The Evolution of Niki and Gabi...

[Music] hi friends hello hi how are you i hope you guys are having an amazing day today hello hi welcome so today's video we are doing a video that has been highly anticipated and highly requested from you guys and i've been working on this video this is actually okay spoiler alert this is like the third time i'm filming this video and that is because this topic these two people we're going to talk about today there is so much number one and number two because they have a joint channel and also two separate channels figuring out how to do a layout for this type of video was very hard for me so i apologize for people who have been waiting for a few weeks for this to get up i'm really excited because today we are doing the evolution of nikki and gabby dimartino here on youtube now if you don't know who they are if you're not that's what this video is about it's telling you who they are but i do just want to quickly say that today's video is thankfully sponsored by case device roll the clips video is sponsored by castify i've been using case defy cases for a while now and pretty much the number one reason why i love these cases so much is because not only are they adorable like look at this cactus so cute not only are they adorable they also really protect your phone and prevent any sort of cracks or breaks in your screen not only are case device cases slim and protective their impact cases are engineered with two layer construction of chi tech and they're drop test approved for up to 6.6 feet which basically just means that your phone is so much more protected than using some type of cheap amazon phone case probably my favorite thing about case defy is that you can customize the phone cases with your initials or your name also have a ton of adorable designs that will match basically any mood that you are in also they're partially made of recycled plastics so you can feel really good about your phone looking great if you want to get some adorable phone cases you can go to castify.com smokeyglow today and get 20 off your purchase thank you so much to castify for sponsoring this video and supporting the channel and i hope you guys will go check them out thank you so much again to castify and i'll be sure to leave the link down below to get some cute phone cases i'm wearing my little butterfly one right now got my little pop socket on it um okay let's jump right in there's a lot of information we got to get through and hopefully this one actually works so a couple of months ago i did a video called the evolution of lifestyle youtubers and basically i talked about kind of the influencers that were grown adults but were still making back to school content and kind of how the genre of lifestyle influencer evolved and where some of the main people in that genre are today and actually initially when i did that video i was going to include nikki and gabby in that because i would argue they are two of the more successful lifestyle youtubers today they've been able to evolve their content relatively well to stay pretty relevant and maintain really good views on youtube which i think is something you know to be proud of but as i research them more and more i kind of realized that they have a very interesting story on their own that would actually be very cool for a video like this mickey and gabby dimartino are twin sisters who are currently 25 years old and they live in pennsylvania sometimes they go back and forth between la and pennsylvania but right now they're both in p.m their first video was uploaded on september 3rd 2012 which was a demi lovato inspired hair tutorial that only featured nikki and then the following day a video on how to look like ariana grande featuring only gabby was posted i think it's important to note that while this channel their nikki and gabby beauty channel which is what it was called back in 2012 before that channel they actually had another channel they got like a little bit of popularity that was basically them and their friends doing sort of skits or spoof videos that were super super popular on youtube back in the early 2010s those videos never really took off for them and they basically decided that they wanted to start their own sort of twin channel and that is how nikki and gabby beauty was created it kind of seems like in the beginning they wanted to be a collab channel in a more traditional sense so they really didn't appear in videos together super often in fact it was a couple of months before you even saw them together at all it was really just they would pick a concept so say they wanted to do like a hair tutorial and one of them would do it for their hair and the other one the next day would do a separate video for them or if they wanted to do room tours one day one would show their room the next day the other would upload a video showing the others room and it kind of worked like that where they did back and forth style content you can see some days two videos from the same person will be posted in a row but for the most part they alternated posting videos and posting content on their channel you can definitely tell from their early sort of videos which this makes sense because in 2012 lifestyle youtubers were a thing but beauty youtubers were a lot more prominent so you could kind of tell in the beginning that they wanted to be more makeup and fashion and beauty youtubers and focus more on that instead of doing these sort of daily vlogs or challenge videos that lifestyle influencing kind of turned into their early videos basically consisted of like room tours makeup tutorials hair tutorials and also since they were still in high school they would often do kind of school vlogs which would just be basically them and their friends like messing around in lockers you know i think it's really interesting to note that in the beginning nikki and gabby look so similar that it's actually incredibly difficult to tell them apart um like they it's it's crazy how similar they look in the beginning especially compared to now where they definitely both look a lot more different but i will say that from the get their personalities were very obviously different they were definitely the stereotypical opposite twin where nikki was a little bit more tomboyish and she was maybe a little bit more like edgy and gabby had the very girly princess vibes that she was always going for so that has not changed at all throughout the years they're sort of different personas on the internet their hair tutorials and stuff actually did do pretty well in the beginning but i would say for the most part their views kind of started out a little bit slower it wasn't like they posted two videos and then blew up overnight i would say that their view and subscriber gain is pretty consistent with how other youtubers were doing during the 2012. so there weren't as many people on the platform of youtube so you weren't seeing the tanimo shows like blowing up and getting a million subscribers in one month the views and the growth was a little bit more gradual now in april of 2013 they posted their very first video that was together and they called it the twin tag and this was basically just them just kind of showing again how opposite they were so for example nikki would be like i like sunglasses and then gabby would be like i like bows like it was very much from the get their whole thing was opposite twins and that is what they stuck with throughout their entire career now during this time in 2013 they were definitely growing and having a lot of success but you can definitely tell especially by like the comment sections of a lot of their videos that their fan base skewed a little bit younger than they were which makes sense i think a lot of it was just young girls looking for maybe like fashion and beauty tips and they stumbled across nikki and gabby like their personalities and then sort of became fans of them a video that i found really interesting was uploaded in 2013 and it was basically nikki and gabby partaking in the draw my life challenge uh where you kind of like draw everything on a whiteboard and like do a voiceover about your life and it showed a lot of really interesting insights into their life during one part especially when they were talking about their experience in middle school they discussed how they had to be really really close because they were kind of severely bullied in middle school and they felt like it was a very them against the world mentality so that they have this really really tight bond because of the sort of things that they went through now in 2013 the twins both started college and you could definitely see a shift in their content during this time it kind of went from very high school vibes to college vibes so instead of room tours we were getting dorm tours and instead of like hair and makeup videos we got a lot more of those like look book lifestyle type of videos so about a year after posting in late 2013 they were at about 100 000 subscribers which for the time 2013 that's a very large channel and they had a large following that really looked up to them kind of like older sisters like if you go through the comments of their older videos that's kind of the number one comment is people feel like they're getting advice and learning from these two girls like they would their sisters even during this time they were still very much doing the making separate content thing they still weren't appearing in videos together that often and they were really sticking to the i upload a video this day you uploaded this day however at the end of 2013 they filmed their sort of first official sit-down video where they like sat down together and filmed just talking to a camera and this was a haul video and based on the comments and the engagement on that video you can see that this went over really really well for their channel like their subscribers loved seeing them together loved their dynamic and loved seeing all of the stuff that they bought which prompted them to do a what i got for christmas haul in 2013 sitting down together and this also kind of started doing more videos together and not so many apart now this i actually didn't know and i thought this was super interesting but i guess in 2014 they produced a show with awesomeness tv it seems like it was like a youtube show that was basically just a lookbook show it was really supposed to be like a fashion show where they showed different outfits and different styles i couldn't find a ton of information on what happened to this show or how everything happened but i found their announcement video and i find it to be really interesting that they worked with awesomenesstv back in 2014 because later on they would go on to have a reality show with awesomenesstv that was basically their version of spring breakers now in 2014 you can start to see the twins change their appearances to look different and i don't think this is that weird i think some people react especially reading those comments a lot of people reacted poorly to them doing this but for example gabby dyed her hair lighter she went sort of a blonde color nikki dyed her hair darker and kind of a little bit edgier of a color and i honestly think that this is just normal teen behavior i feel like most teenagers go to college and go through somewhat of an identity crisis where you're just trying out a bunch of different things trying to find your vibe your look i also would imagine that that sort of pressure to find your own identity was really heightened when you consider the fact that they're twins and that they were constantly being compared to each other on the internet however by doing this i think a sort of unintentional effect was that they were branded even more like the opposite twins because now you have one that's blonde and one that has black hair one is more girly one is more edgy and it sort of made their differences even more prominent the more they change their physical appearances now in 2014 even though they weren't filming those sort of sit-down videos together as much they were definitely vlogging together a lot more and doing these more lookbook videos together and it seems like their fans really loved it they started really really blowing up in 2014 and that's definitely when their subscriber count started like popping off it's also really important to note that at this point in their career their content was very family friendly like it was super pc super family-friendly like we're talking premium youtube ads like they were not doing any sort of really racy or sexualized content in the slightest everything was very kid-friendly and honestly i can see why from a business or financial perspective that's a really smart move i don't believe that was necessarily authentic i think definitely in these sort of videos they're playing a little bit more of a family-friendly character that a lot of people realized at the time now in the summer of 2014 this is definitely where there was a really big shift in their content together this was their first big sort of move and that was to start filming pretty much all of their videos together they stopped doing the individual videos and for the most part every video on their channel started to be videos of them together first one which has so many views it's ridiculous but it was called the opposite twins morning routine it basically showcased everything we've already talked about how different their lifestyles were like gabby woke up and birds were chirping and she like had a cinderella nightgown on and nikki woke up and like plaid pajama pants and like got dunkin donuts i don't know they really just tried to showcase and really push on the fact that they had completely opposite personalities almost to the point of like it was very mary kate and ashley olsen like i feel like that's kind of where they drew in inspo from because it was very much like one is a tomboy one is a girly girl done no intersection happening in the slightest that's also loki why i think a lot of this was sort of them playing characters because there's no way that they were just that drastically different like they had to have some similarities we know now that they have similarities so anyway now nikki and gabby definitely fell into that traditional lifestyle influencer sort of genre that i've already talked about my other video but to summarize it basically they fell into that doing back to school videos despite the fact that they were like 21 years old that in college but they were doing like back to high school videos they would do uh sort of skit style videos about what it was like to be back in high school and this really only further pushed their sort of family-friendly image and also started this sort of skit style content that they would do on their channel which was very popular in like 2014 2015. they had this series that was called get the look that seemed to be really really popular on their channel where basically they would show how to look like a celebrity on a budget so they did people like demi lovato gabby did audrey hepburn where they showed how to sort of turn yourself into this celebrity the videos were actually good like the production quality was really good it was almost like a well-produced tv show if that makes sense wasn't necessarily their personalities shining through too much it was more scripted now when they first started shooting videos together it actually seems like their dynamic on camera paired together very well because nikki was definitely a little bit more like energetic and out there and gabby had a much more sort of subdued personality so the two definitely meshed well on camera and it also seemed like they genuinely liked and enjoyed being around each other 2014 also was the year that they started posting more cover style videos they had posted covers on their other channel and they had sprinkled covers into this channel as well but this was when they first started doing more professional style cover like music videos so by the spring of 2015 they had hit 1 million subscribers and they were definitely on this kind of train of well-produced high quality content that was definitely a little bit scripted and really really played into this sort of opposite twins trope do not take a shot every time i say opposite twins don't don't do it pause okay i'm kidding that's from their video but i did actually write pause in the script i've watched too much of their content um no pause because i feel like it's really important to break something down here um because we're at the 2015 point and it's important to note the obvious problem with portraying yourself on the internet as opposite twins and that sort of obvious problem is especially when you have a young audience your audience is going to identify with one or the other because you're offering two ends of the spectrum and people will either identify with abby being super girly or maybe they'll identify more with nikki being more tomboyish but this sort of opposite trope led to a lot of competition and also led to their fan base hating on the twin that they didn't identify with i don't know if nicki and gabby could have foreseen that happening um because obviously hindsight is 20 20. like obviously i know what happens in their journey so it's easy for me to look at this uptick in opposite content and see the very obvious flaw with that plan which is that it's going to split your audience um so it's easy for me to say that i don't think they knew at the time that's what was going to happen but it definitely has had a lasting impact on their content because to this day if you go through their comment sections it's fairly obvious during different phases of their career that one twin was liked a lot more than the other and if one twin was kind of being praised it usually meant that the other was getting a lot of hate and vice versa for a long time gabby was kind of the popular twin because she was a little bit more calm she had the very girly vibe that was a little bit different she was very extra and people really gravitated towards her which meant that nikki ended up getting a ton of hate for not being like gabby but now it's almost like they've switched nikki is a lot more popular so gabby is starting to get a lot more hate basically i think any time that you're constantly comparing yourself to another human being especially someone who looks just like you as an identical twin i think anytime you do that in a positive or negative way it's really just going to be a recipe for disaster but i always question because obviously it was good for their career to do that they've blown up they've become incredibly successful being this sort of shtick but i always question if personally on a personal level they regret marketing themselves that way and i kind of think they do based on the way they talk about it and their videos and everything i think they do regret marketing themselves so heavily as opposites because it definitely put a divide in their fan base which i'm sure mentally really messed with them as well now nikki and gabby also have put out some original songs their first one in 2015 was called it and the song isn't like bad i mean it's not a horrible song their singing isn't awful but it's definitely not like superstar quality it's very much like youtube music music video type thing especially this song in particular the songs that they do together are very much like youtube music video but i would argue that nikki actually has some bangers on her own gabby i'm not a big fan of her music but nikki's music is actually pretty good i like it now 2015 is also when they really hit their stride and they just started blowing up on the platform they were gaining millions of subscribers they started going out to la to collab with other influencers and this is when they really became a part of the lifestyle genre and were kind of cemented in that category because they were hanging out with people like teala dun alicia marie that was their crowd and they definitely fell into that group they also participated in the girls night in tour which i talked about my lifestyle influencer video that tour was bananas it was just them like lip singing covers and dancing and playing with balloons but anyway so they did that but they also performed their original songs so in 2015 nikki also dyed her hair blue which became kind of a defining trait for her gabby went even more blonde and again this really just continued the narrative of being like opposite twins they were really stretching it out as far as they could that they were exact polar opposites um and also they were posting like skit videos covers they had those like expectation versus reality videos that usually did really really well for them and at this point i think they really turned their back on sort of traditional beauty content like they didn't do the chit chat get ready with me as they didn't do makeup looks they didn't do hair tutorials anymore and they really just dove head first into lifestyle as a genre on youtube and now in 2015 something very interesting happened which is that they both started their own individual vlog channels so nikki had nikki demar and gabby had fancy vlogs by gab and while these channels were successful they got a lot of views and subscribers this i think even further put that divide in their online relationship because gabby's channel always had more subscribers her videos got more views than nicki independently and i think that that definitely hurt mickey especially during this time it's very obvious watching their vlog channels who cares about youtube as like their craft and that is nikki but i think the separate vlog channels really showed who was kind of the brains behind the nikki and gabby channel because nikki was very obviously the one doing the editing because her vlog editing was so good gabby's was just kind of like cut together clips you know didn't really have a concept it was just her vlogging her day whereas nikki had these really cool concepts and i also think that in 2015 after they created their separate vlog channels this is where i could definitely see more tension building on the actual nikki and gabby together channel there started to become this sort of level of competitiveness between the two girls that there hadn't been before they did their separate channels as well now in 2016 i would argue that this was definitely a year where a lot started to change for them i would argue 2016 was a very large sort of pivotal moment for them and their channel in 2016 gabby started getting a lot of plastic surgery and personally i don't really know if the topic of influencers talking about plastic surgery um is a topic that can be covered in this video because i would actually make a whole video about that honestly because i think it's a really interesting topic to discuss there's a lot of sides to it but i will say that gabby did get a lot of criticism for getting all of this plastic surgery and also in 2016 they started getting in sort of scandals they were starting to get called out by their fans for having their videos be so over produced and not really authentic gabby gotten some scandals because she was like rude to a starbucks employee and it was you know she snapchatted about it so she seemed really out of touch i think again that sort of cloud that followed them their whole career about them being out of touch and spoiled really came to a head in 2016 because a lot of the fans that had started following them back in 2014 were two years older and maybe didn't connect with the twins like they used to especially given that it started to kind of seem like their egos were inflating with the success of their youtube channel i think they were facing kind of growing pains that a lot of lifestyle youtubers faced in the year of 2016. because for the last three years they had been incredibly family friendly and acted like young characters and these skits while also being like 22 and 23 year olds um and wanting to post like bikini pictures and act like mature adults in their vlogs and content it was kind of this battle between staying as a character and becoming an actual person and being real and true to who you were i think in 2016 and i think a lot of lifestyle influencers felt this but i think nikki and gabby especially are a good example of influencers who almost felt like they were living this like double life where they would go out and party at night but then the next day be posting a first day of school expectation versus reality video and honestly that split was seen in their vlog channel and their main channel content because their vlog channel was all about them partying and hanging out with their friends and you know doing all these crazy things but then on their main channel they're doing like diys it just wasn't adding up and i think a lot of their fans started to notice that sort of shift in personality from the main channel to the vlog channel i think 2016 was incredibly successful for them numbers-wise but it's clear from the comments that their core subscriber base like the people that had been there with them from the get were just kind of fed up with this sort of fake and not real content you could tell that they wanted to see more sit-down videos that reflected their real personalities and less of these skits which if you look at kind of trends on youtube checks out by 2016 i think most people were fed up with skits and things like that on youtube people wanted more real authentic sort of long-form content now in early 2017 nikki and gabby actually addressed this which to their credit especially looking at the kind of careers of other lifestyle influencers they did this a little bit earlier than other lifestyle youtubers did most lifestyle youtubers kind of tried to milk the trends all the way through 2017 and 2018. nikki and gabby i think did something that was really smart which was that they listened to their audience early they didn't wait until everything was kind of falling apart they didn't wait until views were low because they were still getting really good views at the end of 2016. like they still probably made bang their videos were doing fine but i think they listened to their subscriber base pretty early on and started to make those content shifts early enough that it felt a little bit more organic and i think this is something that they don't get enough credit for is they were able to adapt from that sort of high school family friendly content into this more mature adults but still you know family-friendly-ish but this sort of adult-like concept that was more authentic to them they made that transition probably the best out of all of the lifestyle influencers that were in that genre because they did it so early i also think because they were so honest while they were definitely still doing that more trendy content that was happening in the lifestyle genre they started inputting more of their actual personalities into their skits and sketches and started making them a lot less scripted and made them more sort of challenge based which i think really really helped get to know them as people a little bit better now as i mentioned before get nikki and gabby had worked with awesomenesstv and in 2017 they started a show with awesomenesstv called nikki and gabby spring break and the premise of the show was basically them and their hometown friends renting this big airbnb and having like a week-long vacation somewhere the early seasons of the show were actually shot like in pennsylvania so instead of like going somewhere they just like had spring break at an airbnb like 10 minutes from their house which is kind of weird but like whatever the show itself i have a whole video on season five i actually watched all of season five i've actually watched all the seasons at this point but i watched all of season five and i had a lot to say about that show um so you can go watch that if you're interested in my thoughts on the show overall but basically it was kind of a jersey shore wannabe type show where it was just like kind of overly produced drama friends fighting you kind of question why they even like each other in the first place but then they're all friends again in the end like that's kind of the gist of the show so that was all happening and then also on their main channel they started doing these more competition based videos so they started to see like who could style an outfit better and they would have their fans vote in the comments below whose boyfriend was better and they would like have their fans vote down below who was better at you know taking pictures or doing this diy thing and they would have their fans vote down below and i think that this sort of voting and competition again just really really really intensified this sort of nikki versus gabby debate within their fandom and i think that this again i'm sure view wise it was great you can look at the views i'm sure they made so much money but like emotionally i can imagine it's incredibly difficult to be just constantly compared and constantly critiqued and constantly kind of put up against a person who is physically your twin and i think it was even harder because it wasn't sort of a fair and balanced like sometimes nikki one sometimes gabby won in these early videos it was pretty much always gabby who was winning like gabby was always always always winning these challenges people would always say really negative things about nikki and you could tell that this put a negative strain on nikki in particular especially because it has been discussed in recent years that she was doing the majority of the work for the nikki and gabby channel as far as like editing and concepts and you could see that gabby really didn't put in as much effort she kind of just like showed up yet she was the one getting all of the attention and all of the credit and all of the praise and nikki was always the one that was kind of the butt of the joke and the fans didn't seem to connect with her as much so i can understand why especially from nikki's perspective she would be incredibly frustrated with that but also i do think that in a way they put themselves in that position in the first place also during these videos like they would do like life swaps or style swaps they always were just low-key dissing each other in the videos and being like mean about the other person's style like nikki would tell gaby she'd have to wear these cut out jeans and gaby would like roll her eyes and make a joke about how horrible nicki's clothing was and that again like just fueled their fans into hating one twin or the other you could definitely tell towards the end of 2017 and into 2018 that they were starting to make more mature content the content definitely reflected their age and demographic a lot better and again i think because this happened organically over the course of a year instead of someone like alicia marie who did like an about face and i just completely revamped her channel all at once i think that that's why they were able to maintain this level of success during this time i will say they definitely did fall a little bit victim to that sort of disney channel syndrome that i've talked about in other videos where i think they did sometimes try to push the boundaries and push it just a little too far like for example they have a song called hair tie um i don't really want to talk about the song because i don't want to get demonetized but it's basically like you need a hair tie um and if you know you know and that's all i'm going to say about that it was weird it was a weird song it was a weird music video it was super weird because it's like two sisters singing about and it was weird it was a weird song i think they went a little too far and i think their music in particular was a place where they really tried to be a little bit more edgy and push those boundaries of being less family-friendly um their main channel videos still were pretty pc but definitely the music videos got kinda edgy and weird which i think a lot of people criticized like a lot of people they also started doing more individual music in 2017 which also made it really clear who was kind of more serious about youtube and who wasn't uh because gabby's songs and videos were often really low quality like not super well done not great whereas nicki's tended to be a little bit more high production value you could tell that she put a lot of thought into the songwriting process like hers were definitely objectively better but again gabby because she had a much stronger fan base her videos tended to get more views and tended to do better despite objectively being the worst of the two [Music] and also i think in 2017 you started to see a shift on their vlog channels because nikki started treating her vlog channel almost like the main channel she started doing these like fashion challenge videos where she would like shop at weird stores and try to style the outfits she would do diys on her channel videos always had a sort of concept and a clear theme to them whereas gabby definitely stuck to more traditional vlogging it was just kind of day in the life which there's nothing wrong with that you could just tell that they're two styles and their commitment to youtube was definitely very different now during this time gabby also started a series on her vlog channel that was called blood queens and basically this was her recreating scream queens it was like her owed to the show that she really liked and it got cancelled so she wanted to kind of create her own version of the show and again i think i don't mean to sort of diss gabby but it's just so obvious to me especially looking at production value who kind of put in the effort with youtube and who was kind of skating by off of guaranteed success because the blood queen series is objectively really really bad it's really bad it's like not good if the production quality is horrible the acting is horrible the scripting is horrible the attention to detail is abysmal like the show itself the way that gabby did it is just like not good like i understand maybe not wanting to put a ton of money into something that might not make a lot of money but she's on like season five of doing this blood queens thing now and it has not gotten at all better like not even a little bit better now despite all of this despite gabby's videos being a lot less quality and a lot less time put into that her videos were still outperforming nicki's in 2018 and i think that again you can really tell the strain that was starting to be put on their relationship in 2018 their videos you can just tell they low-key like do not like each other when they're filming together you can tell that they're happier doing their own thing filming their own content and when they're together there was almost this like tension that i know it isn't even just me that got picked that picked up on it because all of their comments are talking about this weird like tension that they have with each other this weird sort of competitiveness this weird sort of dynamic that they've created it was like little things like you could tell that when nikki lost a challenge she would get like actually upset that she lost and the fans voted for gabby again you could see gabby like always rolling her eyes at nikki and making snide comments about her and it made the dynamic between the two honestly really uncomfortable to watch not only for me but like their fan base i think started getting a little bit uncomfortable with the dynamic and i think this was honestly exacerbated by the reality tv show that they were doing with awesomenesstv because they were constantly fighting on the show and i think it really really showed how off camera and off their sort of scripted set that they were doing these videos on off of that they really did not get along like they argued constantly they yelled at each other they said horrible things to each other gabby was like very mean like incredibly mean and nikki was always really upset with her the reality show kind of pulled back this curtain because on their main channel they very much presented as like yes we're opposites but like we love each other very much but then when you saw the reality show it was pretty apparent that they like did not like each other very much they fought constantly and i grew up with three sisters like and mostly close in age like i get it having sisters is hard you fight all the time but there was some like very vicious behavior happening between the two of them that you could sense on their main channel videos but now you have like proof that it was actually happening because of this reality show i also think that during this time in 2018 it's really important to talk about the sort of perception of nikki and gabby outside of just their fan base because obviously their fan base there was kind of almost like politics in the fan base of like which twin you liked more but outside of their fan base as a whole they were definitely not the most respected youtubers and i think they got a lot of hate people outside of their realm um because they were known as sort of bratty and stuck up and people felt like their content was really fake and also they were really heavily mocked for being kind of wannabe celebrities gabby got a lot of hate because she basically over the years transformed into an ariana grande lookalike which i can't even argue with that because like she does she looks like i'm not gonna sit here and be like oh she held up a picture of ariana and that's what she asked for but like it kind of seems like it she really really really seems like she wants to be this ariana grande impersonator and same thing with nikki it felt like nikki was always trying to be like demi lovato or halsey or billy eilish and it felt like they were always kind of trying to be wannabes and they ended up getting a lot of hate from fans of the singers that they were trying to impersonate urina grande fans in particular did not like gabby for a long time ariana grande even went so far as to shade gabby at one point because she looked so much like her and all of her fans kept pointing it out she later apologized and like put her in the thank you next music video but that's a whole different topic the feud that they had is a whole different video but all you need to know is ariana grande even found out that gabby looked so much like her and thought it was kind of weird now nikki and gabby to their credit like they did definitely poke fun at this perception of themselves like they used it to kind of troll they would make videos like trying to look like ariana grande that would get a lot of views which was a lot of hate but they made a lot of money off of kind of poking fun at people's perception of them and i really don't know how to feel about this because like i find it kind of harmless if they were just trying to look like somebody else i don't really understand why stands of celebrities get so upset when other people kind of try to look like them i really don't understand that sort of hatred but at the same time like why not just be yourself you know like why not just be sort of authentically you why try to be somebody else now going on to from 2018 their main channel content has not had any sort of massive pivots or changes it's really just been the same type of competition uh challenge lifestyle content they did like a 24 hour shopping challenge they do instagram challenges they do clothing challenges like that's kind of their whole brand and from 2018 onward i think they really found a groove that worked for them and they sort of rode that wave i think what's more important to focus on from 2018 onward is sort of their individual careers and their individual content because from that point on their main channel hasn't changed their personalities and their sort of personas online have absolutely changed let's start with nikki nikki in 2018 and 2019 started receiving a ton of hate and backlash on her main channel i think a lot of people felt like she just needed a reality check like she was too whiny she was too spoiled all of those things that we already talked about it was really exacerbated in her videos like she did one video titled wearing pink for a week and basically just talked about how much she hated the color pink and she definitely got branded as one of the i'm not like other girls kind of people she herself has said that she is like that like she is owned up to the fact that she's very much a not like other girls girl she's always trying to be kind of edgy and different she basically i think went on a mission to try to be the opposite of gabby she also had a video that was titled trying to be positive for one day which was basically just her being incredibly negative but then like smiling at random points and being like but i'm gonna be positive and this just got so much hate and backlash from her fans like everybody just felt like she was being really negative all the time she was complaining about the smallest things there's bigger problems in the world like she went through all of this now nikki opened up about this criticism actually in 2019 which to nikki's credit i will say i think that she definitely out of nicki and gabby is kind of the most honest and authentic of the two um sometimes to a detriment to her i think but for the most part i think she's willing to sit down and kind of just use youtube as like a diary almost and explain exactly what she's feeling and thinking and i think that that was a really big positive for her especially considering how much backlash she was getting in like 2018-2019 she finally sat down and made a video called living in someone else's shadow where she really broke down the sort of pain that she went through being a sister to gabby who she always felt like was better than her who she always felt like gabby was the more popular one the more well-liked one and she always had to kind of compare herself to that and how detrimental that was to her mental health which honestly i mean again if you look at the course of their career that seems like an obvious thing that would happen to her and it made sense why in her videos she was always very negative or complaining or trying to be not like other girls i don't even think that nikki tries to be not like other girls because her style and her sort of vibe is very similar to most girls that you see on instagram nowadays i think she was trying to not be like gabby i think she did everything in her power to try to not be like her twin sister because she wanted to be different and not feel like she was constantly being compared to gabby and nikki also in this video opened up about the fact that doing this sort of opposite twins trope was actually a really really bad thing for her mentally which again totally makes sense she also discussed trying to be more independent and not feeling successful at being independent because she was always kind of the unpopular twin here's the thing i have opinions about nikki in the sense that i agree with the criticism that i think she is a little out of touch with like reality sometimes i think she does say things that can be very off-putting i think she does sort of live her life like it's a pinterest board which alex basically just like she thinks like boys love blue and if she likes blue that means she's edgy like i i definitely see the criticisms of nikki is valid i understand that however i do feel bad for her like she seems like she genuinely just loves youtube and loves creating content and you can tell like that she has such a passion for what she does on the internet which is honestly kind of rare especially in the lifestyle influencer genre a lot of these lifestyle influencers kind of just take for granted that they're going to make you know seven figures posting videos just of whatever they want so they just do that you can tell watching nikki's individual content and especially her daily vlogs you can really see how much effort and energy she puts into what she does honestly kind of feel for her i feel for her that she's the one that puts in all the work but gabby is often the one that gets all of the credit for that just because of the nature of how they set up their channel and honestly even though they kind of created the problem by doing the whole nicky versus gabby schtick i also think they just had no way of knowing how what that would turn into and how toxic of a fan base that would create and so i kind of also understand it after this video it seemed like nikki kind of worked to find her actual independence while she still sometimes gets critiques that she's like fake edgy seems like she has come into herself now in her vlog channel videos and she tends to get a lot more praise and support than gabby um also her music gets way more praise and support than gabby's music it kind of seems like that video in 2019 was a bit of a turning point for her and you can tell that she definitely is trying to put in the work to be more authentic to herself to kind of not be as afraid of being compared to gabby as she used to be i know right now before i talk about gabby that people are going to be like oh you have a bias towards nikki i really don't i i don't really enjoy either of their content or their twin content but i just think as an outside observer and as an adult nikki's content is objectively from my opinion how i like content i like her content better and also gabby i just find her to be incredibly manipulative and especially given how young her fan base is i find that to be incredibly problematic gabby is constantly for the past three years has been doing undisclosed sponsorships on her vlog channel she does ones for gaming apps she even did one for like a credit card that kids could have which is like i can't even begin to talk about that but she constantly is doing undisclosed sponsorships she puts them in her vlogs as if they're just things that she likes but it's very obvious that she's being paid by the brand to talk about it and she talks about it in a way that is manipulative to get her young audience to go and support her by downloading this app or getting this credit card she also calls her followers fancy babies which i just think is super weird whenever celebrities give like unironically give names like i jokingly will be like oh you're the glow sticks or like you know but whatever celebrity or influencers unironically give their fan base names i always think it's kind of weird the only person i've ever seen pull it off unironically is james charles and the sisters and that even was so weird to me at first i think he's just done it so much that it's worn me down but i think that by doing this she kind of creates this parasocial relationship with her followers she's known for doing the fancy babies sleepover where she invites like 20 of her followers over to her house for a sleepover so it's a bunch of teens with like gabby who's in her 20s having a sleepover i don't know i think that her dynamic with her fans she very much instead of focusing on creating like interesting content she feeds into that parasocial relationship to kind of make her money and get her fans to support her her vlogs are usually edited very simply and she relies a lot on click bait to get clicks and views usually it's like omg you'll never guess what happened and then it's like her limo got a flat tire something like that and also i find her content really interesting especially her individual content because a lot of it revolves around this sort of very luxurious lifestyle that she lives she buys a lot of luxury bags she takes limos everywhere she wears all these really fancy expensive clothes and i always find it weird that people vlog their lifestyle that the vlog that they're creating has made them does that make sense it's kind of like an endless loop like she got famous she got to buy all of the nice things she shows the nice things that makes her more famous and then the loop just continues to go around and around it's very interesting gabby also does a lot of vlogs centering around plastic surgery and has been pretty heavily criticized for how open she is about plastic surgery her sort of defense to this is that she feels like she's being honest about her experiences so if anybody else wants to get those procedures they can go get it and they can know kind of what to expect based on her experience i would argue that most of her like 14 to 16 year old fan base isn't going to be getting those plastic surgery procedures so i more think she does it because those videos tend to make a lot of money because people click on them but also i i kind of see both sides i see the good in that it's good she's not lying about getting plastic surgery and it's good that she's not like creating these unrealistic expectations i think that that's a positive but i also see sort of the negative side to doing things like that we're definitely promotes going out and getting plastic surgery for every kind of insecurity because she has gotten like a ton of plastic surgery i'm not saying this be mean because i don't think she looks bad but she looks drastically different than she did when she first started doing youtube back in 2012. i also think in general and i think you can say this about a lot of youtubers but i think for gabby it's just really apparent because of the like undisclosed sponsorships and also just the way she acts in a lot of her videos i think that she doesn't necessarily really care about her subscriber base past what they can provide for her and i kind of feel the same way about nikki i think nikki likes her fan base because they allow her to create this cool content and she obviously likes doing it and i think gabby likes her fan base because they allow her to buy luxury bags and like live a very luxurious lifestyle i think there's a difference in their motivation behind having fans you know now in 2020 gabby got in a ton of scandals uh she her first one was a tick tock that went viral where she basically bragged that she spends about nine thousand dollars a week um and also brags about like having a personal chef and basically compared herself to her friend who made like minimum wage and lived in an apartment and spent like fifty dollars a week and everybody just thought it was really poor taste especially given that we were in a pandemic and most people couldn't put food on the table it was very weird to hear gabby flexing on her friend that she spends 9 000 a week just like shopping she tried to say that it was a joke and that she was just like kidding with her friend but that didn't go over well and obviously we have the drama that happened last year that was the only fans drama i did a bunch of videos covering that topic but basically gabby posted a video on her only fans and had it behind a paywall of her as a little child lifting up her dress and exposing herself and it was just generally bad uh she did make an apology video for it but based on what we're seeing the apology video didn't really mean anything she basically like got engaged during that time so she was just like going to parties and then basically started posting vlogs again like nothing happened so while i think that this kind of had a bad hit to her reputation i think that her core fan base definitely stuck with her through these sort of scandals i think most of the hate that she got was from people who weren't fans to begin with they just knew of her because her views really have not changed too significantly i will say though that the only fans drama in particular the impact of that wasn't just on gabby uh nikki faced a lot of criticism by association because of that and also that led to them not posting on the nikki and gabby channel and they still haven't posted as of recording this i know that they're planning on doing some type of comeback but as of right now they haven't posted anything on their main channel in months and this is the longest that they've gone without posting on that channel since they started it nikki ended up making a statement about the situation kind of denouncing gabby's actions and they've just been uploading their own sort of separate content on their own separate channels so now we're kind of at the point we're caught up to the present of like where are they now and where do we kind of see them going and this is kind of predictions because obviously i have literally no idea what's going to happen i think nikki and gabby are honestly more interesting than other content creators that i have sort of looked into in this series because they have done an excellent job at evolving their content and still kind of staying authentic to themselves like if you watch how they did everything it's almost like they're a blueprint of how to evolve content to the ever kind of ebbs and flows of youtube the changing trends they're kind of the blueprint on how to do that because they've done it so successfully you never see a time where there's like a massive dip in views you never see a time where people aren't super interested in what they're putting out they've stayed very consistent for the most part this entire time and done a great job at continually evolving their channel and content i would argue that all three channels their individual vlog channels and the nikki and gabby channel are still incredibly relevant here on youtube based on their subscriber count they get really good views they're pretty much always meeting that 10 engagement like i think they're doing relatively well so even though they've had all of this sort of professional success i would argue that the real problem that they're going to be facing in the next couple of years and the real issue is the internal problems that they have i think that these internal relationships is what is eventually going to lead to the end of the nikki and gabby channel and i don't even think that's going to happen like super soon i think they are going to start posting again and i think they are going to continue with this channel but i think eventually the nikki and gabby channel is going to be phased out i think there's a couple reasons for this number one they're both doing fairly well on their own especially nikki her vlog channel does super super well views wise and honestly so does gabby's like they do well independently their music careers and music videos perform well independently they don't necessarily need each other and need that joint channel the way that they used to back in say like 2016. it also is kind of apparent that because they're still continuing on with the main nikki and gabby channel seems to really be taking a toll in their relationship you can really tell on screen that they just do not vibe well together anymore and maybe after this break they'll come back and maybe they've like you know had some time to talk it out but for the most part they are not doing great honestly they've been public about the fact that they don't have a great relationship as sisters anymore they did a whole kind of therapy session video with gabby hannah of all people and basically sat down and tried to talk out all of these issues with gabby as like the mediator i honestly think anytime you're trying to do that it's just it's never going to be authentic if you're filming it for millions of people to see but they talked openly about how they have a lot of resentments for each other how they feel kind of hurt by each other how they don't really like working together anymore and this is all pretty heavily documented i think the point of posting that video was to show after that that there was going to be this big change and that they were going to be really more open in their videos they were going to like each other a lot more in their videos but that big change never happened that sort of therapy session happened and then everything went back to how it was before it had happened i also think they've kind of outgrown the content that they make on the nikki and gabby channel i mean recently in one of their most recent videos they tried to talk about like vibrators and sex toys in one of their videos and they had to give like a million disclaimers because they know that their fan base is younger and they know that they're gonna get hate for promoting things like that to a younger audience it seems like their fan base on their vlog channel is a little bit more mature and older and seems like they kind of just vibe with their personalities and it's less about these sort of challenge-like videos that usually appeal to a younger crowd i also think while it might sound crazy to leave a channel that has almost 10 million subscribers and is doing relatively well view-wise i almost think it would be better for their individual careers especially nikki because right now nikki is putting kind of double the work into the channel she puts so much effort into the nikki and gabby content and her own content whereas if she could just put those ideas towards her own content i think she would honestly like flourish on youtube especially because gabby has been getting in all of these scandals and has a really bad i'm not saying like oh leave your sister because she has like a bad reputation but on top of gabby's already not great reputation and people kind of starting to turn on her for this very diva-like behavior on top of all of that her content has not really grown or evolved on her personal channel in a very long time it's still a little bit lazier and content she obviously doesn't put as much work into i actually went into this video not really being the biggest fan of either of these two people but coming out of it i actually like nikki like a lot more than i thought i would i think that honestly her relationship with gabby and their dynamic together can sometimes make her seem different than how she actually is especially in her individual vlog content i don't always agree with nikki's behavior especially in the reality show where nikki sometimes does some very questionable things that i really disagree with um i think besides that she just seems like a genuine person who genuinely loves making youtube content that's all you can really ask for from a content creator and i honestly think the opposite is happening for gabby i think she has what nikki doesn't in that she has a die hard fan base that will like always support her but i think this constant kind of bad behavior is making a lot of her die hard fans sort of turn away from her i also think another reason they're going to end is because i do not think that gabby can handle not being the favorite twin i don't know if this is conscious or not but basically they posted a video a while back and nikki was getting a lot more praise and gabby was getting a lot more hate which is something that nikki has had to deal with for years like people have been so vicious towards nikki and so positive towards gabby but it kind of flipped in one video people were being a lot more positive towards nikki and hating on gabby and gabby made nicki delete the video she like couldn't handle not being the favorite twin not being everyone's favorite you can see that because gabby has been going down in being kind of the favorite and nikki has been going up you can see that really mentally messing with gabby like she's not handling that transition well and i think that's also going to lead to the end of their channel i think nikki and gabby are so interesting because while they're often sort of picked on and joked about on the internet they transitioned into every new phase of their channel expertly like it was seamless the way that they transitioned youtube is kind of all about evolving and transforming your content and they have never really experienced a lull in their content until super recently to give credit where credit is due they have been incredibly successful when most other lifestyle youtubers weren't and i think when you peel back some of the layers on what appears to be two girls who are obsessed with image and aesthetics you kind of also have two girls who have built an empire that has been able to outlast all of their peers and i think that's incredibly interesting and that is the evolution of nikki and gabby whoa all right i hope you guys liked this video i hope it was at least somewhat interesting for you make sure you let me know down below what you think about nikki and gabby and kind of what we've talked about today i found them to be some of the most interesting people that i've been able to look into um and also let me know down below who you would like me to look into next or what brands or anything like that because i'm kind of getting back on the evolution of train so thank you guys so much i hope you like this video if you did please like and subscribe or just like or just subscribe or do neither honestly just so happy here watching me thank you so much for being here my merch my social media and everything i'm wearing on my face will be linked down below along with my little social justice corner go check that out stay informed stay involved i love you guys so much and i will see you in the next one bye [Music] [Applause] [Music] uh oh

Channel: Smokey Glow

Views: 1,169,675

Keywords: Niki and Gabi, Niki Demartino, Niki Demar, Gabi Demartino, Gabi Demar, Niki and Gabi Demar, Fancy Vlogs By Gab, Twins, Opposite Twins, Niki and Gabi Drama, Niki and Gabi Twins, Niki and Gabi Music, Smokey Glow, The Evolution of, The Evolution of Niki and Gabi, The Evolution of Smokey Glow, The Evolution of Lifestyle youtubers, Laur DIY, Alisha Marie, Adeline Morin, Niki and Gabi Spring Break, Niki and Gabi Bahamas, Gabi Hanna, Where’s niki and gabi?

Id: 0wO-jASSkxU

Length: 51min 54sec (3114 seconds)

Published: Fri Feb 19 2021