With over two million subscribers, it’s safe to say the Amoeba Sisters — the educational, science-related YouTube channel headed by siblings Brianna Rapini (“Pinky”) and Sarina Peterson (“Petunia”) — have graced classrooms. Especially in high school, as STEM courses become more in-depth and challenging, students utilize their channel to comprehend dense topics within a plethora of scientific subjects. Recently, the Falconer staff had the opportunity to reach out and ask questions to the sisters regarding their channel.
What inspired you to start creating educational content on YouTube, and how did you get started?
Brianna [Pinky]: I was looking for a way to take some of my lengthy lecture content that I had used in teaching biology and condensing it down into something shorter, which would give more time for discussions, labs and other activities. I wanted it to be a foundational piece so that all that valuable class time could be for exploring the concept in different ways, and with more detail. I mentioned this to my sister, Sarina [Petunia], in the summer when I was visiting her apartment. Sarina asked me to record my voice explaining a concept that I had done for her in the past: it was on enzymes and I was comparing them to the character of a popular game (Pac-Man). She mentioned she’d draw some silly pictures in MS Paint to go alongside my recording. We made it into a video in about two weeks and put it up on YouTube. We found it fun so we made a few more and slowly, we started getting comments telling us it was useful. That motivated us to keep creating.
What was the process of both of you deciding to take part in such a time-consuming business, and how did you both know you wanted to teach the sciences?
Brianna [Pinky]: We honestly never dreamed this would be a business; it was a hobby for years. But as it started to grow, and the time demand increased, that’s when we started to have conversations about whether this could be a full-time job. Sarina [Petunia] took the leap and left her job first (she was a school district analyst) while I switched to part-time teaching. That worked well for a while, but we still needed more time. In 2017, I took the leap to working on Amoeba Sisters full-time. I have loved this adventure, although there are many aspects of teaching that I do and always will miss greatly.
As far as knowing we both wanted to teach science: for me, this is what I am certified in and what I’ve taught — it is a content area I love. Sarina does not have a background in science, but she does love making it fun, and this allows her to use her creativity to the max.
What approach do you take to making complex subjects more understandable for students?
Just as we love cartoons ourselves, we try to bring the cartoons into the complex science processes that we teach. We think it makes it more approachable and fun.
With 2.22 million subscribers on YouTube, has feedback from your viewers at all influenced the way you approach your content and teaching style?
Definitely, we have found our viewers will come with some misconceptions or major questions about concepts that we need to break down well in our content. The questions we are asked in return really help us improve our explanations.
Do the two of you curate all of the content and do all of the work, or are there additional team members?
It’s just us. After meeting more channel creators of similar size, we have learned that many have larger teams. We have definitely thought about that, especially if we moved into a different content area, like chemistry.
How is your creative process displayed in the production process? How long does it take to publish each video?
Brianna [Pinky]: With the creative process, Sarina [Petunia] does all of the illustrations. She also syncs my spoken audio to her pictures in a movie editing program called Camtasia. As for me, I write the scripts and fact-check my content. I record my voice speaking the content. It takes us about one to two months to release a video. We release some other types of videos too, but the content videos are the ones that take us the most time.
Have you ever collaborated with any other content creators or will you in the future?
We haven’t collaborated on a video with any other content creators, but we have chatted with others offline. We have found that to be really nice, because this job can be a bit isolating. My sister, and I don’t even live in the same city so even our work with each other is remote.
What are your thoughts on how to keep a steady balance between actual educational content and keeping your viewers entertained/engaged?
We have found it’s important to reflect on what helps the student most in that moment. For example, in the middle of discussing a complex process, a diagram may be more helpful than something entertaining, but other times a diagram in the beginning of a video might not capture student engagement as much as something more entertaining. We think they can both exist together; they just need to be timed well so that they can both work together.
What are your thoughts on working with your sibling? Are there any roadblocks you’ve had to overcome as a team?
Brianna [Pinky]: It is definitely a fun adventure. We’re very close, but our personalities and interests are fairly different. When we created Pinky and Petunia, the character personalities that you see in the videos are pretty close to our own. Often when we have roadblocks, it’s because there’s something we need to better understand about each other. I’m more cautious than my sister; I tend to be prone to overthinking. My sister is more likely to take risks. She isn’t one to go back and think about it for a long time again. I think my caution helps us keep a balance of what we can handle but her risk-taking is needed when we need to try something new. Then there are logistic things. She is a morning person; I am a night person. She is a big scheduler and “to-do” list person; I rely on timers to keep me on task as I think it is easier for me to be distracted. Learning these things about each other helps us work better together.
What makes collaborating with family on a business, especially that of content-creating, such a unique experience?
There is a level of sister-banter that I cannot imagine having with anyone else. It definitely makes for a unique experience; we have a Webtoon called “Amoeba Sisters: Sisterhood,” where we capture some of these conversations. Some of the recent episodes on Webtoon like “Fun Facts” and “Spiraling Spindles” really capture that unique experience; they are also examples of events that have happened.
Do you have any advice for students or people who are interested in creating their own educational content?
Brianna [Pinky]:
A) Your first creation will forever be your worst, usually. What I mean by that is: if you look at our first video, my sister tells me her old artwork makes her cringe. But you know what? At the time when we made it, we were proud of it. I asked her not to delete it years later, because I wanted people to see where we started. If we had waited until it was at the level we are at now, we would have probably never released a video. So all that is to say: don’t let a fear that it’s just not “good enough” stop you from releasing.
B) We started this as a hobby and a love for wanting to create. If we had instead started with this goal of making something “go viral” that would financially support us, we would have been very disappointed and may have given up. It took time to get a comment, to get even our first 10 subscribers. This has been a marathon rather than a sprint, and educational content especially can often take time to grow.
What is a fun fact about you?
Brianna [Pinky]: Last year, I competed in a “Lazy River Run” where you have to run a 5K in a lazy river against the current. I ended up getting a trophy in my age group. I now found my true sport, and I’m trying to find where all the lazy river runners go to compete.
Sarina [Petunia]: People probably know I love video games (just finished my second playthrough of “Baldur’s Gate 3” and pumped for “Dragon Age: Veilguard”), but I also love all things Renaissance Festival. I’m that person that dresses in full armor and marches around with a turkey leg and cheers at the joust. I’ve also been taking archery classes and just got my first recurve bow. In my 30s, this is something I have fully embraced.
