'They really love what they do': Content creators present to English classes

Raleigh-based Kim and Penn Holderness, known online as the Holderness Family, have over 8 million followers across social media platforms. They are authors of a New York Times bestseller. They won Season 33 of the reality show, "The Amazing Race."

And last week, they visited UNC to give a 90-minute talk to professor Marc Cohen’s English 105: English Composition and Rhetoric students.

After Cohen discovered the Holderness Family through his social media feed and "The Amazing Race," he said he thought they could be excellent speakers, and decided to contact them through their website about a potential collaboration.

After receiving Cohen’s email, the team set up a meeting to learn more about the proposal before officially signing on to the project.

“We love higher education,” Penn said. “We have a daughter who loves education and loves UNC. And so we were all sitting around the dinner table talking about this email, and it was universally believed that we should do something.”

The couple are known to produce comedic sketches and music about their experiences as spouses and parents. Cohen said their presentation was the third of a series of talks organized for a class unit on the business of content creation. 

“I personally love being on a college campus, and I love being around people who love to learn,” Kim said. “So for me, it was a way to give back in a very small way.”

Cohen’s students from his two English 105 sessions, as well as some professors and community members, met in Murphey Hall at 6 p.m. on Nov. 7 to hear from the couple and two members from the Holderness Family Productions team, Chief Marketing Executive Ann Marie Taepke and Content Producer and Editor Sam Allen. 

Prior to their live presentation, Cohen said the Holderness Family held two Zoom meetings with Cohen’s classes about their lives and business. Taepke and Allen also conducted a virtual discussion on Monday with Cohen’s classes detailing their roles in the Holderness Family team. 

This was not the first time the Holderness Family had spoken at events, but Penn said to attendees that this was their first time giving a college lecture.

“I don't know that the audience has ever been this smart,” he said to The Daily Tar Heel.

Together, the group discussed their creative process when it comes to content creation, shared stories behind projects that shaped their business’s direction, and discussed how content has changed over the years.

UNC first-year Aashi Iyengar said her favorite part of the talk was when the Holderness Family team shared clips of their videos. Iyengar said she had not seen their social media content before, so that section of the presentation helped her better understand the Holderness Family business.

“Getting to actually see some of their content, it kind of brought to life everything that they were saying,” Iyengar said.

Ella Teegarden, a first-year at UNC, also said watching the content was her favorite aspect of the talk. 

"You could just tell that they were so excited and they loved that they were able to come in to teach the Tar Heels what they do," she said. "And you could tell that they really love what they do."

This is not the first time Cohen has included unique speakers and experiences in his curriculum. In previous years, he has taught English 105 units in collaboration with the North Carolina Botanical Garden, UNC Hospitals and an indie rock band called Hotel Fiction. 

“I'm always looking for opportunities to make English 105 exciting and interesting and experiential,” Cohen said. “Education is my way of doing that.”

Cohen said the content from the Holderness Family lectures will be used in students’ unit projects: multimedia narrative websites.

The project will teach students how to create alternative stories for the web, but it also allows them to learn from people who are at the top of their profession and willing to share their experience.

“Their time is precious, and they are giving us a substantial amount of that precious time,” Cohen said. “Why? Because they care about teaching.”

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