‘PRICE’ OF FAME
SI twin bros go viral with inflation rants
Oh, brother, can you believe %#$&! prices today?
Staten Island twins Jojo and Nicky Scarlotta are racking up social-media followers with their no-nonsense, New York take on inflation, but they insist they’re just average bros griping about the rising cost of gabagool.
The Scarlottas, 25, have put Richmond County on the map with their expletive-filled rants on TikTok and Instagram about everyday life, featuring cameos from family members and the occasional simmering pot of red sauce.
‘Regular people’
“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 told The Post on Monday. “I’m not anything special. I’m just shedding light on a situation that we’re all going through.”
In distinct Staten Island accents, the fast-talking twins rail about the soaring cost of living in America, including haircuts doubling in price, skyrocketing car-insurance rates and the cost of a pound of pastrami.
“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.”
And then there’s Jojo’s tonguein-cheek rant about the actual cost of . . . being human.
“What doesn’t add up to me is the fact that we’re the only species inhabiting the f--king earth that pays bills!” he says in a video posted last week. “You see the alligators, the f--king chimpanzees, the f--king sloths, nobody’s paying bills! The world is f--king expensive!”
When it comes to inspiration, the brash brothers turn to la famiglia first. “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% 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.
“Ninety-four f--king dollars. Ninety-four f—king dollars. Are you kidding me or what?” they 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 David Portnoy and Jimmy Kimmel
The early days
Before striking fame online, the twins worked as laborers, jackhammering the streets on construction projects for the city. They started making videos in May 2020 in the depths of the COVID pandemic and found that leaning into their proud Staten Island pedigree attracted views.
Fans have responded to the twins with their own messages of 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.’ ”