The media company ushering in a new age of creative content.
By Theo Pieczka-Garner
DropOut, a media company which evolved from the CollegeHumour YouTube channel, is entering 2024 with a packed schedule of creative content for subscribers to their streaming service Dropout.tv. After officially dropping the CollegeHumour moniker back in September of last year, DropOut is entering a new age of creation—rapidly growing its current content and expanding to explore new avenues.
Dropout.tv may not have the same number of subscribers as streaming giants like Netflix, Disney, or Amazon Prime—but for its size, the streaming platform boasts a truly impressive breadth of creative content. DropOut has pioneered over fifteen different original comedies, game shows, mockumentaries, and actual-play TTRPG series since its humble beginnings in 2018. In the first two months of 2024 alone, Dropout.tv subscribers have seen new seasons of DropOut classics Game Changer and Dirty Laundry, not to mention the launch of the hilarious all-new comedy series Very Important People hosted by comedian Vic Michaelis. That is to say nothing of the long-awaited third season of Fantasy High, the founding series of the actual-play TTRPG show Dimension20.
What makes DropOut so special as a production company, though, is not just the amount of content it produces, or the unique creative value of such content, but that it is fundamentally grounded in community. Headed by CEO Sam Reich, DropOut is made up of a solid yet ever-growing cast of talented comedians, and despite its remarkable growth over the last five years has managed to remain true to its ground-roots origin.
Each and every show that DropOut produces brims with the infectious excitement of a small group of friends who get to make something they love and care about together. And this is embedded into their ethos as a company.
DropOut drew some attention last summer during the SAG-AFTRA strikes, when production was paused on Dimension20, GameChanger, and Um, Actually. Reich made abundantly clear his stance on the importance of the strikes, writing on Twitter that “Without the talent of our performers, we are zilch. Zero. Nothing”, also stating “I pride myself in that Dropout has always paid above SAG minimums [...] we will strive to do even better, and then even better still”. Reich has also publicly stated that he wants DropOut to be one of the first streamers to pay residuals to all actors, writers, and crew—even though this isn’t required by unions. By August, DropOut was able to resume production after reaching an interim agreement with SAG, naming its programming policy as a non-struck contract.
So, whether it’s innovative game shows like Game Changer (the show that, no duh, changes the premise of the game every episode), comedy series like Very Important People (comedians get a blind makeover and create a character on the spot to be interviewed on Michaelis’ fictional chat show), or the expansive world-building of Dimension20—DropOut seems to be entering a new era which calls on the streaming world to evolve with its viewers.
Just as the fan-favourite Fantasy High, which relocates the familiar world of Dungeons & Dragons to a John Hughes-esque high school setting, is entering its ‘Junior Year’, so does Dropout.tv. With an upcoming Dimension20 live UK tour in April, a comedy special series DropOut Presents being filmed live in LA this month, and a brand-new fan-made podcast (The DropOut Drop-In) hosted by Liz Duff in conversation with “Unoffical DropOut Reporter” Jordan Brown and “Game Change-HER Expert” Marissa Longo about all the latest DropOut news—there’s never been a more exciting time to be a DropOut fan. I know I certainly can’t wait to see what they do next.
