OG: Approved - Shroomates
Featuring the Next Generation of Storytellers Rising from the Creator Economy
Welcome to OG: Approved—where rule-breaking creators shape the future. Hand-picked by Open Gardens, they’re not following the playbook—they’re writing the next one.
Name: Shroomates
Instagram: 1K Followers
Who Are Shroomates?
Shroomates is a scripted comedy series about twins trying to build a mushroom startup before the startup eats the family alive.
Ben and Jessie Russo are the siblings at the center of it. Ben thinks he is building the future. Jessie is trying to keep the future from overdrafting. He talks like the company was sent to him by the universe. She talks like she has already checked the bank account.
Brent Pella plays Ben. Pella is a stand-up, a Wild ’N Out alum, and a digital comedian who has spent years around exactly the kind of character Ben is: the wellness guy, the podcast guy, the festival guy, the man who mistakes confidence for a business plan. Ben does not feel like a random founder parody. He feels like one of Pella’s guys finally opened an LLC.
Nikki Howard plays Jessie. Howard is an actor, comedian, model, and digital creator with her own following, and her existing work with Pella on The Audacity gives the sibling dynamic a head start. Jessie is not just there to roll her eyes. She is the person who saw the disaster coming, warned everyone, and still ended up on the cap table.
The official premise is simple: two siblings launch a mushroom company and take themselves far too seriously along the way. The show understands how much comedy already lives inside that sentence. Psychedelic wellness. Startup language. Family labor. Product development. Spiritual branding. A mission statement written before anyone solves operations. None of it needs much exaggeration.
The company behind the series is Schedule35, a real mushroom brand. That is the part that makes Shroomates more than a funny account. Schedule35 did not just hire comedians to make ad sketches. It built a fictional version of its own world and let the comedians attack the exact culture the brand lives inside.
That is a much better move. Most brands want to be loved. Shroomates is willing to look ridiculous. The joke is not anti-mushroom. It is anti-founder bullshit. Anti-wellness cosplay. Anti-people who call every problem a journey because they do not want to admit they forgot to order labels.
The series also has a real creator stack around it. Pella and Howard are not random actors dropped into branded content. They are internet-native comedians with an existing rhythm together. They have made sketches, podcasts, festival-adjacent comedy, and character work that already overlaps with the Shroomates world. Schedule35 is borrowing more than their faces. It is borrowing their comic language.
That is why the casting works. Ben and Jessie do not feel like mascots for a company. They feel like characters who could actually have emerged from this corner of culture. The kind of people who know just enough about psychedelics, branding, and manifestation to become dangerous in a Google Doc.
The smartest piece is the structure. Shroomates gives Schedule35 a repeatable story engine. Every normal business problem becomes an episode. Hiring, naming, product testing, market research, moving home going viral and making chocolate. The brand does not need to interrupt the comedy because the comedy already comes from the business.
Three Things We Love About Shroomates
The brand is willing to be the joke: Most branded entertainment protects the company until the comedy has nowhere to go. Shroomates does the opposite. Schedule35 lets the show make fun of the exact world it lives in: wellness language, founder delusion, product panic, family labor, and people turning a business plan into a spiritual calling.
Ben and Jessie are a real comedy engine: Brent Pella and Nikki Howard give the series more than a premise. Ben is the guy who can turn a bad idea into a mission statement. Jessie is the one who knows it’s a bad idea and still somehow ends up on the cap table. That sibling dynamic gives the show somewhere to go beyond mushroom jokes.
It turns startup problems into episodes: Hiring someone, naming the company, doing market research, making chocolate, moving home, trying to go viral. Every normal business problem becomes a story problem. That is the repeatable engine most branded series never find.