Rhett & Link On Building A (Mythical) Media Empire, The Price of Public Friendship, & Leaving The Evangelical Church

We definitely thought of YouTube as a stepping stone to make something in traditional entertainment. The traction on YouTube kept growing. On one hand, in the traditional world, we're doing a lot of creative work that never gets seen. Meanwhile, on YouTube, the minute we have an idea is the minute that we can turn around and make it. And we're also making money doing it.

We want to tell increasingly ambitious stories, but we don't want to ask permission. All the titles are clickbait. All the thumbnails are clickbait. But at some point we're focusing more on connection and less on engagement.

So we're going to cover a lot of ground today. We're going to talk about Christianity, we're going to talk about comedy, evangelicalism, and entrepreneurship. We're going to get into a little spiritual deconstruction. We're going to talk creative persistence and longevity, the current state of the Internet union, what's important to understand about our rapidly evolving media and entertainment landscape, and most importantly, the importance of true friendship.

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