Rhett and Link Reflect on Their Nearly 20 Years on YouTube (Exclusive)

Rhett McLaughlin and Link Neal are internet dads. 

Not only have the comedy duo paved the way for new talent on YouTube, but they have also cultivated a massive fanbase that follows their every move. The two, known for their hit web series Good Mythical Morning, are quick to mention their moniker at the top of their exclusive interview with PEOPLE.

“We’ve been feeling old in this business since we started,” Rhett, 47, says. “We were already almost 30, and everybody else doing YouTube was a teenager. We always felt like we were a little bit older. At the time, ‘Internet Daddy’ didn’t mean the same thing that it means now.”

“We embrace both definitions of Internet Dad,” he jokes. 

Rhett and Link created their joint YouTube channel nearly 20 years ago in 2006. There, they uploaded comedy sketches and music videos, à la the trends of the late aughts. They then created their flagship channel Good Mythical Morning in 2012, where they can still be seen doing blind taste tests and trying out viral products – all while injecting their quirky sense of humor.

The two have moved from project to project over the decades, culminating in the expansion of the Mythical brand in 2017, when their entertainment studio was born. 

The duo owns an abundance of media properties including the YouTube channel Mythical Kitchen, hosted by chef Josh Scherer, and podcasts Ear Biscuits and A Hot Dog is a Sandwich, as well as the food outlet Sporked. They also have artifacts on display at The Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History in Washington D.C., after donating them in 2024. 

Simply put, Rhett and Link are a big deal. The two played a major role in the success of entertainers on YouTube and were even showcased during the platform’s 20th-anniversary events.

With over 76 million subscribers across their brands, Link, 46, notes that they have experienced a rare longevity on the platform. 

“Almost everybody who started at the beginning of YouTube when we were getting going is not still experiencing the traction that we are,” he says. “A lot of that is owed to the success of Good Mythical Morning, which wasn’t the first thing we did. We started it as a side project, not knowing that it was gonna be our lifeline to our audience.”

Explaining the evolution of their content, Rhett says, “Everyone was chasing this viral idea that you could have a video that would be on the homepage of YouTube for a couple of days. It would bring an audience, but it wasn’t about a stream of videos. It wasn’t about a constant connection. It wasn’t about a show or a format. It was about individual shots at the board trying to get something to stick.”

He continues, “We had enough successes over the course of five years or so to piece together a living. We were able to get some sponsorship deals, and that’s pretty much what everybody was doing. But then we started to observe that there were people who were making more consistent content.” However, they weren’t interested in making the type of videos they were seeing: personal video blogs.

By this time, the two were already married to their respective spouses and had kids. “We weren’t too keen on the idea of making our lives, and especially the lives of our families, into content,” Rhett explains. “So we said, ‘What can we do that checks the same box — a constant connection with an audience —  that’s easy for us to do and doesn’t monopolize our time, and doesn’t keep us from doing all the other things that we want to do?’ ” he says.

And then came Good Mythical Morning.

The two cite veteran YouTube creators Hank and John Green – who created the annual convention VidCon – as creative inspirations, but ultimately note that they march to the beat of their own drums.

“We’ve always followed our own North Star, which was an amalgamation of the things that we enjoyed growing up,” Rhett says, specifically mentioning late-night TV. 

Rhett and Link’s core source of inspiration was each other. The two met in first grade at their elementary school in North Carolina, where they were both placed in detention for writing profanity on their tests. It was the start of a lifelong creative partnership and friendship. They went on to work on films and music together and were even roommates in college. 

“Our creative partnership is never really based on a project or a specific goal,” Rhett says. “A lot of times, when people come together to work on something together, they end up working on a lot of somethings together.”

“…If it works,” Link adds. 

“We did a blood oath when we were in high school,” Rhett continues. “We cut our hands and we didn’t shake. We knew about communicable diseases.”

“We wiped [our blood] on a letter that we had written,” Link says, with Rhett adding, “And on that letter, it basically said: ‘We are going to do something big together.’ ”

Now, Rhett and Link are submitting Good Mythical Morning to the 2025 Emmy Awards in the category Outstanding Short Form Comedy, Drama or Variety Series, following YouTube CEO Neal Mohan’s passionate op-ed for The Hollywood Reporter arguing in favor of the community’s inclusion. 

“It would mean a lot to us to win an Emmy,” Link says. “It meant a lot to us to be eligible for an Emmy, and it was not an easy task. We sympathize with the Emmys in their challenge to figure out how to incorporate this new wave of digital entertainment because it can be overwhelming. But there are certainly shows that have risen to be a part of the cultural conversation, irrespective of the platform. And I’m proud that Good Mythical Morning is one of them.”

“Obviously, we would love to be the recipients of it,” Rhett adds. “But I think it’s bigger than us.”

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In 2024, they uploaded a YouTube video called “We’re Done” on their self-named channel, which currently has over four million views. In the video, they expressed that they were no longer interested in working with mainstream executives after multiple poor experiences. 

“What we were essentially saying is not that we’re done with Hollywood. No, we’re done with doing Hollywood in the way that we have been doing it in the past, because in our minds it seemed like two different things,” Rhett explains, adding that they were creating their own content with Mythical while also separately pitching works to new people.

“What we were saying is we’re done with that model,” he says. “It’s not that we don’t want to make TV. It’s not that we don’t want to make a movie. We want to do all of those things, but we want to do them on our terms.”

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Rhett and Link have learned many important lessons from their years on YouTube, especially pertaining to their relationship with their audience. 

“If you get into a place where you’re letting your audience lead you or you’re just sitting there cowering to them to do the thing that they want from you, you’re going to shrivel up creatively and personally,” Rhett says.

The boundaries they set are crucial to their success, Rhett says. 

“Understanding how that relationship actually works has been a key to our longevity,” he says. “But I also think that applies to everything that we’ve tried to do. We’ve done a lot of different things over the past couple of decades. We’ve written a few books, we’ve had a number of television shows… We’ve learned that we need to trust that intuition in the way that we know how things are going to be perceived.”

As for what’s next for Rhett and Link, they are looking forward to making more episodes of Good Mythical Morning. “It is a challenge to keep it fresh,” Link says of the web series that is nearing 3,000 episodes. “But I think the challenge is part of why it works.”

The duo are also working on a second season of their latest series Wonderhole, and looking forward to the future of the Mythical brand.

“We want to do more of what we have seen with Mythical Kitchen,” Rhett says, “in terms of building new brands under the Mythical banner that we can shepherd from a distance, but develop a life of their own, and use a lot of the same systems, tools and efficiencies that we’ve been able to create for ourselves.”