Rhett McLaughlin

Rhett and Link met on September 4, 1984, the date they started first grade in Harnett County at Buies Creek Elementary School in Buies Creek, North Carolina. They subsequently wrote a song and made a documentary about this meeting: Looking for Ms. Locklear. In an interview on The Tonight Show, they stated that they had to stay in during recess because both of them had written swear words on their desks. They were given coloring books to fill out with mythical creatures (such as unicorns), hence their YouTube channel name, Good Mythical Morning.

In 1996, they started college and were roommates at North Carolina State University, where Link studied industrial engineering and Rhett studied civil engineering. Rhett graduated magna cum laude in December 2000, and Link graduated summa cum laude in May 2001. They worked in their respective fields for a time, Link at IBM and Rhett at Black & Veatch. They also made videos and performed comedy sketches for a religious organization, Cru. During their time at Cru, they began to develop their signature comedy style as a duo, and it was from there that they made the decision to become full-time entertainers.

Rhett plays guitar and Link plays the recorder and harmonica; they both sing. Rhett & Link perform live musical comedy and have completed two albums. In 2001, Rhett & Link independently released Just Mail Us the Grammy, featuring the popular song "The Unibrow Song". In 2005, Rhett & Link independently released I'm Sorry, What Was That? (Live in the Living Room), a live album featuring "The Wal-Mart Song". The album is available at the iTunes Store. In April 2007, Rhett & Link placed 3rd in the TurboTax TaxRap Contest, a contest judged by Vanilla Ice. In 2008, Rhett & Link independently released Websongs Vol 1, an online album featuring "Facebook Song", "Cornhole Song" and "Velcro Song". On February 1, 2009 Rhett & Link independently released Secret Songs, a collection of songs that were previously only available to winners of their monthly "Community Building Exercises", a part of their "Quest for the Seven Keys" contest.

Their first viral video was "Wolfpack or Tarheels?" uploaded on Rhett's personal YouTube channel in 2006 (no longer active) of his 3-year-old son Locke McLaughlin crying over the loss of the NC State Wolfpack and their rivalry with the North Carolina Tar Heels. YouTube wanted to feature this video on the home page but the duo asked to have one of their songs featured instead as they wanted to be known by their comedic work and not a viral video. After the video was removed for unknown reasons, the duo uploaded it to their channel, Rhett & Link, where it currently has more than 600 thousand views.

In 2006, Rhett & Link began work on a documentary about their search for their first grade teacher, Ms. Locklear, entitled Looking for Ms. Locklear. The film released in 2008 and won the Southern Lens Award from South Carolina Public TV, which led to the film screening on PBS in South Carolina. The film also won audience choice awards at the ACE Film Festival and the Secret City Film Festival, and won 2nd place documentary at the Secret City Film Festival. The documentary was an official selection at the Real to Reel Film Festival, the Landlocked Film Festival, the Hot Springs Documentary Film Festival, BendFilm Festival, Asheville Film Festival, and the Cucalorus Film Festival. On September 9, 2009 the duo released the movie on DVD, distributing it over the Internet.

Rhett & Link's first sponsored video, "Cornhole Song", was made for AJJ Cornhole in 2007, and since then the duo have integrated other small brands like Smule, with "I am a Thoughtful Guy" and iRESQ. Many larger companies have since sponsored the duo's videos including Alka-Seltzer, McDonald's, Wendy's and Cadillac among others.

In 2007, Rhett & Link created the RhettandLinkast for iTunes. Originally filmed in a backroom at Cru, the two soon relocated to a spare property belonging to Rhett's father-in-law in Lillington, North Carolina.

Rhett & Link are among the first group of Internet personalities who tried to transition from the Internet into network television. In 2007, along with Stevie Ryan and Joy Leslie, Rhett & Link hosted the short-lived series Online Nation, a show that featured the best viral videos from the Internet, part of the 2007 fall lineup on the CW Network. The premiere episode was seen by 1 million people, but the show was cancelled after only four episodes. As the hosts, Rhett & Link responded with an Internet video.

In January 2008, they worked as web correspondents on the Sundance Film Festival for IGotShotgun.com in partnership with Cadillac. Summer of the same year they spent releasing videos for the Alka-Seltzer Great American Road Trip. The series won the Gold award in the Consumer Goods category at Advertising Age's 2008 W3 Awards, as well as best online campaign at Adweek's 2008 Buzz Awards. The series also picked up two Golds (Best Campaign, Best Single) and a Craft award (Music) at the 2009 Bessies and received two golds in the interactive category for Viral Marketing and Business to Consumer website at the 2009 Advertising & Design Club of Canada Awards.

Also in 2008, Rhett & Link released web series "Seaborne and Roach", sponsored by SpyAssociates.com, and "Surrogate Sharers" series advertising Starburst candy.

In 2009, Rhett & Link were named No. 22 on Business Insider's Top 25 Most Creative People in Advertising List. In September of the same year, they joined the Collective, a media company in Los Angeles.

In 2009, the duo started to create free low-budget commercials for small local businesses throughout the U.S. in the web series "I Love Local Commercials", sponsored by Microbilt. At first they made 4 commercials for local businesses in their home state North Carolina – TDM Autosales, Bobby Denning Furniture, and Redhouse Furniture. These videos quickly went viral on YouTube, especially the Redhouse video, with its controversial jingle "Where Black People and White People Buy Furniture". The success of these commercials spurred Rhett & Link to continue creating commercials and for that they offered people across U.S. to nominate their favorite local businesses to take part in the web series. The popularity of the duo's commercials garnered the attention of major advertising publications such as Advertising Age and AdWeek, and their commercials were featured on CNN, NPR, The New York Times, Forbes, and TMZ. A commercial for Cullman Liquidation Center won Best Local Commercial at the 2010 Ad Age Viral Video Awards. In 2010, Rhett & Link produced a commercial for Donut Prince, George Lopez' favorite doughnut place. Later they appeared in his show Lopez Tonight, where he called them "undisputed masters of bad local commercials".

In 2009, Rhett & Link produced "Fast Food Folk Song" as a web commercial for Taco Bell, and in 2010 it won the Contest of Awesome for the Best Comic Music Video of 2009. The contest awarded them a trip to Los Angeles and a cameo in a Weezer music video.

On December 4, 2009, Rhett & Link teamed up with DFTBA Records and created a new album called Up To This Point.

Rhett and Link founded "Rhett & Link, Inc." in 2009. The name was changed to "Mythical Entertainment" in 2017. The company produces the online videos, television shows, podcasts, books, recorded music, and live tours, as well as the related merchandise sold through their store and on Amazon.

Both men now reside in Los Angeles, California, where together they run a production company named Mythical Entertainment, located in Burbank. Responding to a fan question in 2010, Rhett stated that, while they were both Christian, their content is not religious. In 2020, both men described their changes in faith in separate episodes of their podcast Ear Biscuits. Both stated they are no longer Christian with Rhett saying he would call himself "a hopeful agnostic" and Link saying he would call himself "an agnostic who wants to be hopeful."

In 2010, Rhett & Link created a stop motion video "T-shirt War" as a commercial for T-shirt printing company Rush T-shirts, in which they used 222 T-shirts with unique designs. The video already had 2 million views after only two weeks of being online, and quickly reached 4 million. "T-shirt War" also won in Best Online Promotion at the Apparel Industry category at the 2010 Spirit Awards. After the success of this commercial Rhett & Link received a call from McDonald's and Coca-Cola asking them to make a TV commercial with a T-shirt War theme. The commercial was also uploaded on YouTube, and this video, entitled "T-shirt War 2", reached 1 million views in two weeks.

Also in 2010, Rhett & Link released an online music video sponsored by SleepBetter.org – "2 Guys 600 pillows". Time listed the video as one of the Top-10 Talented Web Videos of 2010, and the video also won Best Editing category and Peoples' Voice Award at the 2011 Webby Awards. Rhett & Link continued working with SleepBetter.org, and in November 2012 they made another music video, "Sleep Tight".

On January 3, 2011, the duo launched a morning talk show, "Good Morning Chia Lincoln" in their studio, located in Fuquay-Varina, North Carolina, with an Abraham Lincoln Chia Pet as a centerpiece, where they picked a topic, usually a personal experience or news story, and stated their opinions on it. The series ended on February 28, 2011 as a result of half of the Chia Pet dying.

In 2011, Rhett & Link made a commercial for Ojai Valley Taxidermy, owned by Chuck Testa, as part of their TV show, Rhett & Link: Commercial Kings. After the episode featuring the commercial aired, Chuck Testa uploaded the commercial to his company's YouTube channel. The ad went viral, topping 13 million views (as of January 2013) and spawning the "Nope! Chuck Testa" Internet meme. The Chuck Testa ad was included in Time's Top 10 Memes of 2011. Also in 2011, Rhett & Link released a music video entitled "PHOTOSHOP Song" which was sponsored by Canvas on Demand.

After the move to Los Angeles and the cancelation of their TV Show, Commercial Kings, the duo launched Good Mythical Morning on January 9, 2012. The series took the same format as their previous show and added a "Wheel of Mythicality", containing suggestions from fans on how they would end the show, usually with a brief improvised scene.

In September 2012 Rhett & Link uploaded a video of them singing "All Night Long" by Lionel Richie, recording over 11 hours of footage starting at 7:25 pm ET on the Santa Monica Pier and ending the all-night recording at 6:30 am on Mt. Wilson.

Rhett & Link have been guests in three "Epic Rap Battles of History". On February 16, 2012, the duo was featured in a Season 2 episode of the series, playing the Wright brothers, battling the Mario Brothers. On July 14, 2014, Rhett & Link, along with Smosh, appeared in the season 3 finale of the series, in which they played two of the four Renaissance artists battling against the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Link played the role of Leonardo da Vinci and Rhett the role of Donatello. Their latest appearance was on May 25, 2015, opening Season 4.5 with the battle of Lewis and Clark vs. Bill and Ted. Link played the role of Meriwether Lewis and Rhett the role of William Clark.

In September 2012, the duo released the video "Epic Rap Battle of Manliness" sponsored by Build.com.

Good Mythical Morning ran its first three seasons ending on April 5, 2013 as the duo took a break from the daily videos to start a new show with a weekly format, The Mythical Show. The series won the Best Variety Series at the International Academy of Web Television Awards in January 2013.

After the end of The Mythical Show on July 11, 2013, the duo continued with the Good Mythical Morning series, now with an addition to the main GMM episode-Good Mythical More ("the show after the show") uploaded simultaneously to a separate channel in addition to their GMM channel. The 'Good Mythical More' episodes held on to their 'improvised on the spot' nature from earlier season of GMM while the main episodes became more and more structured. Season 6 of Good Mythical Morning premiered on July 14, 2014 with a new introduction sequence with animation by Digital Twigs and music by Pomplamoose. Several notable personalities, including PewDiePie, Mayim Bialik, Shay Mitchell, Bill Hader, Amy Schumer and Daniel Radcliffe have been guests on the show.

On April 25, 2013, Rhett & Link released the first episode of The Mythical Show on their second channel – a weekly 30-minute variety show on YouTube Thursdays at 5 pm (EST). Each episode contained a multitude of shorter videos starring Rhett & Link with other actors and YouTube personalities as guests, including Tony Hale, Jill Wagner, Kat Von D, Smosh, Grace Helbig, Shay Carl, the Fine Brothers, Tessa Violet, Hannah Hart, Paul Scheer, Key & Peele, Miranda Sings, KassemG. The duo also published individual segments of The Mythical Show as standalone videos on their main channel. The first season of The Mythical Show ended July 11, 2013 after 12 episodes.

In October 2013, Rhett & Link released a music video entitled "Epic Rap Battle: Nerd vs. Geek" which was sponsored by TigerDirect. They have made other Rap Battles, featured on their second channel, along with all their other music videos.

In December 2013, the duo released a music video in partnership with Buick's "In the Moment" campaign entitled "Get Off the Phone".

On September 27, 2013, Rhett & Link launched an audio podcast on iTunes, Spotify and SoundCloud called "Ear Biscuits," which airs every Sunday. The podcast debuted in the US on the iTunes charts at No. 22. and it is described as intimate discussions with each other such as how they became blood brothers, their close encounters with death, and more. They also interview other notable Internet personalities such as Grace Helbig, Julian Smith, Phillip DeFranco, PewDiePie and Rainn Wilson. They've had live recordings on VidCon as well as Rhett-and-Link-only episodes each month.

In 2014, the Rhett & Link YouTube Channel was listed on New Media Rockstars Top 100 Channels, ranked at No. 35.

The third season of GMM introduced the "Taste Test" series where the hosts guess the food in blindfolds, challenge themselves to eat something or compare a particular type of food across different brands. Some of the most popular videos in GMM from this series are the "Bug War Challenge", the "Ghost Pepper Challenge", the "Carolina Reaper Challenge" and the "Sriracha Challenge". The Season 5 of GMM brought in "Will It" series, where the hosts try and invent different varieties of a famous type of food with unusual and often increasing levels of disgusting ingredients. The first episode was aired on May 5, 2014 on Cinco De Mayo titled "Will it Taco" where they tried pine needles, baby shampoo and pork blood tacos. The series was also featured in The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon with episodes of "Will it Tea," "Will It S'more,", "Will it Hummus,", and "Will It Hot Dog."

In May 2014, a new segment sponsored by Gillette was included on Good Mythical Morning for the week subscription campaign, as well as with the release of the "Kissing Your Face" video on the main channel.

In May 2015, the duo released a new music video, "Just Being Honest", sponsored by Wendy's new beverage "Honest Tea". As well as Sip Me Up, a streaming marketing campaign on June 18 where the duo created personalized content for the fans in real time.

On May 6, 2015, Rhett & Link teamed up with Hot Pockets and released the "Will It Hot Pocket?" episode in their popular "Will It" series on Good Mythical Morning where the Hot Pocket crust was replaced with odd items based on fan-suggestions.

On June 5, 2015, a new segment on Good Mythical Morning was announced called "The Back Up Plan" sponsored by GEICO, where the duo explore different career opportunities. As of August 2016, there are 10 released episodes. Episodes have featured the duo trying the jobs of beekeeping, real estate sales, commercial cereal production, glassblowing, commercial flavor manufacturing, becoming potential "Marstronauts" at the Jet Propulsion Laboratories, aquatic animal keeping, ice sculpting, livestock auctioneering, and baking pies. The final segment served as both an episode of "The Back Up Plan" and an installment in their "Will It?" series. The segment subsequently ended within the season.

In May 2015, Rhett & Link released a new album with the songs from their series, "Song Biscuits", which involved them writing a song with a guest (or just themselves) within an hour and performing it. This album is entitled Song Biscuits: Volume 1 and is available on iTunes.

Several episodes of Good Mythical Morning in 2016 were sponsored by Amazon Echo.

As of July 2015, the podcast is number No. 14 on the iTunes US Comedy Charts. The podcast has won them a Shorty Award for Best Podcast in April 2016.

To correspond with their YouTube Red show, Rhett and Link's Buddy System, the duo released the album Buddy System (Music From Season 1) which includes seven songs, one from each episode. It was released a week before the premiere date in October 2016 and is available on Google Play Music and iTunes.

On March 20, 2017, their company, Mythical Entertainment, announced their new channel, This Is Mythical. The channel is a revamp of their EXTRAs channel, and it is run by the Mythical Crew. It contains several series such as: "This Is Mythical" videos, which are general vlogs; "Mythicalicious," a food series with varying themes; the return of "Ear Biscuits," Rhett & Link's podcast; "Ten Feet Tall", a series run by Mythical Entertainment crew members Mike Criscimagna and Alex Punch; and "GMM Recuts," a revamp of shorts formerly part of a playlist called "Gum Swallower's Digest," that contain cuts and edits of scenes from Good Mythical Morning, and are created by John Warder. In March 2018, the channel was rebranded with its new name simply being "Mythical". The channel is currently inactive as a result of Ear Biscuits being moved to the Good Mythical Morning channel (and then moving to its own channel on January 7, 2019) and has changed its name to Mythical on YouTube, Twitter, and Instagram.

On March 27, 2017, the podcast returned from a hiatus with a new video format on their latest channel, This Is Mythical, and had moved to the Good Mythical Morning channel. The podcast continued to be released on iTunes and SoundCloud, as well as Spotify.

Rhett & Link unveiled their book, to be published by Crown Archetype, Rhett & Link's Book of Mythicality: A Field Guide to Curiosity, Creativity and Tomfoolery on February 13, 2017. It was also made available for pre-order from several major online retailers on the same day. The front cover was shown for the first time during an interview with the duo on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon on March 24, 2017. Rhett & Link have described the book as "a hilarious blend of autobiography, trivia and advice" and will include the story behind their friendship and career, as well as tips on how to "add Mythicality" to the reader's life, supported by anecdotes from their own past. The book was officially released on October 10, 2017, and then made it onto The New York Times Best Seller List in the "Advice, How-To and Miscellaneous" section for the week ending October 14, 2017.

It was announced on May 16, 2017 that Rhett & Link would be going on tour around the United States in order to promote their upcoming book, performing at 16 theatres around the country. Tickets were made available for pre-sale the same day. The demand was so high that second shows were added to five of the theatres, bringing the total number of shows up to 21. Tickets were made available to the general public on May 19. A further two early shows were added to theatres in New York and Los Angeles on August 12, with the duo confirming this would be the last addition to the lineup, the final total number of shows at 23. Every theatre sold every ticket for all of these shows.

YouTube Rewind videos have included Rhett & Link since 2012. Rewind YouTube Style 2012 featured the duo and the Dope Zebra (who was part of LMFAO music video for "Sorry for Party Rocking"), YouTube Rewind: What Does 2013 Say?, YouTube Rewind: Turn Down for 2014 and YouTube Rewind: Now Watch Me Rewind had them dancing in ridiculous manners. However, they weren't included in Rewind 2018.

A few episodes of GMM were sponsored by Google's Pixel 3 in late 2018.

In 2018, it was announced that Rhett & Link would be performing three shows in Australia at the end of July. These shows were performed in Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane on July 27, 29 and 30 respectively.

Additionally, following the announcement of their Australian tour dates, the duo announced three further North American shows: Toronto, Atlantic City and Mashantucket on November 8, 9 and 10 respectively. It was also confirmed that these would be the last shows in 2018; however, there has been no confirmation that they would be the last tour dates ever.

The duo run a number of YouTube channels including Good Mythical Morning, which has 6.6 billion views and 16.6 million subscribers as of September 2020. The namesake show, Good Mythical Morning, is a talk show airing on weekdays at 6:00 am EST. With over 3.94 million subscribers and over 947 million views as of September 2020, a third channel called Good Mythical MORE airs directly after Good Mythical Morning and is described as the "show after the show". Their fourth channel, entitled "Mythical Kitchen" (formerly This is Mythical, as well as Mythical), featured bonus and behind the scenes videos, but has most recently been used for videos produced by and starring their crew. It has over 1.4 million subscribers and over 70 million views as of June 2019. Their fifth channel is for their weekly podcast called Ear Biscuits. It was originally presented on the GMM channel but was transferred to this channel on January 7, 2019. It has over 254,000 subscribers and more than 3 million views.

On February 22, 2019, it was revealed that Mythical Entertainment had acquired the Smosh brand (Smosh, Smosh Games, Smosh Pit, and others) after the channel's former parent company, Defy Media, had gone into liquidation. Ian Hecox, the co-founder of Smosh, explained that under the Mythical Entertainment banner, the channel would have full creative freedom and launch its own podcast, known as the SmoshCast.

On December 20, 2019, their company, Mythical Entertainment, announced their new channel, Mythical Kitchen. The channel is a hub for all food featured videos, and it is run by the Mythical Chefs, Josh Scherer, Nicole Hendizadeh, and Trevor Evarts. It contains several series such as: "Fancy Fast Food", which takes famous fast food items to the next level and "Snack Smash," a food series that combines two snacks to create one creative concoction.

On January 7, 2019, the podcast was moved from the Good Mythical Morning channel to its own separate channel.

On February 4, 2019, the Ear Biscuits SoundCloud account stopped posting the podcast, and continues to remain inactive.

The Lost Causes of Bleak Creek was published on October 29, 2019. It is a thriller novel co-written by Rhett & Link and Lance Rubin, largely based on Rhett and Link's experiences in their home town of Buies Creek, North Carolina. The book reached No. 13 on the New York Times Best Sellers list.

The November 10 show was the final show of the Tour of Mythicality. In February 2019, Rhett and Link held a concert in London as part of Vidcon London. They had a number of other concerts in spring, summer, and fall 2019 under the title Rhett and Link Live. As of November 2019 there have been no touring.