From the lumber yard to social media stars: How Shepmates became a viral sensation

The Shepmates pose for a photo during the 2022 Brownlow Medal at Crown Palladium on September 18, 2022 in Melbourne. (Dylan Burns/AFL Photos/Getty Images via CNN Newsource)

Their commentary is breathless. Literally.

Australian twin brothers Archie and Miles Shepherd have become internet stars for their high-energy and comedically nuanced interpretations of some of the most dramatic moments in sports. But if you were in the bedroom where they shoot their material, like Arsenal’s Champions League win at Real Madrid, you’d hardly hear a thing.

“I feel like it’s a whisper,” said Archie in an interview with CNN Sports, noting that the lip synching of the original commentary only requires them to mime the words. “It’s a soft yell, if I was yelling then I’d have no voice!”

Shepmates, as the duo is known, began almost by accident. The 23-year-old identical twins were working together as salesmen at a timber yard in 2021 and Miles was listening to the Ashes cricket on the radio. When the Australian bowler Mitchell Starc claimed an English wicket with the very first ball of the match, the commentator’s contagious enthusiasm inspired him to film his own reenactment of the call.

“It was Covid, so I was bored,” he recalled, “and I just filmed this video and the next morning it blew up and people were asking for more. And then Archie was like, ‘Can I get in on this?’”

They spent the rest of the summer generating more cricket content, honing their craft as a double act and building a devoted following.

Sometimes, their material has been flagged for copyright infringement, but when the International Cricket Council targeted one of their early World Cup clips, it worked to their advantage.

“Ten hours later, it got taken down, our account got banned,” Miles said. “I reached out to the ICC, and we’re like, ‘Why are you banning this? People love this!’ So, they brought our account back and they actually collaborated on the video with us, and it went absolutely bananas.”

Sport is not just a live broadcast product, the action is now being repackaged across disparate media platforms, finding new audiences in faraway places.

Golf and Formula One are now enjoyed in hitherto unexpected markets thanks to the reach of “Full Swing” and “Drive to Survive” on Netflix. Shepmates have been able to tap into this new trend, covering everything from soccer to basketball, mountain biking and darts.

Their spoof of Donald Trump and Joe Biden bickering about who was the better golfer was conceived and recorded while the CNN presidential debate was still ongoing, and released immediately afterward. It’s been seen around 20 million times. No sport is off the table – Shepmates say that sperm racing could even be in the pipeline soon.

Sitting side by side and wearing broadcast headsets, they dress according to the sport they are covering and exchange either smug, knowing glances or accusatory and puzzled looks. At the crescendo of each play that they feature, the scene often descends into chaos; when filming Harry Maguire’s dramatic late winner for Manchester United in the Europa League, Archie rocked the camera for dramatic effect as Miles threw a chair across the room, damaging the wall: “The landlord wasn’t happy.”

When the darts commentator Wayne Mardle gasped, “I can’t speak, I can’t speak,” the Shepmates’ interpretation of the moment spoofed a commentator falling backwards in a state of medical distress.

The brothers often switch positions in their pretend commentary box, making it impossible to tell which one is which, and sometimes they’re even able to quickly duck out of shot, change their appearance and re-appear as a third character just seconds later. They’ve become skilled at repackaging the energy and joy of sport with a humorous twist, their repertoire has found a global audience and they’ve been able to quit the lumber yard and focus full-time on the Shepmates media brand.

Initially, each shoot was labor intensive. Miles said that he used to spend hours trying to memorize every line – “a nightmare.” Now, they write the lines out on a screen, using a series of commas and dots to time their delivery.

“It doesn’t matter how good our facial expressions or the comedy,” Miles explained, “if the lip-sync’s not good then people aren’t going to watch it.”

He’s become an expert in mimicking Spanish and Arabic commentary, but admits he has no idea what they’re saying.

“Most of the clips we can nail in four or five shots, we have a ball,” said Archie, “But you start screwing up, then it starts to wear a bit towards the end, like you’ve heard this commentary close to 40 times and by the time you put it out, you’re like, ‘I don’t even know if this is funny.’”

Their fans would argue that the labor of love is well worth it, and so far, they say that the commentators they’ve covered approve of their work, but in 2024 they were accused of a gross invasion of privacy when they filmed Mercedes F1 driver George Russell in the urinal.

“That was a big moment for us,” Miles explained, “It felt like we were on top of the world, and I think we probably just got a bit ahead of ourselves and we made a mistake. We were like, ‘Jeez, are we bad humans for doing this?’ We apologized to George. I wouldn’t change it, I’m glad it happened. It made us realize we’re not invincible, I think it’s made us better.”

Archie and Miles have grown up together, they still live together and now they’re embarking on a dream career together that they could never have imagined when they were making videos together as kids. Miles acknowledges that they have suffered from an imposter syndrome.

“Do we deserve all this?” he asked. “A lot of the time we’re worried it’s going to get taken away from us.”

“We tried to become professional athletes and failed at that,” Archie added, “So I think the stars aligned with sports and content.”

In a manner that they never could have imagined, they have found their calling.

Written by Don Riddell, CNN