Drew & Madeline Phillips
Not everyone who is a twin is blatant about it. It’s not always on purpose; even I would forget to tell my friends and teacher that I had a twin until they brought it up. When they are boy girl twins its especially hard to tell. So when relatively new listeners, like myself, of the podcast “Emergency Intercom” heard co-host Drew Phillips say he was a twin, it brought a shock. Especially since she was a content creator too. Drew and Madeline Phillips are another set of Vine Era twins. Unlike other sets of twins they would rarely film any Vines together and were primarily independent of one another, despite making fairly similar content at first. They both were filming small skits and jokes and all around comedic content from 2013 on Vine until about 2016 where they transitioned to Youtube. Drew remained creating engaging comedic content enjoyed by fans new and old while Madeline switched to the growing sensation of vlogging her daily life; which each of them continue to do.
They truly and successfully built individual names for themselves which you do not see very often with twins in social media. Most, if not all twins I’ll speak on in this blog rose to popularity together and are of the same gender. Drew and Madeline did not have any gimmicks, or twin based content that got them where they are now. Drew has been a host of the comedy podcast Emergency Intercom since 2020 and Madeline is a family vlogger with her husband and daughter. Two very different areas of content creation where they both are respected and popular. I mean most fans of either twin didn’t know they were twins until the past year or even still don’t know. Even when they feature in one another’s videos, the comments are filled with fans shocked that they’re related let alone twins. Personally, I don’t think they even look very similar which furthers the disbelief that they are twins. Maybe it’s because they are boy-girl twins so it becomes harder to believe since they’re not identical doubles of each other like the Dolan Twins or Brooklyn and Bailey.
Fraternal twins can look similar but often don’t look the same, Madeline and Drew are no different. They became popular separately by making similar content before they diverged into content that better matched their own personalities. The twins rarely making any videos or content together effectively separated their personalities and channels to the point that many fans of one twin are unaware of the other. And because of that I feel that they left a positive impact on society views of twins. They showcase that being a twin doesn’t have to make you popular nor is it all you are. They were not made popular for being twins or looking like twins and really could not partake in the typical gimmicks of being a twin like mirroring each other because they were fraternal. They truly are two separate people and gained popularity on their own for their own audiences and off their own personalities.
Comments by Jaidyn Rivera