With 5.6M followers on YouTube, twin sisters Brooklyn and Bailey are not your typical, regular college students. Monday through Friday, they sit in their Intro to Entrepreneurship course like everyone else. But over the weekends, they escape the campus with scripts and cameras in their hand to shoot videos for their widely-popular channel.
In VINAZINE’s exclusive interview with the twins, we covered it all—friendship lessons learned the hard way, making friends in the public eye, and the struggles of balancing school and work. Check it out:
VINA: Thank you for talking to VINAZINE! So what’s it like to do a YouTube channel together, be twin sisters and go to college together? How has your friendship changed over the years?
Bailey: I’ll definitely say our relationship and our friendship have changed a lot in the past few years. Especially because our channel’s grown into more of a business. And so we definitely have not only learned how to run a business together, but also keep the friendship aspect of it, of course. I’d say it actually got a lot stronger, because we’ve been able to work through those things in every situation, right? We have to trust each other, and consider each other’s opinion and all of those aspects of a friendship. So I feel like it got a lot stronger.
Brooklyn: And now we live together in college and we’re kind of on our own. The only person in our family that we have with us is each other, so it made us a lot closer in that aspect as well!
VINA: What do you think was one of the friendship lessons that you had to learn the hard way?
Brooklyn: Woo… I guess it would be the fact that not everyone is going to be exactly like you. I grew up always having one significant best friend. But the older I got, the more I realized, it’s better to have multiple friends around you. You get to experience different things. I guess it’s just that some friendships grow and change, and as it changes, you drift apart. And some friendships grow and change and you get closer. I guess the hardest lesson I learned was just to be OK with the things that happen.
VINA: Is it difficult to meet new friends, being in the public eye? Do you have to be careful that they’re not using you for your fame or just to be on your YouTube channel?
Brooklyn: I will say it’s difficult in a sense that there will always be people who are gonna be in it for the wrong reasons. But that’s why it’s also important that you have a really strong group of friends that surround you and who are super close to you. Because usually what happens is if you can’t nip off the people that are in it for the wrong reason, usually your friends and family can. And so, being able to define that close-knit group, that’s what supports you the most.
Bailey: To be honest, yes. But only recently. That definitely brought some struggles. Because in high school, we grew up with our people. So, friends from high school were genuine from the start. But because we’ve been trying to make new friends in college, I ran into a few problems when Brooklyn and I saw people like that, and we were not able to detect it. And some of our other friends who knew us beforehand or who were really close to us, were like, ‘I heard them say this and this.’ and they’re definitely not wanting to be friends for the right reasons. And we had to reevaluate that relationship. So there’s been a couple of those. Surprisingly, most of them have been guys. Mostly with Brooklyn. That’s been interesting. That’s something that has come up, just a little bit.
VINA: Would you say that it is lonely being a YouTube star or an influencer? For those reasons?
Bailey: Brooklyn and I feel like there’s kind of a hole in the market for YouTubers our age. Like there aren’t very many YouTubers who are going to a full-time college and doing YouTube at the same time. I’m not aware of anyone else doing this. And so I would say that in that aspect, I feel a little bit lonely. We would go to VidCon or BeautyCon and not very many people would be able to relate with the aspect of going to a full-time college and doing YouTube at the same time. And so in that aspect maybe a little lonely. But also, a positive thing because we are able to show girls that that’s possible to do both. We are breaking through that hole. So it’s kind of a balance of both lonely and also really cool that we’re able to do that.
VINA: Do you think it would be even harder if you guys didn’t have each other?
Brooklyn: I definitely think it would be harder if we didn’t have each other. I mean we’ve always grown up having each other around. So even when Bailey’s out of town, I have to have a friend come sleep in my room because I just don’t know how to sleep in a room by myself because I always have Bailey around. And I feel like it would be the same if I try to run a business by myself. I don’t know if I could. Because I’ve always had Bailey around. I definitely think it would be hard
VINA: What made you guys want to put college at the top of your list? What made you want to take that balance?Brooklyn: Education has always been extremely important to us. But our channel is also based on authenticity and we want to be the kind of girls that we want our audience to be. And we want to be able to embody the types of expectations that we would have for anyone else. So going to school, we want to show the little girls watching our videos that they can go to school and get an education and that’s important. So we wanted to be able to do that as well. And we also just wanted to get a degree and get to that milestone in our lives.
VINA: Do you ever got FOMO when you’re in class or studying and you see what other influencers are doing?
Brooklyn: I’ve never actually experienced those feelings. I feel we’re privileged to be able to experience a normal life and also get to have this YouTube world. It’s almost like a Hannah Montana life. A little bit. So I’ve never felt FOMO or jealousy towards any of the other influencers because I feel like we have a very special thing happening in our life.
VINA: Got it! Now for some fun. Anyone who creates a profile on Hey! VINA is asked to describe themselves in five emojis. So what 5 emojis would both of you say you would describe yourself in?
Bailey: Oh man, I have to look at my emojis to see what options I have. This is hard. I think Brooklyn and I would probably take the same one. I say definitely that laughy face, the heart eyes, maybe the clapping hand, the shrug, and…what else… Oh yeah, the dancing twin. Let’s do those. The dancing twins. Editor’s note: here you go girls! 😂😍👏🤷♀️👯
VINA: If there was a celebrity that was on VINA that you would swipe right on, who would it be?
Bailey: We both really, really love Zendaya a lot. We love what she stands for, we love that she’s so young and teen and doing a lot of careers. And we also love Emma Watson and everything she stands for. She went in education while still pursuing her passion. So we like her as well.
VINA: My last question is, what top qualities do you look for in a friend?
Brooklyn: I definitely have to say loyalty and honesty are my top two characteristics that I look for. Just someone who’s gonna be loyal to me. And even if I’m not there, just consistently being my friend. And then honesty. If we have a problem, or something happened, they’re just upfront to me about it, or they’re not lying. That’s super important to me as well.
Thank you for talking to VINAZINE, Brooklyn and Bailey! Keep up your love and passion for each other and for all that you do! Are you in search of a friendship like Brooklyn and Bailey’s? Get the Hey! VINA app now and start swiping today!
Photo credit to Brooklyn and Bailey’s Instagram @brooklynandbailey
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