Since announcing the creation of his own YouTube channel and its content source, Seven Bucks Digital Studios, Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson has been pumping out plenty of material for his nearly 1.5 million subscribers. Some of its more popular posts, like a video of Johnson and Moana composer Lin-Manuel Miranda singing “You’re Welcome” from Disney’s new animated film, aren’t channel originals. On the other hand, the premiere of Johnson and Miranda’s internet-only Millennials: The Musical is, and it’s exactly what it sounds like — a musical, about millennials, created by The Rock and Hamilton‘s Lin-Manuel Miranda.
“It is opening night of our musical. The cast is prepared,” exclaims Johnson. “And most importantly, the show as always must go on.”
“So please enjoy our production of Millennials: The Musical,” Miranda adds by way of introduction. Sure enough, the barely 15-minute show’s opening number begins with Crystal, a 22-year-old startup employee who’s about to go on a Bumble date before she suddenly realizes she can’t find her phone. Because, you know, “My Millennial Life” wasn’t chock full of enough generational stereotypes to begin with — so the writers had to throw in the most likely source of staged drama millennial viewers would actually buy.
The short number is actually kind of fun to watch, or as Johnson puts it at the end of the video, “OMF Lin that was lit as AF.” Ignoring the fact that the wrestler-turned-actor got his lingo wrong (“AF” already has “as” in it), the behind-the-scenes video his YouTube page posted a week ago — which features the dramatized story of Millennials: The Musical‘s creation, rehearsal and performance — is also entertaining.