The Dolan Twins

Being a twin in the rise of the social media era made gaining popularity easier than for most. Twin brother comedy duo Ethan and Grayson Dolan are the perfect example. Beginning their career in 2013 on the now extinct app Vine, their short videos often depicting themselves as mirrors of one another made them more than popular. They amassed over 6.4 million Vine followers and continued to grow after switching to Youtube where they had 11 million subscribers. Their mirrored image drew many in and the twins capitalized on that. However, it was not just their doubled appearance that made them popular, they were also conventionally attractive which wildly boosted their popularity. Especially in their time on vine, young girls were enthralled with teenage boys that were attractive and knew it. Their Vines together consistently had more views and likes and went more viral than their videos alone. They were aware and aptly named their Youtube channel “The Dolan Twins” and continued to make twin based content like pranks on friends and families, buying each others outfits, and doing twin based challenges. While their content did venture into general challenges, vlogs, engaging videos, or collaborations, it always included one another.

Unlike many twin based channel, they were not interested in doing things separately or creating individual names for themselves. The only time they ever filmed separately was for a challenge or competition where they would reunite and be filming together by the end. From the beginning of their channel to their last regular upload, Ethan and Grayson’s videos involved being a twin. Being an identical twin was their whole channel but was not their identity. Their separate personalities were easily seen in their videos. While they were both rambunctious teenagers, Grayson could be seen as the more level headed twin and quiet at times, not wanting to be too loud in public and being hesitant when filming in public. And Ethan being consistently outgoing and down for anything filming in public with ease and more than willing to pull a prank that involved strangers. Their looks similarly followed with Grayson consistently keeping a more mellow and tame look and Ethan, while not totally crazy, had a consistently colorful dyed strip of her hair. As they grew older the twins also got a lot of tattoos, none of which matched and further diverted themselves from looking similar but their reputation and popoularity for being a twin had been long established.

The Dolan Twins goal, despite being identical and largely capitalizing on that, was never to be completely identical or two separate internet personalities; instead it was somewhat of an in-between. They created their platform off of being doubles of each other and transformed it into being entertaining brothers who filmed everything together. I wouldn’t say they made a positive impact on societal views of twins due to their constant together-ness, if anything they profited from it. Media often portrays twins as connected by the hip, and much of society believes, which you could say Ethan and Grayson are. However, they did it more so as the gimmick for their videos and it could be said it wasn’t actually a part of their daily life. Unlike channels like Brooklyn and Bailey who often did things separate but were filming their daily lives not just videos. So while they may have had a negative impact on societal views of twins I wouldn’t say it is a lasting one as what they posted was not of their real lives but planned portrayals of a twin centered life.