If you spent any time on TikTok during lockdown, you may have come across The Formal. It was an online series that got its start as a season of one-minute episodes about two queer gals planning the biggest night of a high schooler’s life — the year 12 formal. Overnight, the whispers of an enemies-to-lovers plot in the first episode got more than one million views, making its young Aussie creators Monique Terry and Hannah-Rae Meegan feel incredibly famous.
The show’s success came as a bit of a shock for Monique and Hannah, who originally created the episode to enter a pilot competition held by Screen Producers Australia and TikTok. While they didn’t win, TikTok must have noticed the impact The Formal had already had on users in such a short period of time, because it gave them a grant to film the rest of the series.
As the series steadily gained loyal viewers who loved watching the journey the characters went on as they planned the formal and came to grips with their own sexuality, they went on to film three more TikTok-based seasons of The Formal, with the fourth expanding to a five-minute YouTube format.
From the comfortable nostalgia of the Aussie high school setting, the high hormone-fuelled emotions of teenagehood and the beauty of a young queer love story, viewers were hooked. And while the 1-minute format seemed a bit bonkers to some, to its Gen-Z creators, it made perfect sense that their creation would resonate with queer youth online.
“We had a pretty good idea that there would be a queer audience online because that’s always been a space where our stories have been more freely told,” Monique told PEDESTRIAN.
“It felt so special to be able to connect with our audience directly and have a sense of community there.
“We just hope that moving forward more queer stories can be told on a larger platform as well.”
Now, Monique and Hannah are onto the next challenge — a new web series called TOUCH on YouTube.
While it’s a whole different kettle of fish from The Formal, I’m already hooked.
It follows star touch footy player Cameron (Diana Popovska) as she discovers that her girlfriend Leah (Kairavi Desai) — who is also a teammate on their champion touch footy team The Cassowaries — cheated on her with another member of their team. To exact revenge, Cameron decides to ditch her winning team and join The Galahs. But sadly for highly competitive Cameron, the Galahs can’t remember the last time they won a game.
As a long-time footy player herself, tackling the concept of on-field drama was daunting yet exciting for Monique.
“It was a pretty ambitious project from the beginning and none of us had ever worked on a sports series before so I’m really proud of how we managed to pull it off!” she said.
“Also as someone who grew up playing touch religiously, it meant a lot to me to get it right.”
And just in case you were wondering, TOUCH is bringing the enemies-to-lovers trope we all know and love.
Monique’s character Angie is on The Galahs and ohhhh boy there is already some sneaky sexual tension going on between her and Cameron. I am here for it.
You can catch episodes one and two of TOUCH on YouTube. And don’t forget to subscribe because there’s more to come.
The post The Creators Of TikTok’s Hit Queer Series ‘The Formal’ Just Dropped A New Show & It’s Incred appeared first on PEDESTRIAN.TV .
