LIVERPOOL, N.Y. — Inside a make-believe pizza shop overlooking Onondaga Lake, a team of digital creators, filmmakers and young actors spent months cooking up a show that they hope will serve Netflix something it craves: a fresh audience.
“Minimum Wage,” a mockumentary that follows teens who work at a pizza shop, has garnered more than 30 million views across YouTube, TikTok and Instagram since launching in May 2024.
Now, Netflix is betting that Gen Z audiences will watch the viral hit in its expanded form on the streaming giant — and pay to view it.
The media company’s decision to acquire the show reflects a broader shift in Hollywood’s battle for younger viewers, as streamers increasingly turn to internet creators and their built-in fan bases to drive subscriptions and engagement.
Of course, it’s not a new strategy. For years, the industry has tried to tap into YouTube’s massive roster of creators. Sometimes, it’s a success: Amazon Prime’s reality competition series with YouTuber MrBeast, for example, became the platform’s most streamed unscripted series of all time. Other times, however, it’s more of a bust — like Netflix’s “Haters Back Off,” a comedy series with former YouTube star Colleen Ballinger, aka Miranda Sings, which was canceled after just two seasons.
But there has been a noticeable uptick in creator content across streaming in 2026. According to data from London-based market research firm Ampere Analysis, first published in Puck, creator-led programming across 16 U.S. streaming services surged more than 300% in the third quarter of 2026 compared with the same period a year earlier.
“YouTube is not just UGC [user-generated content] and cat videos anymore,” Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos said during the 2025 fourth quarter earnings call. “They are TV. So we all compete with them in every dimension for talent, for ad dollars, for subscription dollars and for all forms of content.”
With “Minimum Wage,” showrunner writer and executive producer Will Phelps said his agent at UTA “called up all the different streamers, and a couple different streamers wanted it … so we got multiple offers.”
He did not disclose which streamers were vying for the show’s rights. But in the end, Phelps said, Netflix emerged as the strongest partner for American High Shorts, the production company behind the project.
“We wanted to do it the way we were doing it on YouTube, but just on a bigger scope,” said Phelps, who co-showruns with Jeremy Garelick and Axelle Azoulay.
“And rather than pushing us to do something glossy and different, Netflix let us do what we do best,” Phelps added. “Except for now, we have a huge platform.”
Phelps, Garelick and Azoulay were able to retain creative control over the writing and directing.
And Netflix allowed the original cast of largely unfamiliar faces to stay on — including Grace Reiter, who recently joined “Saturday Night Live.”
Comedian Randall Park was also added to the ensemble, playing Terry Sylvester, founder, CEO and franchise owner of the struggling Slice Club pizzeria chain.
Episodes are typically between 12 and 20 minutes in length, as opposed to the traditional 30-minute sitcoms that populate network television.
Phelps, a veteran of the entertainment industry, said he believes the key to making a quality show is maintaining the elements of a strong story, while tailoring the format to the viewer’s attention span.
Recent data from UCLA’s Center for Scholars & Storytellers (CSS), a nonprofit research center, supports his assertion.
Nearly 4 in 5 of the 1,500 survey respondents ages 10-24 said short-form videos can tell a story, according to the fifth annual “Teens and Screens” report, which was published in October.
While older generations identify storytelling with books, TV and movies, the same boundaries do not exist for younger generations, the report found.
“This is the first generation to grow up on video-first platforms, so for them short, creator-driven video simply is television,” Yalda T. Uhls, founder and CEO of CSS, told NBC News in an email.
For shows like “Minimum Wage” to succeed on streaming, young audiences have to find it authentic.
Thus far, the show has picked up buzz among viewers. The week the show launched, it was in the global top 10 of shows on Netflix, placing sixth behind Season 11 of “Love is Blind.”
Critics have also praised it — helping it notch a fresh score of 81% on the Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer. One reviewer described the series as Gen Z’s version of “The Office,” NBC’s hit mockumentary sitcom that was set at the fictional Dunder Mifflin Paper Company in Scranton, Pennsylvania.
“A show like ‘Minimum Wage’ arrives with proof that an audience already loves it,” Uhls said. “The key is to bring over what made it work, meaning the creator’s voice and its authenticity, instead of polishing it into something generic.”