This wonderful TikTok account finds romance in everyday Melbourne

Sometimes, in the midst of the wacky conspiracy videos and inane dance routines, TikTok throws up something genuinely worthwhile. TikTok account GardenStateJournal posts clips that romanticise Melbourne, copying what filmmakers have been doing to New York City for decades. 

It’s the work of local Dylan Walsh, just another Melburnian that knows how beautiful their city is and wants to show it off to the world.

GardenStateJournal – the account name probably references Victoria and not Zach Braff’s cult film Garden State – captures locals going about their daily business, focuses on some of the inner city’s finest neighbourhoods, and finds the beauty in the everyday.

The hazy lo-fi clips are often soundtracked by tender jazz compositions, like Bernard Hermann’s work in Taxi Driver – albeit that had a much more menacing effect – or Woody Allen using George Gershwin in the wonderful opening scene in Manhattan.

As Walsh told Broadsheet recently, the director of Taxi Driver was one of his influences. “I watch a lot of 70s New York movies, from Martin Scorsese and Sidney Lumet, and the way they capture the city is so perfectly New York,” he explained. “I want to make people feel about Melbourne the way New Yorkers feel about New York.”

The GardenStateJournal account is proof that, if you use a smoky enough jazz song, you can make absolutely anything seem momentous. You can check out some of the best clips from the TikTok account below. May the romanticisation of Melbourne continue!

And maybe the next time you’re taking a casual stroll down Sydney Road, it’ll become part of a dreamy cinematic clip. As Walsh added to Broadsheet, “We should feel romantic(ally) about our city; we should feel pride in our identity. There’s a beauty about the way there’ll be so many different people interacting within the one shot.”

@gardenstatejournal

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♬ original sound – GSJ