CollegeHumor Originally founded in 1999 by
Josh Abramson and
Ricky Van Veen, then-independent website CollegeHumor was acquired by holding media and entertainment company
IAC in August 2006. CollegeHumor's work originally only included editorial articles, but eventually expanded to include online video and development and production of TV shows. In 2013, the video production CollegeHumor team moved to Los Angeles to continue to create online and traditional video consisting of shows like
Adam Ruins Everything and
Hot Date as well as sketch and short-form comedy on its
YouTube channel. In the mid-2010s, CollegeHumor syndicated its content to various companies, including
Condé Nast Entertainment,
DailyMotion, Samsung,
Vessel, and Watchable. CollegeHumor subsidiary Big Breakfast signed a deal with Verizon's
go90 streaming service in 2015, which included the show
Fatal Decision and a commitment of ten video clips per month for the platform. CollegeHumor's then-CEO, Rich Cusick, announced the service as a "TV-MA version of CollegeHumor" that would "allow us to double down our investment into premium original content, resulting in a bigger, better, badder CollegeHumor." CollegeHumor's Chief Creative Officer,
Sam Reich, also claimed that the founding of Dropout was in response to difficulty in receiving advertising dollars on traditional media platforms for mature content. At launch, Dropout announced a mix of scripted and unscripted content, as well as digital comics and chat-story content and a subscriber-only Discord. Dropout officially launched native
iOS and
Android apps for its service in December 2018, allowing users to watch shows and also cast to smart TVs. Comics and chat stories were also integrated into the app.
Independent ownership (pictured in 2024) acquired a majority interest in the service in 2020. Dropout planned to release a new original title per month in 2019, according to Sam Reich. However, the programming slate did not allow Dropout to pivot quickly enough away from scripted content and it was still not profitable by the end of 2019; Reich later noted that "we had a writer's room full of scripted comedy writers. All of us were sort of having to pivot to think about something that wasn't our primary skill set." Because Dropout was in the middle of a $30million subscription investment, the streamer was on track to "lose" another $10million by the end of 2019 before it would be profitable. IAC kept a minority stake in Dropout, Reich stated: {{Blockquote In August 2023, Reich announced that all Dropout shows had resumed production as it was determined that their "New Media Agreement for Non-Dramatic Programming" was actually a non-struck SAG-AFTRA contract. Dropout also pays performers to audition. Later that year, Dropout
shared its profit with its employees and other workers, In August 2025,
Variety reported that
Brennan Lee Mulligan had "struck a new three-year development deal at his longtime home media company Dropout". In the 10th episode of
Game Changer seventh season,
Vic Michaelis and
Aabria Iyengar were elected as
honorary presidents of Dropout. == Production ==