Anyone But You Is Definitely TikTok-Coded
If you’re a rom-com lover, you’ve definitely watched or heard about the movie “Anyone But You”, starring Sydney Sweeney and Glen Powell as lead actors. What’s surprising about this film is the many TikTok references you can find.
To explain it briefly - Bea and Ben share one amazing night that ends with a big misunderstanding which leads them to hate each other. When they’re invited to a wedding, they decide to fake a relationship because of their exes' presence at the event. It’s a classic rom-com that has been kinda ruined by all the references to TikTok.
I personally found a few of them that made me say “This is from booktok”. For those who don’t know, booktok is simply a part of TikTok, a community for readers if you want, where people discusse everything and anything about books. There are many videos about what new books are trending, thoughts about authors or genres, and even memes.
One of the main topics you can find there are the many tropes that you can find in a story. A trope is an idea overused in books, some may be good and some can be debatable but one thing is for sure - a lot of readers really love enemies to lovers which is the vibe I first got from this movie.
Although it was more like probable lovers to enemies to lovers, but the trailer was trying to give a clear idea that the protagonists hate each other so much. Another trope I found, but again these are very commonly used in any romance movie/novel so it’s not that big of a deal, is the fact that they fake a relationship in order to gain something but end up falling in love instead.
Those are very subtle references and they might not even come from TikTok per se, but it’s surely strange how this movie had two of the most loved tropes on social media.
The biggest reference from booktok I found is the beach scene. The characters are on the beach as they’re about to have fun when the couple (Bea’s sister and her future wife) tell Bea and Ben that they’re going to share a room and, unfortunately, there’s only one bed as a joke.
If one could question the first two references, this one speaks for itself. If you’re a part of booktok, you’ve most likely seen all the videos praising the one-room-one-bed trope. This one could not be a coincidence, what are the odds of this movie mentioning one of the readers’ most loved and wanted tropes?
Other than that, the movie used a lot of terms and phrases that went viral on TikTok, one could discuss that they’re now part of our everyday vocabulary but it’s still hard to find new films and series that use them without receiving backlash.
The use of the word cringe is one of the many examples. “That’s cringe” and “It’s cringe to say cringe” represented so well the discussion around this word on TikTok. For those who don’t know, cringe was very popular on TikTok a few years ago but, like every trend, it quickly became uncool to use it leading people to tell those who were still using it that it was “cringe to say cringe”.
The best reference yet is when Ben’s friend is cheering on him by saying: “Two showers in a day? Go off king, get cleaned.” It’s very common for viewers on TikTok to refer to someone as Queen or King as a way to show that they respect them while still being sarcastic. This one is not very used in everyday situations so I was very surprised when I first heard it.
Another terminology that comes from social media is Situationship. It’s a way to describe a couple that is not official but still acts like one. They’re not officially in a relationship but still in a situationship which mostly indicates that they’re not too serious about their relation. It’s used a few times in the movie but I think this one is fairly used by everyone nowadays.
And so is the term bro which is repeatedly used in the movie, the problem is that it was Bea calling Ben bro. This one isn’t necessarily taken from TikTok although it is principally used on the app to refer to people ironically. Among all these references, I think this was the worst yet, it felt so forced and awkward.
I’ve seen many articles and videos talking about how cringe this movie is and I have to agree on this one. To be fair, the idea is not that bad and the acting was ok most of the time, the thing that didn’t sell it for me was seeing these grown-up people talking like teenagers on the web.
Nowadays more movies try to integrate internet slang in their dialogues, some are acceptable, like the movie Bottoms, but others just look like a hot mess. It’s ok to show how people actually use TikTok slang or trends in movies but there needs to be an adaptation, it’s cool to see teenagers use them in a way that actually represents real life but once it’s older people who clearly don’t even know what those words mean… it loses its sense.
As I said, being TikTok-coded is not necessarily a bad thing, it just sucks the moment it’s not done properly. It’s a rom-com which means that it should be funny but I totally got lost every time they tried to make a joke.
These are just a few references I got but I’m sure there are many more. What do you think about the movie? Let me know in the comments!














