Dropout is a game-changer for comedy and creators
If you don't know Dropout, you're missing out on the next wave of groundbreaking comedy.
On its surface, Dropout is a subscription streaming app that offers a vast library of funny unscripted shows, including Dimension 20, Game Changer, Very Important People, Dirty Laundry, and Make Some Noise.
However, CEO Sam Reich isn't just management at this independent TV production company spun off from CollegeHumor. He's also one of its stars, hosting Game Changer and Make Some Noise opposite such hilarious improv comedians as Brennan Lee Mulligan, Vic Michaelis, Lily Du, and Jeremy Culhane — to name a few.
Beyond running a platform that celebrates improv, Reich has broken from Hollywood standards in exciting ways, encouraging password sharing among subscribers, paying for auditions, profit-sharing with contributors, and offering freelance contracts rather than demanding talent exclusivity. Plus, Reich and his Dropout team have mastered the art of social media promotion.
In a video interview, Reich told Mashable, "That's how people are finding the platform," noting that 75 to 90 percent of Dropout sign-ups come through social media, rather than traditional paid advertising.
Clips from Dropout's most popular shows not only spur sign-ups for the platform but also made Mulligan a TikTok star before he even had an account. Now he's got over 400,000 followers, thanks to improv games with his fellow Noise Boys (Josh Ruben and Zac Oyama), his scorching monologues, and the hilarious hoax "Brennan Resigns," which was a viral video pitch from Michaelis for Game Changer's "Fool's Gold" episode.
Though he's at the heart of some of Dropout's most viral videos, Mulligan is conflicted about being called a content creator.
"It has a certain, heartless sterility to it that is not my favorite," Mulligan said in a separate video-call interview with Mashable, adding, "It's not a fun term for what I do." Still, Mulligan acknowledges that the label serves a practical purpose, given the breadth of work involved in making online entertainment.
Mulligan is the creator, executive producer, and game master of the Dungeons & Dragons-inspired series Dimension 20, in which improv comedians team up to play a homebrew version of popular tabletop role-playing games (aka TTRPGs). Similar to many of Dropout's stars, he also pops up as a guest on other Dropout shows, including Michaelis's talk-show parody, Very Important People, as well as Game Changer and Make Some Noise.
At its inception, [the term content creator] was meant to differentiate people who work in film and TV and people who create things on their own and create things online. That line is just getting blurrier and blurrier.
“In some ways, content creator is more accurate," Mulligan said, "Because part of what I do is being an entertainer. But I'm also working in a producer capacity. Like, there are a lot of producers that might not be entertainers, but are content creators, right? So that's a nice way to actually include more people than maybe the term entertainer could include."
For Michaelis, "content creator" signifies a break from the Hollywood establishment. "At its inception, [the term] was meant to differentiate people who work in film and TV and people who create things on their own and create things online," they told Mashable, adding, "That line is just getting blurrier and blurrier. And it's very cool to have a space in the Wild West of content creation."
Where TV networks must appeal to broad audiences and advertisers to make a profit, content creators have the freedom to be far more niche, and by extension, more experimental, with lower overhead. This Wild West can be difficult for any content creator to navigate, especially as platforms like YouTube, TikTok, and Instagram shift on what they'll allow to be shown and said.
Reich and company aren't gatekeeping their path to success. Here's how they transformed a floundering College Humor YouTube channel into the new wave of groundbreaking comedy.
Dropout: Lore and Labor
Believe it or not, Brennan Lee Mulligan's path to entertaining Dropout subscribers with an array of game-centered shows began with him winning $50,000 ("after taxes, it was like $34,000") on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?
"For a content creator like myself," Mulligan said, "Who has never been shy about my distaste for the turbo-charged nightmare capitalism of the moment we find ourselves in, it's really worth mentioning that I have been able to live as a creator who, on a very profound level, is just beyond lucky for the fact that I get to be a professional creative doing essentially my favorite hobby for a living. Doesn't happen if I don't win a chunk of cash on a televised game show."
He explained, "Without winning that money, there's no move to California. Without moving [from New York City] to California. I don't get the job at CollegeHumor. I don't meet Isabella Roland, my wife and the mother of my children. I don't care to think about the world that exists without getting on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?"
Little did Mulligan realize that his job making comedy videos for CollegeHumor would lead to another gamble: Dropout. In 2018, YouTube ad revenue for CollegeHumor was cratering. So, the company looked to pivot to a subscription model, where ad sales wouldn't be required and more mature content — the kind censored by YouTube — could be explored.
Mulligan recalled the general fears about this shift, detailing how he felt: "Oh, we're doing a streaming platform. I'm toast." He also shared how, in a company meeting, someone worried aloud that this shift could be like "jumping off the ship of the YouTube channel just into the ocean. And this interim CEO extended the metaphor, and was like, 'It might seem ill-advised to jump off a ship into the ocean and just try to swim. What if I told you the ship's on fire?'"
Mulligan made the leap and created one of Dropout's first shows with Dimension 20. Reich, who was CollegeHumor's chief creative officer, came too, and launched Game Changer the following year.
However, after a year of operation, Dropout's parent company, IAC, wasn't seeing the return on investment it hoped for. IAC was considering selling to a rival company. Reich pitched them an alternate option: Sell to him for no money and a minority stake in Dropout. News of the sale hit in January of 2020. Reich tweeted about it, including a plea to hire the many staffers who'd been laid off.
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After these layoffs, Reich brought many comedians back as freelancers, including Michaelis. There's an upside to this arrangement for on-camera talent. Reich explained on the Decoder Podcast that TV show productions typically demand exclusivity, which bars their talent from working on other projects.
Because Dropout doesn't make such demands, it doesn't need to cancel series to release performers from those holds. This means Michaelis can fly off to Hungary for months to shoot Peacock's Ponies, Mulligan can do a guest spot on Ted, and Jeremy Culhane can become a Saturday Night Live cast member and still appear on episodes of Game Changer Season 8.
"It's also really smart," Michaelis told Mashable, "Like wanting your talent and your staff to be working on their own stuff and then coming back to you creatively fulfilled and excited and having new ideas and things like that. It's the smartest move you can make. It seems maybe a little counterintuitive. But it makes Dropout a really special place to work."
Dropout goes from meta to mainstream
As its name suggest, Game Changer is a show in which the game changes each episode. Dropout's social strategy capitalizes on the company's diverse output by having separate accounts for each of its shows, then feeding TikTok and Instagram Reels with clips from each episode. This strategy has successfully risen Dropout's profile online and grown its subscription base. But with the Game Changer Season 7 episode, "Fool's Gold," Reich and company took their social strategy to a whole new level.
"Fool's Gold" allowed Dropout's wide swath of freelance comedians to come on and pitch could-be viral videos, Shark Tank style. Not only did the episode create a flood of social media videos that could attract new viewers to the platform, but also it launched one that went so viral that it sparked a Google Easter Egg. With over 3 million views on TikTok, that video showed Mulligan, arguably Dropout's biggest star, declaring he was resigning from the platform to become a cobbler of American Girl Doll Shoes.
As Mashable covered at the time, Mulligan's mock resignation became such a pop culture moment online that Google created an Easter Egg alluding to it. If you googled "Brennan Lee Mulligan" in July of 2025, your results page would rain with women's shoes.
Asked about this particular Google moment, Reich said, "Dropout is like Fight Club, in that we have influential fans everywhere. They're all hiding out in these giant jobs. And I just want to know who I have to thank for that."
Still, Dropout is in what Reich calls its "awkward teenage years." However, the approaching Emmy award nominations could prove a big moment of growth for the studio. In April, Variety reported that Dropout had put forth Game Changer and Very Important People in 11 categories for Emmy consideration.
Asked about Dropout's Emmy potential, Michaelis, who has been submitted in the lead comedy actress category — the same area where Saturday Night Live cast members have proved competitive — said, "It does really feel like we are at a tipping point right now." Citing the immense popularity of Rhett McLaughlin and Link Neal's Good Mythical Morning as a non-Dropout example, they continued, "Some of these shows are going to start getting recognized [by awards bodies] because of their popularity and their quality."
"The quality is there. I really do think we're on the precipice of them starting to be recognized in these more traditional spaces," they explained. "Do they fit perfectly into those boxes?" No. But the Oscars are moving to YouTube… There's a podcast category now for the Golden Globes. Things are starting to change."
The fans powering Dropout's success
Something else that sets Dropout apart from its bigger-budget rivals, such as Hulu, HBO Max, and Netflix, is that the company's CEO is front and center on the platform and on social media.
As the face of Dropout, Reich announces news like a price hike via a video rather than in sterile email blasts. Typically, when a streamer announces a raise in price, there's much teeth-gnashing on social media. Incredibly, Dropout's news of a price hike for new subscribers prompted a resounding response from those who said they'd happily pay more. Reich said of the news, "We lost a lot of subscribers that day who then signed up immediately again."
He confirmed that Dropout's data showed many viewers canceled their subscriptions to avoid being grandfathered in to a price-hike exemption. Basically, these fans were volunteering to pay more. And this sentiment led Dropout to launch its Superfan tier, which follows a Patreon model, offering bonus content like behind-the-scenes features and advanced access to purchase Dropout merch and live event tickets.
Subscribers asking to pay more? In this, Dropout shows it's fostered the kind of goodwill with its subscribers that Netflix and HBO Max can't buy with an array of award-winning, high-budget series. Sure, you love Stranger Things and The Last of Us, but are you DMing Ted Sarandos and David Zaslav to ask them to pay more to watch them?
Of Dropout subscribers, Reich said, "I happen to know, just vis-à-vis the data, that there are a lot of fans — and I mean a lot of fans — who unsubscribe to resubscribe, you know? And if we had a role to play in that exercise, I would actually hope that it's something along the lines of, 'We'll be there for you when you need us.'"
Reich is grateful for all Dropout's fans, including those who just watch on social media or borrow a password to watch on the app. "Sharing your password is a form of marketing," he said. "People subscribe not only because they want to see this stuff, not only because it's paywalled, but also because they want to support the work that we're doing; it can have that effect. Listen, every bit counts."
