators than ever are building out studio spaces, it doesn’t mean every creator needs one. According to Mythical, being honest about your needs as a creator—and communicating it clearly to every member of your staff—is the difference between a 14-year-old empire and a flash-in-the-pan YouTube channel.
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What Curry Barker’s Short Film with Windows Signals About Creator Hollywood
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Last week, Curry Barker released Mama Bear, a YouTube short film funded by Windows.
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Coming off the heels of a $500M+ box office smash, Obsession, it might feel out of place for a film director to return to YouTube—but this short film is an important benchmark for where creator film is headed, and how brands fit into that equation.
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Right now, branded content works in two ways:
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Brands pay for creators to post on their native channels. Though most of these deals come in the form of ad reads, we’ve seen brands fund more short-film-adjacent content—from Max Zavidow’s work with Dr. Squatch to Jonah Feingold’s mini rom-com for Valentino.
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Brands make their own content. This year, we’ve seen an increase in brands like Victoria’s Secret and General Motors acting as financiers for their own series.
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Mama Bear falls into the first category, but Windows isn’t even mentioned by name in the film. Instead, the company acted as a financier for the production, in place of a studio or distributor.
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Windows also paid creator group Corridor Crew to create VFX for Mama Bear—uploaded to Corridor Crew’s own YouTube channel.
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Big picture: Creator films have always had a financing gap. Unless you have $5M to spend on a feature like Markiplier, most creators can’t pay for cinema-grade production—and the traditional routes of studios and distributors come with creative compromises.
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The Mama Bear model fills that gap with minimal trade-offs. The brand puts up the budget, the creator keeps the vision and distribution, and the brand gets associated with work people actually want to watch.
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Creators Honor Late YouTube CEO by Partnering with Lung Cancer Foundation
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The Susan Wojcicki Foundation, honoring the former CEO of YouTube (left), launches its YouTube channel with a welcome from creators on the platform (right) / Susan Wojcicki Foundation
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Yesterday, The Susan Wojcicki Foundation launched a YouTube channel bringing together leaders in science, technology, and healthcare to support early detection and prevention of lung cancer.
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Behind the org: Susan Wojcicki was a mom of five and CEO of YouTube for a decade. In 2022, she was unexpectedly diagnosed with lung cancer, despite living a healthy lifestyle. She passed away in 2024 at just 56 years old.
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This year, her family launched The Susan Wojcicki Foundation, bringing Wojcicki’s mission to YouTube alongside MrBeast, Mark Rober, Cassey Ho, Dr. Mike, Rhett & Link, and others.
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The creator playbook for good: Creator content and marketing strategies have made their way to politics, Fortune 500 companies and Hollywood. Today, we’re seeing these strategies support nonprofits as well.
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Zooming out: In 1985, “We Are the World” raised over $80M for humanitarian efforts in Africa. Four decades later, #TeamWater raised $40M+ to provide clean water to millions worldwide.
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We spoke with Head of Creator & Community Partnerships at The Susan Wojcicki Foundation, Audrey Eatherly, about the foundation’s decision to launch on YouTube with the support of so many big creators:
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“YouTube was always going to be important to us because it’s a natural home for this work,” Eatherly told us. “Creators have built real trust with their audiences, and they can make complex science feel approachable and human.”
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If a single YouTube channel can do for lung cancer screening rates what we’ve already seen the creator industry do for children’s medical research, clean water, and animal conservation—we may see this playbook replicated by other nonprofits who need influential voices to raise awareness for their cause.
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“Susan’s superpower was bringing diverse voices into the rooms that matter,” Eatherly said. “Similarly, we’d like to bring creators into the room with scientists, researchers, and patient advocates—and together, change the conversation around lung cancer.”
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🔥 Press Worthy
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📚️ Thank You for Pressing Publish
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The content we’re looking forward to reading, watching, and listening to this weekend.
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Read: For his Substack, Etymology Nerd breaks down how AI and internet brainrot have affected our senses of humor.
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Watch: It seems like everyone is vlogging again, including 82-year-old Minecraft YouTuber GrammaCrackers—who steps away from the computer to bring us along to her physical therapy appointment and celebrate 1M subscribers.
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Listen: Comedy creators Ryan and Aidan Micho break down how Minimum Wage got to Netflix on their podcast Volley For Serve.
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