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There are RUclips videos describing the surprisingly few formulas used in writing. (2 same siblings = x Tropes) & (2 different = 2x Tropes) Maybe something like that.

Life With Derek broke whatever rules there were 🥴

I think it's done to give the writers more flexibility.

The show sister sister

I’m surprised that the video made no mention of Donald and Douglas, Iron Arry and Iron Bert, and the china clay twins (Bill and Ben) from Thomas The Tank Engine. And before you comment something like “Buh, they’re trains and not humans so they don’t count, buh.” I’m well aware of that fact but they still are twins regardless of whether they’re human or not. I dare anyone to fight me.

I’m surprised that the video made no mention of Donald and Douglas, Iron Arry and Iron Bert, and the china clay twins (Bill and Ben) from Thomas The Tank Engine. And before you comment something like “Buh, they’re trains and not humans so they don’t count, buh.” I’m well aware of that fact but they still are twins regardless of whether they’re human or not. I dare anyone to fight me.

Can I just say something? I hate it, hate it, HATE IT when people call Dipper the protagonist of Gravity Falls and Mabel the deuteragonist. They're TWINS. There should be no hierarchy between which one of them is more "important." If anything, I think Mabel deserves to be the protagonist.

This is a really interesting trend! I didn’t really think about it until you pointed it out and then I looked it up and >80% of Americans have a sibling- which is way more than I would have guessed, being an only child. It does explain why it’s so common in media though! A sibling of the opposite gender makes a lot of sense, for marketing, story-telling, and diversity reasons. I’m curious about the strong preference for younger siblings though versus older siblings- maybe because younger siblings give the main character a chance to be protective/mature (qualities a child audience might want to identify with)? Whereas parents and older siblings would overlap in this role, making older siblings extraneous. I’d be curious to see a similar study on parent dynamics- I’m guessing two parents is the most common (as opposed to divorced, single mom/dad or no parents on screen) but I’d be curious if there’s a preference between single mothers or fathers or if it tends to follow the opposite-gender dynamic of siblings.

I was NOT expecting to see Adventures in Odyssey on here

It seems like shows struggle with portraying twins that are identical, making them not only visually but also in terms of personality identical. I think the ducktales reboot actually did a good job at changing that as the triplets used to fall into this issue. Loud house and american dragon also got examples of that even if the twins fall under the "complete opposites" trope, which tbh is pretty good to make twins distinct as people. Meanwhile fraternal twins are almost always boy-girl pairs. Stan and Ford from gravity falls are an example of not being that or chip and dale. And i think this is probably because of the same reason why so many characters in cartoons usually have a sibling of the opposite sex. Girls and boys are different and thats always been part of dynamics between boys and girls in cartoons not just those with siblings (fairly oddparents also had episodes regarding that) And i think there is another reasoning which is also the reason why friend groups in kids shows tend to be like mc + friend of opposite sex + friend of same sex (with the rule of three being another frequently used thing which is why characters rarely have more than two siblings unless its something like loud house where the premise is one boy has a lot of sisters). Ignoring the angle of love interest (sometimes it plays a role sometimes it doesnt) having a character of the opposite sex is most likely a balancing thing and also maybe so that kids that arent the same gender as MC can relate too (which isnt to say a girl cant relate to a boy or vice versa. Its more like you may get more attached to characters of a certain gender and tbh for some people it is the opposite sex). Look at something like the TMNT (which is all brothers no sisters omg! (Ignore that one time where they had a sister)) who have a female friend. And yeah a lot of times if the MC has two siblings it will be a sister and a brother, with 2 boys + 1 girl being more frequent from my experience but i could be wrong and maybe its the opposite. Its just following that same formula again.

What if in an alternate timeline, humans always give birth to a litter of two kids: 1 of each gender?

Most characters in anime have no siblings, or just one. Most of the time, it's a younger sister, but sometimes it's a younger brother or an older sister. I don't think I've ever watched an anime where the main character had an older brother though.

I remember really liking the sibling relationship that Carmen and Juni have in Spy Kids. They felt like real siblings to me that genuinely came to work together for each other.

You didn't mention any nonbinary kid characters

Pretty sure Mabel and Dipper Pines are based on the creator and his sister. Many creators create characters based on people they know! Duh!

Surprised you didn't bring up Maya and Miguel. They had a pretty good dynamic probably more so than most siblings mentioned here

I just want to say that I appreciate hearing "sex" and not "gender" in this context!

2:42 Stewie Griffin will not be ignored

I don't think 5:56 counts as an example. It's a retelling of a Biblical Legend, so it can't follow modern storytelling trends. Regardless, great video.

I forgot about 321 penguins

investing a sub don't let me down

Good video

321 penguins mentioned

Appeal to a wider demographic and creates a long list of relatable conflicts to build story line on.

You certainly put a lot of thoughts in my head here, and two distinctly come to mind. 1: its very likely that this alleged trend of same sex siblings getting along while different sex siblings not doing so is probably a deeply rooted, subconscious trend in the writters' minds that the same sex are more likely to get along because there will be more shared common interests as opposed the other, because our society is still somewhat ingrained in the idea of "boy interests" vs "girl interests", like how boys are expected to not like certain shows because "its a girl show". Not sure why friend groups wouldn't follow this trend, like you said the need for representation probably comes first. 2: when you pointed out not looking if anime follows this trend or not, I had to pause the video and reflect for myself, and I realized something: far too many anime protagonists are either literal orphans, or otherwise significantly more detached from their family than protagonists of western media (which might say something about the type of people that prefer anime but I'm not touching that here). Either way, they are most often only-childs, or have siblings as nothing more than background characters. The focus is instead generally on their friends, often ones they make on screen rather than already having them prior to the pilot.

I'm so glad bro put Film theory gag in there made my day XD

The ones I initially thought of off the top of my head that didn't follow this were: Full House, Malcolm in the Middle, The Adventures of Pete and Pete, My Brother and Me, Rugrats, and The Venture Bros. But when you brought up co-staring siblings near the end it eliminated all of them except Rugrats. Even then Dill was a newborn, albeit in a show about the adventures of babies.

5:56 I don’t think that film would count as following this trend given the fact that it’s a faithful adaptation of the story of Moses from The Old Testimon and was originally written around the 5th century.

What's the show at 4:08?

The Triplets were all girls

Buster Baxter and Sue Ellen also maybe Fern from Arthur the tv series. Angelica Pickles from Rugarts. Nemo in Finding Nemo. Riley in the first movie Inside Out. Russel from Up. Melody Ariel the Little mermaid’s daughter. Hiccup in how to train your dragon. Pebbles from the Flintstones. Moana from Moana. Mulan from Mulan. Repunzual from Tangled. Jasmine from Aladdin. Timmy Turner from Fairly Odd Parents. Caroline from Caroline. Simba from Lion King. Tiana from Princess and the Frog. Prince Charming in Shrek 2 or something like that. Dora the Explorer from Dora. (At least for a while before the twins came) Diego from Go Diego Go. Charlotte from Princess and the Frog. Emily Elizabeth from Clifford. Ash from Pokemon.

0:52 fancy nancy has a younger sister btw; shes just tomboyish (i did mistake her for a guy at the beginning too)

The biggest issue his video has going on is the generalization, for making, I imagine, accessibility better for those like me who haven't seen a major chunk of these talked-about/misinterpreted shows by Matt.

Full house

great video! i hope to see more. but if not, i'm glad i saw this one.

Perhaps it is not just the role that determines the sex, but the sex that determines the role. I say this because in Black Widow, Black Panther, and Thor, the characters were adapted from comic books, and so their gender was known before their role was written.

Dat E&H music...

Marketability is probably part of it, as others have said. Knowing artists though, I bet it also has to do with readability. They want the characters to be obviously distinct and not overlap too much in what archetype they embody. If you make a character the opposite sex, it immediately changes their visual identity and their archetype, making them more distinct at a glance. Look at Phineas and Ferb for example. They’re two same gender siblings of the same age and similar interests. The show takes pains to make sure they’re distinct. Tall and short, triangle and rectangle, green and orange, talkative and quiet, British and American. Boy and girl is an obvious and quick way to distinguish characters and evoke different tropes.

This seems to focus on cartoons, whereas the title indicates any show. Any notes on parent laws? I have one that’s driven me crazy for years. Children, even boys, are never taller than their parents, even at 18. Maybe I think about this especially since while my dad was tall (generally tall family) and my mom was short (generally short family), I was tall. I was almost full height by high school, and much taller already than my mom, as a girl! Yet alL these teens in shows are still no taller than their shorter mothers. I think they need to emphasize the authority position?

Edna and Harvey ost jumpscare

I like the opposite sex ones better they're just more interesting

i noticed older sisters are often redheads and they tend to lack the male protagonists powers

Back in 2013 I made countryball memes. And my girl fans wanted me to add girls to them. I ignored them of course. At the time I thought gender doesn't matter but clearly does. Girls like watching girl characters in stuff they enjoy. I have another example back in 2010, discussing about videogames a girl from my class asked if there was any girl in DotA. I was puzzled by this too. Now I get it. Specially in kids, they want a kid character of the same gender. Every kid who starts playing Brawl stars wants Leon, the cool kid who turns invisible.

I love the music pick!!! from Edna & Harvey: The Breakout!

i like you

This background music reminds me of Spy Fox xD

Kate has a good relationship with all the pets

based music coice

Not one law was established in this video

Wait until you review the number of cartoons/TV shows where the dad is depicted as a clumsy and/or dumb doofus, and the mum is the only real adult in the family.