Rhett and Link – aka Rhett James McLaughlin and Charles Lincoln Neal III – are old, at least compared to the rest of the list of the highest-paid YouTubers – some of whom are as young as five-years-old. At 42 and 41 respectively, this comedy duo are the OG YouTube stars. They host the popular daily show Good Mythical Morning, on which they eat things like Cheetos flavored Pop-Tarts. They have four channels, a podcast, and two books. They also bought the network Smosh for $10 million in February 2019. Over the past year, Rhett and Link brought in $17.5 million.
Rhett and Link met in the fall of 1984 on their first day of first grade at Buies Creek Elementary School in North Carolina. The duo has written a song and made a documentary about their fortuitous first meeting called Looking for Ms. Locklear. Both young men were required to stay inside during their first recess because both had written swear words on their desks. During that indoors recess, they colored in mythical creatures such as a unicorn, which led, many years later, to their YouTube channel name, Good Mythical Morning.
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By the time they got to college, it was 1996 and the two were roommates at North Carolina State University. Rhett graduated magna cum laude with a degree in civil engineering in December 2000. Link graduated summa cum laude in May 2001 with a degree in industrial engineering. They got jobs in their respective fields, but eventually quit to focus on their YouTube channel.
Rhett and Link joined YouTube on September 18, 2008. Today, their channel Good Mythical Morning has over 6 billion views and more than 16 million subscribers. They describe their channel: "Welcome to Good Mythical Morning with Rhett & Link! Tune in every Monday-Friday to watch us eat truly unbelievable things, explore surprising new products and trends, compete in original games with celebrity guests, implement serious experiments in hilarious ways, and more."
The most-watched videos on the Good Mythical Morning channel are "Eating a Scorpion – Bug War Challenge" with over 27 million views, "Amazing Game Show Cheaters," also with over 27 million views and "World's Hottest Pepper Challenge – Carolina Reaper" with over 26 million views. As of June 2019, the most-watched videos on their channel are "My OCD (Song)" with more than 49 million views, followed by "Epic Rap Battle: Nerd vs. Geek" with over 44 million views, and "I'm On Vacation (Song)" with over 29 million views.
Rhett and Link now both live in Los Angeles and run their Burbank-based production company Mythical Entertainment together. They each have a net worth of $16 million.
