Posted on 19th April 2023
TikTokers are making their everyday lives look "like a Wes Anderson movie" and starring in their own short films that mimic the director's distinctive visual style, colour palette and use of symmetry.
Many of the TikToks on the trend use composer Alexandre Desplat's Obituary from the soundtrack to Anderson's 2021 film The French Dispatch and have a pastel, sepia-style colour tone to them, similar to the trailer for his latest film Asteroid City, out this June.
Have a browse through this box of examples on Buzz from Shooglebox:
One of the early videos behind the trend was Ava Williams reimagining her 6:45am train journey to Grand Central Terminal in New York City with a time-stamped title card and Anderson's recognisable symmetrical framing. Captioned "You better not be acting like you're in a Wes Anderson film when I get there", the video's been viewed 11 million times and had 2.2 million likes since it was posted on April 8.
A version from Keith Afadi having lunch at Honest Burger with his wife has caught lots of people's attention too, with 7 million views and 1.4m likes. Comments pick up on carefully constructed details like the hand slap and humour. The official TikTok UK account asks him to "pls, keep wes anderson-fying your life" – and Afadi responded with a follow-up video documenting "an afternoon at my in-law's house with my wife".
Black Coffee creative director Josh Rimmey's TikTok shows a day in his wood shop with serious facial expressions and symmetrical shots of wood being cut with a circular saw. People said it's the "best one" they've seen so far and that he's "won the trend". One person jokes that Anderson has "been real quiet since you posted this".
Actor and TV presenter Michael Barrymore, who's active on TikTok with 1.5m followers to his name, applied Anderson's trademark style to a video about a Saturday morning in West London – starting with a symmetrical overhead shot of his breakfast before posing in a laundrette and buying milk and cereal in a supermarket. In a sequel video about a Sunday morning in Notting Hill he said: "I guess I live in Wes Anderson's world now".
Travel accounts have recreated Anderson's style in videos of countries and landmarks they've visited. Melbourne-based photographer and travel blogger Peter Yan was inspired after watching an Anderson film on the plane to Lisbon, filming a TikTok from his hotel room and around the Portuguese capital and another trying to make the Amalfi Coast in winter look more appealing.
A more harrowing take on the trend comes from Ukrainian photographer Valeria Shashenok, who's been documenting Russia's invasion of Ukraine on TikTok. She shared a video depicting "war consequences that happen everyday" – the top comment said "This is brilliant and exactly what Wes Anderson movies are lacking: social commentary".
Pizza Express was the first major brand to join in the trend with a video promoting a supermarket competition they're currently running.
The Durham branch of CEX joined in from the point of view of a colleague "pretending your shift is a Wes Anderson film", despite their manager not knowing who he was.
The National Space Centre have Wes Anderson-fied someone walking around in a spacesuit; the National Trust have filmed a visit to the historic Mount Stewart house in County Down, Northern Ireland; and the University of East Anglia have tried "romanticising" their campus.
Spotting TikTok trends
The Wes Anderson film trend is just one of the new trends quickly picked up and tracked by our Buzz service, which highlights some of the big talking points emerging on TikTok and social media every day.
Buzz from Shooglebox is used by journalists, creators and brand teams who need to spot and stay on top of the latest trends.
It includes a constantly updated box of cards showing at a glance and linking to viral videos, TikTok trends and other things going big on social media. Buzz customers also get regular updates alerting them to some of the things they might otherwise miss or discover late.
This stack of cards for the Wes Anderson film trend gives you an idea of how Shooglebox works – and how it could help you go from spotting a trend right at the start to tracking its development over time.
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