Veronika & Kyle: The Best Will They-Won’t-They Not on TV
Veronika Slowikowski, better known as Veronika_iscool just posted a video of her and her roommate Kyle Chase kissing with the title saying “it’s official.” So why is it that every comment looks like this?
[I still don’t believe it.]
I love sitcoms. I’m a huge sucker for a will they won’t they. Ross, Rachel. Jim Pam. Nick and Chess. The will they won’t they has been at the heart of long form storytelling since Diane started working at Sam’s bar.
But as the sitcom falls into obscurity and the way we consume media changes it’s always struck me how we’re losing out on that storytelling tradition.
But it turns out the best will they won’t they is happening on TikTok right now-
Veronika_iscool is a Tiktok account run by Canadian comedian and actress Veronika Slowikowski. You may have seen her in the first two seasons of What We Do In The Shadows or in the Freeze movie Exmas.
But what she’s probably most famous for are the videos she makes with her roommate Kyle Chase. They host a podcast together, make sketches, do dances- but the central push of the account has always been whether Kyle and Veronika are dating, and a lot of that is because of a series of videos fans call “the lore.”
[A brief synopsis of the lore]
Veronika’s TikTok account has been active since 2020, posting skits and bits to various levels of success and mostly playing an almost Michael Scott type character. And in September of 2023 she moved to New York and started making videos with her roommate Kyle. Making fun of him for doing the dishes; or oh no you ran into me singing.
Almost immediately after moving in they had a video be a huge hit where Veronika is trying to get him to not go into the bathroom after her. It got over 1.5 million likes and after that Kyle began to be featured even more.
The storyline really begins in October of 2023 “The Anniversary Dinner” where Veronika keeps professing her love to Kyle where he keeps claiming that they’re just roommates.
Then she comes home to prank Kyle and he has a girl over; she tries to make him jealous by paying academy award nominated actor Lucas hedges to be her fake boyfriend; she can’t find him because he’s at his girlfriends house; she tries to make him jealous again.
Some pretty quintessential sitcom beats: and then there’s a side plot where her friends from Canada come to stay with them and they’re a nuisance to Kyle.
Up to this point it’s also important to remember that there are other videos interspersed between these: it’s not like episode one then two then three: they’re interspersed with jokes and halloween or her being backstage or whatever. That’s mostly what the account is.
But things really ramp up in December; Kyle’s girlfriend breaks up with him after Veronika gets too weird showing up at her apartment; and he’s planning on moving to LA for an acting gig.
Veronika follows him and breaks up his shooting with a monologue from when Harry Met Sally. It’s a hard, hard watch. Which is how I know I’m emotionally invested. He reveals he’s coming back to New York City. Everyone claps.
They fly back to New York and Kyle seems to finally warm up to her, he puts his hand on her leg. But then guess what? Twist: the CAMERAMAN reveals he has a crush on Veronika too.
Here we get sort of a Brian the Camera man storyline where Michael stops filming their videos; but eventually they win him back.
Finally, it all culminates on New Years Eve where she and Kyle kiss. It’s pretty awesome.
These videos are all hugely popular, and catapulted Veornika’s account and profile: In September she gained 100,000 followers on Tiktok. This here is the period where the “lore” ran. They still make videos for sure but this was the apex of that storyline.
The rest of the lore got weird; first with a sort of reversal storyline where Kyle was into Veronika and she had a boyfriend; and then it got really weird when she’d been replaced by an evil twin and a wizard referenced in their first sketch showed up. It’s good clean fun, but very different than what they were doing. It culminated in them having their memories erased and sort of returning to the status quo.
I have to imagine it was probably a ton of work, and they wanted to go back to not having every comment on one of their sketches be “this is a filler episode.” A year later and they still do storylines on occasion. Veronika still interrupts whenever other guys flirt with Kyle. Joe Jonas was on one time. She gets a tattoo of Kyle for his birthday.
They even did a cool meta, Nathan Fieldery couple of videos about “the making of the lore”
But I definitely felt the vibe of the account shift; there was a sense that they were crescendoing towards something; now the videos are high quality but less focused. I would check in on them on occasion but definitely not with the same frequency.
But when Veronica posted a picture of them kissing with “its official” and no bits I was right back in. Is it real? Is it fake? Does it matter? I felt truly engaged in a way I never have before with an online storyline. Like the first TikTok Sitcom. Tell me more about Gen-Z Jim and Pam:
Why Does It Work
It’s really, really hard to tell long form stories on the internet. That’s why almost everything on the internet these days is either non-fiction, slop, or something in-between. In fact I made a hole video about this phenomenon.
How do you tell a story when the audience feels free to start scrolling after even a second of boredom. It’s hard to create something engaging enough for you to both not leave; and for you to stay long enough to incentivize the algorithm to come back.
Like remember the series “the dealership” on TikTok. The chevy car dealership that did an office parody. It was really genuinely good, funny, but also it couldn’t really be sustained.
Or Quibi, the video platform that tried to make TV in ten minute increments that ended up shutting down in just a couple of months despite billions of dollars of investment.
I’m always seeing high quality videos that just don’t work well enough in the format to get people to come back, finding the mix between virality and storytelling is super hard.
But Veronika and Kyle’s storyline really, genuinely works; as evidenced not just by the views; but all the comments and excitement. Every comment on every podcast clip; they have to be together, look at the way he looks at her, kicking my feet rn. This is my ross and Rachel. New girl vibes. My favorite show is on.
So what are the reasons that Veronica and Kyle’s story manage to work so much better than others trying: and why do I think you should tune in for whatever they’re cooking next.
It is digestible in the way people watch TikTok
People don’t engage with short form video the way they do with Television, you don’t click on a show and watch it all the way through and because of the way the algorithm works its unlikely you’re going to view their videos in a linear way.
Which is why it’s so important that Veornika and Kyle aren’t making TV, they’re making tiktoks that tell a story.
All the videos are pretty short; most are between 90 seconds to two minutes. I mean the New Years Eve kiss is only like 15 seconds. And it sucks to say but people’s attention spans are really short, so this is a necessity.
And they’re all pretty funny and can stand pretty much on their own, which is less of a big deal as people get invested; now they can do a video where its just them getting into a fight or something; but early on it’s important that people can enjoy while just popping in.
Like this video where Veronika is saying that the house is haunted and asks the ghost for signs that she and Kyle should get together, but it’s clearly just her moving the cabinet door with clear tape. That’s funny even if you don’t know the storyline.
There’s a lot of filler (positive)
I also think that the sitcom content: episodic, humorous, focused on the relationship between the characters more than any direct plot really lends itself to the format. It makes it easier to become comfortable with the characters and invested without being exactly up to date with the plot.
Which is good because on TikTok you’re not going to see them all in a row, you’re going to get pieces as the algorithm shows you:
Like, I remember becoming aware of the two in the quintessential interest way: where I wouldn’t be able to tell you a thing about them and then one day scrolling I realized I knew the architecture of these apartments, their characters, and their relationship.
It’s kind of like the difference between bingeing a sitcom and watching an episode once a week when it comes out. It’s meant moreso to be followed than watched all at once. It’s a product of its format.
The office has hundreds of episodes, you still watch even if Jim and Pam don’t take any significant stride in their relationship that episode.
Veronika and Kyle are so fascinating because your investment in their relationship sneaks up on you, because that’s how the internet works.
It’s good
It’s legitimately funny. I think Veronika is a huge talent; sort of like a chronically online Michael Scott. This cut from her finding out John Lennon is dead is very funny.
And everything is well-acted and believable in universe. Kyle does a really good job as a straight man; obviously they’re all sketches, but he Jims to the camera with such a look of disbelief that it’s awesome.
The meta elements are really fun; the cameraman having a crush is great, and the one video where they don’t have Micheal the cameraman behind the camera is really funny.
I also knew I was invested because when she started doing the speech at the shoot I was so upset I could barely watch it.
It Keeps Asking The Question
The will-they-won’t-they is such a staple of fiction and sitcoms in particular and it’s the source for most of the tension and interest in the show. It’s more so about the question that is is the will or the won’t. It’s why television shows have to change when the main characters finally get together; with by switching the focus of the show onto the ensemble. Or by artificially keeping the characters apart. Which is what most sitcoms do; including our show with the wizard erasing their memory.
Veornika and Kyle have been playing this game where you don’t know what’s real and what’s a bit to such an extent that even after they posted a video of them kissing and a montage of them together I still don’t believe it. Or I’m worried if I do I’ll look stupid. But I’m invested.
[I’m tired of gaslighting the internet video]
If they’d capitalized a year plus ago and said they were together I don’t know if they’d have the same traction or interest that they do now. And even now they just released a video that makes me question what’s happening.
I mean it’s good for business: their live shows were called the Kyle and Veornika together forever question mark tour.
Or like this video as an ad for tinder; are they going to swipe right on each other? That’s the push of the channel;
The fact that they haven’t given in and either gotten together or denied that they are makes it all more exciting.
The blurring of reality and fiction
I really like how the show happens on Veronikas main TikTok account, which she’s been posting on for years; her first videos are just her goofing around. There are no title cards telling you: here’s an episode or here’s not.
Veronika and Kyle are playing characters, but those characters are heightened versions of themselves. It’s not clear when a video comes out whether it is part of the storyline or it’s just the two of them goofing around. Because they never break.
I mean like, we know Veronika going to Kyle’s girlfriends home and being a fake plumber isn’t real, but what about this video where Veronika is in her pajamas?
What about this one where they’re in bed together?
What I’m trying to say is that the blurring of the line between character and performer makes the will they won’t they more interesting. We want to know if Veronika the character is with Kyle the character because we want to know if Veornika the podcaster is with Kyle the podcaster. And vice versa.
Maybe there’s no way to tell a story without the overemphasis we have on parasocial relationships that we can’t seem to escape online.
It’s How We watch our friends fall in love.
I also think it’s’ really cool because it reflects love or courtship in a very Gen-Z way. I made a vide a couple months ago about how hard it is to capture Gen-Z on screen, and actually it started as a a video about Kyle and Veronika. Doesn’t the show, their romance, the sporadic nature of the content kind of mirror the way we watch people fall in love now.
First there’s a soft launch: a hand out of the corner of the frame. A comment on an instagram post. A tag. And then a buildup, posting adventure or conversations or text messages. I think that what’s happening there is really important and cool: Watching ross and Rachel is like watching your friends fall in love, the office is like watching your coworkers do it. Kyle and Veornika to me is more like watching people behave in relationship in 2025.
Because how often do you hear that so and os are back together? Probably less than you see a comment or a story on instagram or Facebook and you’re like? They’re back? Them? Or you see somebody delete all their photos with someone.
There’s a voyeuristic element that I think we’re all weirdly comfortable with in the rest of our lives, that Kyle and Veronica reflect really well.
Conclusion
In the process of making this video, just two days after posting the “its official” video on Instagram; Veronika posted a new video of her overhearing Kyle say that he was faking the relationship for the channel. Which means this isn’t end game, we’re back for a season 2.
Telling stories on the internet is really hard, that’s why basically everything that happens online is non-fiction or slop. That’s why I think it’s important to pay attention when somebody does do something that is interesting or successful.
There’s a unique mix of reality-comedy-fiction-nonfiction-personality-paraosicalrelationships-voyeurism and more at play here. What’s real and what isn’t, what’s canon and what’s not. It’s all just creatively exciting.
If you’re a young filmmaker or creative, you should be paying attention any time somebody finds a new way to tell a story, whether by design or not. Especially a story that thousands of people are emotionally invested in. I’m excited any time somebody manages to use new technology to excite or move people.
Go subscribe to their channel and watch what happens next, I know I will be watching.
