The Bella Twins
When tasked with analysing and deconstructing the work of a digital author for my COM 250 class, my mind instantly went to two people who together have left a very large digital footprint, the Bella Twins. I knew they would be interesting to research because they have such a huge social media, youtube, and tv following that it has opened so many doors for them to become entrepreneurs of multiple businesses. One thing that really intimidated me at the start of this project was making the screencast. I hate hearing myself on video and often talk very quickly when I am nervous. I am also not very tech savvy with video editing and was nervous to use the software. Thankfully there were several videos which helped me navigate the website and make using screencast easier!
Something that I found challenging was selecting the images for my screencast. The Bella Twins have a surplus of digital content as they each have separate personal instagram accounts, instagram accounts for their businesses, a youtube channel, a podcast, and multiple tv shows. I wanted to find the best picture to match up with the words I was saying and found myself spending a bit too long searching for the “perfect” picture. Thankfully once I realized I was doing this, I was able to get myself to focus more and not be distracted by all of their content which was not relevant to the message I was trying to convey.
While researching the Bellas Twins for this LEAP1 project, I was so impressed at how they have found success in so many different business endeavors. Together the Bella Twins have launched a wine label (Bella Ridici 2017), a clothing brand (Birdiebee 2017), a body and beauty brand (Nicole + Brizee 2019), and produced a New York Times best selling memoir (Incomparable 2021). They have become extremely successful entrepreneurs all while filming multiple tv shows, being inducted into the WWE hall of fame, creating content for their youtube channel and their podcast. Upon analysing their digital content, I was able to see how their social media played such a big role in promoting their businesses. Social media posts from both of them accumulate hundreds of thousands of likes and drive people to the social media pages for their businesses. As someone who does watch their show Total Bellas (on E!), and reflecting on this project, I realized they often show small clips of the twins in meetings or at events to launch their products. These little advertisements scattered throughout their tv show also drive people to google their products or look them up on social media. The Bella twins have been able to grow their brands exponentially due to their use of social media.
Finally when it came to creating the screencast and reviewing the questions which I would be answering, I was met with a final little challenge, the question of “What is omitted?” The Bella Twins refer to themselves as being open books, which is hard to deny given they have a reality tv show following solely their family, a published memoir, and countless digital and social media pages which they post on frequently about their good and bad times. I was stumped momentarily as I considered what could the Bella Twins be leaving out of public view. It was only after taking another look at their social media, thinking about what I had viewed on their show, and considering what we read in chapter 2 that I realized, as digital authors they can choose to omit whatever they want. The Bella twins have been very public about the highs and lows of all aspects of their personal lives, but what they put out on their social medias, podcasts, youtubes, books, and tv shows is whatever they approve of. As a consumer of their media, I do not know everything about them, though superficially it may appear that way. All content creators have things going on when the cameras, microphones, and posts are off that they are not willing to share with the public and that is okay. One big takeaway I have from this class so far is that you need to constantly remind yourself that much of the digital content we take in is very superficial. It is important to be reminded that content creators choose what they do and don’t want to make public. Each individual is entitled to portray whatever side of themselves they want to share with the world.
Works Cited:
https://www.wrestling-online.com/wwe/bella-twins-break-20-year-pattern-for-muscle-fitness-magazine/
https://www.instagram.com/thenikkibella/?hl=en
