A fast-talking single mom has won me over again. A woman named Summer England, who has amassed more than 285,000 followers on TikTok, has the cottagecore aesthetic of a young librarian, the verbal acuity of a Gilmore Girl, and the wide-eyed, innocent face of a romantic comedy heroine. Her era is Folklore. And recently, she started dating her neighbor and telling us all the deets, which has left thousands of viewers like me rapt, craving her parceled-out updates.
What seems like a simple storytelling experiment on TikTok, an app known for its honest confessionals, might signal a trend of how best to keep an audience engaged in romance. Packaged for Gen Z with short bursts of plot and character development, England’s form of storytelling—which is composed of tiny morsels of a bigger story told in two-to-three minute sections—increases suspense and buy-in in a world where there’s so much content, it’s hard to stand out. Instead, the popularity of something is the best measure of success.
I didn’t find Summer England on the clock app, nor did I seek out this kind of serialized content. Summer England’s videos found me via the uber-powerful TikTok algorithm. TikTok knows me better than anyone: It helps me manage mental health conditions I’m not even diagnosed with (yet), shows me all the musical theater clips I crave (see: “Roxanne opt up”), and somehow knew that I’d like to watch the story of a single mom (like me) who talks really fast (like me) and is a theater person (like me) who takes us along on her journey toward self-love via romantic love (like—maybe someday—me).
