A pair of Staten Island twins who have taken social media by storm with hilarious expletive-laden rants about inflation insist they’re “not political guys,” but just want to shed light on a crisis affecting people across the country from all walks of life.
“We’re regular people at the end of the day, experiencing what everyone’s going through and talking about it, in our own little nuts way,” Jojo Scarlotta, 25, told The Post.
“I’m not anything special. I’m just shedding light on a situation that we’re all going through,” he added.
Jojo and his brother Nicky have wracked up millions of views across TikTok and Instagram for videos documenting their life on Staten Island, with larger-than-life members of their family and simmering pots of red sauce making frequent appearances.
But their most popular clips in recent months have featured the twins railing through heavy Staten Island accents about the soaring cost of living in America — including rants against haircuts that have doubled in price, skyrocketing car insurance rates, the cost of a pound of pastrami, and outrage at the fact that humans are the only creatures on Earth that pay bills.
“Being born and raised in Staten Island our whole lives, it’s just getting more expensive. Stuff’s getting more expensive,” Nicky said. “In our family growing up, it’s always been about the prices — ‘I just went to the supermarket. Can you believe the honey turkey’s $14 a pound? It was just $12.’ It’s always about the numbers.”
“It started with my father, my mother, my Uncle Tony, just hearing it in the house about how the prices have become way more than normal lately,” Jojo said.
“That’s like 90 percent of the conversations at the dinner table, the prices going up. No matter where it is, the prices.”
The twin’s most popular video featured their father, Joe, and Uncle Tony flabbergasted over the cost of a Thanksgiving turkey.
“$94 f*****g dollars. $94 f*****g dollars. Are you kidding me or what?” the pair say back and forth in the video, pumping their fists for effect as they go.
That video has wracked up over 12 million hits, and others have been mentioned by the likes of David Portnoy and Jimmy Kimmel.
Before striking fame online, the twins were both working as laborers and spent their days jackhammering the streets on water system construction projects for the city.
They started making videos in May of 2020 in the depths of the COVID pandemic and found that leaning into their heavy State Island accents attracted views.
“One of the biggest bits I did was the ‘’Ollahs.’ In Staten Island people drop the D in ‘Dollars’ and just say ‘Ollahs.’ So we started doing videos like that and those hit. And we’ve been doing them for two years now,” Jojo said.
“I found one thing, that people outside New York, no matter where they are, they found New Yorkers hysterical. Us being from Staten Island, we’re just talking how we know how to talk. Obviously, there’s a point in the videos where we amp it up, because people like to see you get a little excited. But to the core it’s who we are.”
“We definitely turn it on when we know we’ve got to get a little nuts. But usually it’s us being us,” Nicky said. “Being born and raised on Staten Island. We have a strong accent on the Island compared to the other boroughs.”
They found they struck a chord when they started posting about inflation — and off camera, they remain more than ready to lay it on.
“When we used to go to the barber to get our hair cut, it was $15, with a $5 tip — twenty bucks. Now it’s like a $30 haircut, and you’re not going to do a loose five, so I give the guy $40. My car insurance upsets me the most. I never missed a payment in two-and-a-half years. When you turn 25 it goes down. It went up $100 in the span of two years, from $220 to $270 to $320,” Jojo said.
“Now if you have a card and you’re at Starbucks, they automatically ask you for a tip — just for ringing you up. Nothing’s wrong with tipping somebody, but you’ve got to earn it. I’ve got no problem going to a deli and the guy’s making me a sandwich, I’ll throw him a $5 tip. But to get somebody who’s ringing me up for my coffee and he doesn’t even want to talk to me, I’ve got to throw him four, five dollars? Come on.”
Outside of the laughs, viewers have responded to the frustration Jojo and Nicky voice in their videos by sending them messages sharing their own hardships in the checkout aisle.
“So many people are like, ‘I went out and bought my own clippers and started cutting my own hair because I can’t afford to go to the barber’ — not to mention all the people who are hitting me up about the car insurance, telling me personal stories in my DMs about how they can’t even get a car because it’s so unaffordable,” Jojo said.
“We’re seeing firsthand the effect it’s having on people.”
The success of their videos allowed the twins to quit their jobs and focus on social media full-time.
“Seven months ago we took the leap of faith and we’re like, we’ve got to do this full time because we’re missing opportunities. And knock on wood, it’s been f*****g great ever since,” Jojo said.
“We want to do movies, directing. We’ve got big plans for the future,” Nicky added.
