Blue Mouse microphone with shock mount, used by Rhett and Link
date: label: date made
content: ca 2014
name: label: user
content: McLaughlin, Rhett James
label: user
content: Neal, Link
label: maker
content: Blue Microphones
notes: label: Description
content: Blue Mouse microphone with shock mount, used by Rhett and Link in YouTube videos including the Good Mythical Morning series. The Rhett & Link videos usually conform to a familiar YouTube format, with two performers sitting next to each other at a table with a microphone in between. This microphone is made of silver-colored metal with the main part of its body coated in a black enamel paint with a gold-colored Blue logo affixed to it. A green plastic band with the Mythical Entertainment logo has been placed around the top of the microphone body. The microphone head is attached to the body with two arms, affixed at the sides allowing the metal mesh pop screen and microphone to swivel along the vertical axis. The microphone has a three-prong audio connection jack at its base, along with a threaded screw mount. The microphone is stored in a box made of stained wood with a sliding top and black foam insert cut to securely hold the microphone. “Mouse” is printed in black ink on the top of the box. The shock mount is a silver-colored metal cage with black fabric elastic cords attached to absorb shocks and a threaded metal screw mount attached at one side.
label: Description
content: Blue Microphones are frequently used by musicians and podcasters seeking quality sound recording equipment at a retail price level accessible to amateurs and consumers. The company was founded in 1995 by American musician Skipper Wise and Latvian recording engineer Mārtiņš Saulespurēns. The company's name is a backronym for Baltic Latvian Universal Electronics, and the company was originally headquartered in Latvia. Blue specialized in low-cost condenser microphones with USB connections for digital recording in the home with software like GarageBand. The company became known for its accessible and affordable Snowball microphone, popular with aspiring professional musicians and hobbyists. Subsequent products, like the Yeti and Mouse, became popular microphone choices for podcast and social media video recording as well. Blue was acquired by Logitech in 2018, and now lists Westlake Village, California as its headquarters.
label: Description
content: Rhett & Link are among the most popular and influential entertainers to have built their careers on the YouTube streaming platform. Rhett & Link call themselves “Intertainers,” and have earned millions of followers and dollars in a 15+ year career producing social media content, in the process building a profitable media company, Mythical Entertainment. Forbes has called them “YouTube’s grand old men and as two of the platform’s most consistently lucrative stars,” and the duo has been staples of Forbes’ top-earning YouTubers list, appearing every year since its debut in 2015.
label: Description
content: Rhett James McLaughlin (born in Macon, Georgia October 11, 1977) and Charles Lincoln "Link" Neal III (born in Durham, North Carolina June 1, 1978) met while attending elementary school together in Buies Creek, North Carolina, where they became fast friends and creative partners on school projects. Both evangelical Christians, they joined a Christian punk rock band called The Wax Paper Dogz, and performed in comedy sketches for a religious organization, Cru, while in college at North Carolina State University. The duo began posting comedy and music videos on YouTube in 2006, first as part of a Christian ministry for Cru and then independently, without religious content, on their channel Rhett and Link.
label: Description
content: The duo’s flagship talk/variety show Good Mythical Morning launched in 2012, and has aired more than 2,500 episodes, becoming “the internet’s most popular daily talk show,” with over 9 billion views and 18.6 million subscribers as of February 2024. In each roughly 12-minute episode of the series, Rhett announces a topic, with Link adding “Let’s talk about that!” and the duo will explore the theme with trivia, taste tests, skill challenges, product reviews, games, trivia questions, and conversation, sometimes with special guests. The most popular videos feature Rhett and Link eating extreme foods like the world’s hottest pepper or a scorpion, investigating television game show cheaters and amazing optical illusions, and testing the limits of deep frying and making popsicles and ice cream sandwiches. The duo have a friendly rapport, goading each other with supportive and comic banter and overcoming challenges with a sophomoric yet charming lack of shame or embarrassment. Their everyman appeal, fun-filled hijinks, and seemingly unlimited imagination and budget for novelty draws on historical precedent including entertainers like illusionists, contortionists, vaudeville comics, radio and television variety jokesters, children’s television “playhouse” programs, late night television hosts, and the gross-out humor of cable series like Jackass.
label: Location
content: Currently not on view
place: label: place made
content: China
label: used
content: United States: California, Burbank
topic: label: associated subject
content: social media
label: associated subject
content: Comedy
setName: label: See more items in
content: Culture and the Arts: Entertainment
label: See more items in
content: Popular Entertainment
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: National Museum of American History
identifier: label: ID Number
content: 2024.0104.01
label: accession number
content: 2024.0104
label: catalog number
content: 2024.0104.01
objectType: label: Object Name
content: microphone
physicalDescription: label: Physical Description
content: metal (microphone material)
label: Physical Description
content: metal; elastic fabric (shock mount material)
label: Physical Description
content: wood; foam (box material)
label: Measurements
content: box: 4 in x 12 in x 5 in; 10.16 cm x 30.48 cm x 12.7 cm
label: Measurements
content: microphone: 7 1/2 in x 4 1/2 in x 3 in; 19.05 cm x 11.43 cm x 7.62 cm
label: Measurements
content: shock mount: 5 in x 6 1/2 in x 4 1/2 in; 12.7 cm x 16.51 cm x 11.43 cm