From Sundance: Sean Evans and Rhett & Link on the Future of Entertainment at BrandStorytelling Creator Day

“Hot Ones” is a YouTube show in which host Sean Evans scrupulously interviews famous guests as they eat increasingly spicy chicken wings. It has featured star talent ranging from Billie Eilish to Gordon Ramsay, and produced meme-ified moments including Jennifer Lawrence’s uber-famous “What do you mean?” outburst, with a total view count of over 4 billion — that is, billion with a “B.”

YouTube channel Good Mythical Morning is no slouch either, hosted by childhood best friends-turned-YouTube creators Rhett James McLaughlin and Charles Lincoln "Link" Neal III. Like Evans, Rhett & Link are most famous for their food-inspired YouTube content. To give just two examples, their “World’s Hottest Pepper Challenge: Carolina Reaper” and “Making Real Food w/ Play-Doh Toys” videos amassed over 25 million views apiece.

YouTube creators might at first seem out-of-place at a Sundance Film Festival-sanctioned event, but Evans, Rhett, and Link are no ordinary YouTube creators. “Hot Ones” was nominated for “Best Talk Show” in the 2025 Critics Choice Awards, and the “Rhett & Link’s Wonderhole” TV series has been acclaimed by critics and fans alike.

YouTube creators have finally left the sidelines and taken the field, transforming public perception of short-form video content from disposable content to essential, celebrated, and here-to-stay entertainment media. BrandStorytelling, as its title suggests, is an organization that connects brands with storytellers, and it recognizes this turning point in short-form video content.

BrandStorytelling’s inaugural “Creator Day” showcased short-form video creators and collaborators at one of the year’s “most influential cultural events” according to “Creator Day” co-host and curator Gabe Gordon. Brands like YouTube, Ray-Ban, Meta, SiriusXM, and Whalar were represented, as well as “Creator Economy experts” from Doing Things, Ensemble, Feastables, Hartbeat, NowThis, Paramount+, and Portal A. To close out the day’s festivities, BrandStorytelling invited Evans and Rhett & Link to a Fireside Chat, where they discussed their careers and the future of entertainment.

During the chat, Evans pointed to TV and radio icons — not YouTube creators — as his “formative role models,” including David Letterman, Conan O'Brien, Jimmy Kimmel, and Howard Stern.”

“When you look at where the show has gone, its place in culture, the guests that we interview, the views that we get, it’s absolutely worthy of comparison and competition with those other shows, and then some categories it actually weighs pretty favorably over on our side,” Evans said.

Rhett also swept false modesty aside. Referencing a big moment for Good Mythical Morning and its place in the entertainment pantheon, he said, “Last year, the microphone that sits in the center of our desk was archived in the Smithsonian.”

This type of unfiltered pride isn’t uncommon for YouTubers like Evans and Rhett & Link, who value authenticity over all else. Starting out as Davids, these YouTube creators have built Goliath institutions known the world over, and their success story is in no small part due to “the level of connection” they foster with their fans, as Link said.

“I think that the connection that [the fans] build with content is the connection that they build with the person and the people on screen in a way that you just don’t get with traditional media,” Link explained. “If you’re gonna tell narrative stories, you're not gonna feel as connected as with someone who's just being themselves on the other end of that screen.”

But these connections aren’t made overnight, and YouTube stardom isn’t always as hunky-dory as it might seem from afar.

Offering advice to aspiring YouTube creators, Evans said, “Unless you’re sick in the head and need to do this, just get a normal job, because it will make you miserable and you are exposed and creative work can oftentimes be embarrassing and vulnerable and you’re always there for immediate feedback.”

Rhett cheekily said to Evans, “Damn, Sean. I gotta be real, you know. You're just talking me out of the whole thing.”

This cynical side of the conversation came to a halt, though, when Rhett broke out into song.

“Anything you can be, you can do! Anything you may be, might come true!” he sang.

Whether their content is seen on phone screens or movie screens, Evans and Rhett & Link are world-class entertainers. Rhett’s improvisational, breakout lyrics were just one example of his dedication as an entertainer to drawing attention to himself — and keeping a firm hold of it.

“We don’t want to become just subject to the whims of the audience, because they'll chew you up and spit you out. But you want to take them into account,” Link said. “But just be one step ahead of them and create the thing that they're about to start liking.”

While this innovative approach to storytelling is certainly important, there are also tried-and-true approaches that have stood the test of time, whether or not they’re immediately apparent to the entertainment doomsayers of today.

“At the end of the day, trends can change, things can happen, but people rolling up with a blanket on the couch and watching something that invites the next episode in a binge (but isn’t that great of a commitment), I think that's timeless, and that’ll never go out of style,” Evans said, discussing the parallels between “Hot Ones” and the sitcoms he grew up watching.

“I expect things to change a lot,” he continued. “But the classics and the behaviors of people and what they’re looking for, it’s not that different from what I was looking for when I was a kid or what my dad was looking for when he was a kid. So I think as much as things change, I’m kind of betting on things staying the same.”

—Staff writer Joseph A. Johnson can be reached at joseph.johnson@thecrimson.com. Follow him on X @onlyjoejohnson.