How ‘Everything Is Romantic’ Became TikTok’s Love Anthem
Romance isn’t cringe. Romance is the 47-second fan edit that wrecks your entire day and makes you believe in love again.
It started, as all good things do, with a bit of unhinged emotional chaos. Letterboxd, the place where we log our little movie thoughts and unfiltered opinions, uploaded a Wuthering Heights trailer. But instead of period-appropriate violins, it was set to the orchestral remix of Charli XCX’s Everything Is Romantic. Suddenly, a 19th-century novel felt like a modern fan edit. And TikTok went feral in the best possible way. What followed wasn’t just a trend. It was a moodboard. A vibe. A movement.
Charli’s strings-backed anthem became the go-to audio for edits about heartbreak, obsession, unspoken love, and tragic eye contact. Fandoms collided. People were stitching together Pride & Prejudice, Love Island USA, anime slow burns, and prestige TV into one continuous emotional spiral. And somehow it made perfect sense. We are not just watching love stories anymore. We are curating them. Remixing them. Feeling them louder.
Why does this hit so hard?
Because deep down, we’re all a little love-starved. Not for romance itself, but for sincerity. For something that makes us feel all the things without flinching. For years, romance has been treated like a joke. Cringe. Something to meme. We moved through ironic shipping, “he’s a 10 but” discourse, and rom-com fatigue. But now, those feelings are coming back through the side door. Not through new shows or movies, but through edits. Through vibes.
Through 40 seconds of longing paired with swelling strings and grainy video clips. These TikToks are not just about couples. They are about moments. They are about the gaze that lingers just a little too long. The hand that almost touches. The silence that says everything. They’re telling us that love doesn’t have to be explained to be real. You can feel it in the beat drop. In the lighting. In the slow zoom. And we are so here for it.
The blueprint is simple but devastating
A single look across a crowded room. The character who turns away just before the other speaks. Someone choosing not to say what they feel. Two people standing close but miles apart emotionally. Play it over Charli’s orchestral remix and suddenly it’s not just a moment. It’s everything. Whether it’s anime or Austen or A24, these edits give love a new visual language. One that’s more about energy than plot. One where what matters most is how something feels, not whether it was ever officially canon.
TikTok is rewriting the love story
These edits are emotional fan fiction. They remix characters, aesthetics, and timelines to create something entirely new. A scene from Euphoria might sit right next to a reality TV kiss. A clip of Colin Firth might fade into a K-pop stage glance. There are no rules, and that’s exactly what makes them work. They’re not about logic. They’re about longing. And that’s what makes them so powerful. Romance is no longer about the structure of the story. It’s about the vibe. The tone. The tension. These edits understand that love isn’t always clear-cut. It’s messy. It’s nonlinear. It’s made of fragments. So are we.
Charli’s soundtrack is doing the emotional labor
The original version of Everything Is Romantic is glitchy and fast, full of chaotic energy. The orchestral remix slows it down. It makes it feel big. Dramatic. Serious. Like the end of a movie you wish would never end. It turns everything it touches into a love story. Even things that weren’t supposed to be one. There’s something kind of magical about that. It’s like the song gives people permission to feel again. To feel hard. To take love seriously without apologizing for it. Because why shouldn’t we?
The point isn’t the ship. It’s the ache.
These edits don’t always follow traditional romance tropes, though sometimes they do. “He fell first, she fell harder” and “friends to lovers” are alive and well. But often, the focus is on the almost. The what if. The it meant something even if it didn’t last. They are stories without endings. Feelings without resolutions. Love without labels. And that kind of emotional ambiguity? It hits deeper than any perfectly scripted kiss ever could.
So what does it mean?
It means we’re ready to feel again. Not quietly. Not ironically. But all the way. It means we’re done pretending romance is embarrassing. These edits prove that love stories don’t have to be new to feel fresh. They just have to be real. Because when someone looks at someone else like they’re the whole world, it doesn’t matter if it’s from a 2009 drama or a fan-captured moment from a concert. It still hits. Everything really is romantic. We’re just finally letting it be.