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I've been thinking about the various matching Darkner pairs and groups and how Spamton and Tenna differ from the rest, so here's a detailed analysis post.

We've seen a number of different pairs and groups of Darkners that share visual traits, who have varying relationships with each other.

We don't know what objects Elnina and Lanino are in the Light World, but they're definitely a set of some kind. They were created as a set in the Light World, and they are a pair in the Dark World and have visually similar designs, using the same color palette, eye shapes, cloud-like hair, etc.

Lancer and King are the Jack of Spades and the King of Spades from the same deck of cards, and in the Dark World, they are son and father and look alike. While Queen wasn't made by Lightners to have any connection to these two, she actually has some visual resemblance to them, with her similar color palette and facial features.

King and Queen are implied to have some kind of history together, and while, again, they weren't created as a pair, they occupy similar roles by being the royalty of their Dark Worlds, and both go by their titles, so them ending up as a pair isn't all that strange.

Sweet Cap'n Cakes are a music-themed trio. Sweet is a speaker, Cap'n is a cassette player, and K_K is a CD player. The three being in a group in the Dark World follows pretty naturally from them being similar objects in the Light World.

Mr. Elegance and Mr. Society appear to be friends in the Dark World, and in the Light World they are both chess pieces, presumably from the same set.

Jigsaw Joe, the Kris Master, the Susie Master, the Ralsei Master and the TP Master appear together in Chapter 1. They're all puzzle pieces, and may even be from the same puzzle. Either way, their Dark World designs are very similar to each other, and they're a group with a shared backstory.

Swatch and the Swatchlings look alike, and the explanation is in their name. In the Dark World, the Swatchlings are Swatch's subordinates. In the Light World, Swatch is an art program, and the Swatchlings are likely based off of the same program.

The visual design similarities between the Tasques and Tasque Manager are, once again, explained in the names themselves. In the Light World, they are tasks and the Task Manager, respectively. In the Dark World, the Tasques are animalistic, while the Tasque Manager is more humanoid and serves as their handler.

The Addisons are all the same type/species of Darkner, being based off of digital ads. In the Dark World, they are a group, and they have very similar visual designs.

And then there's Spamton and Tenna.

In the Light World, there isn't much in common between spam emails and a CRT television; they certainly weren't created as a matching set. Their roles and social standing in the Dark World weren't similar either; Tenna started out as a successful TV host, while Spamton started out as a total failure of a salesman.

Interestingly, while Tenna was originally a solo Darkner and not part of a set, Spamton actually was part of a group of similar Darkners. He was one of the Addisons, presumably wearing the same black top and green pants as them in the past. But even then, he has always been different.

The other Addisons all appear to embody something like the embedded ads one might find on websites if they don't have an ad blocker, while Spamton is spam emails - a different and ineffective form of advertising, leading him to be unsuccessful. He's also physically smaller than the other Addisons, and as I've talked about in my other Spamton analysis posts, it's implied that they found him annoying and also saw him as inferior, hence why they were so offended when he became more successful than them (one of them asks why he, specifically, deserved this). They tolerated him, but did not respect him.

So, while he was part of the group, he didn't really fit in among them and wasn't seen as an equal. He was a "defective" Addison, so to speak, one that the others kept around out of pity.

After he became successful, they stopped going out with him, further separating him from them. He also changed the way he looked, including both his body (hair dye) and his clothes (a new outfit), which finally brings me to big shot era Spamton and his similarities with Tenna, visual and otherwise.

They were clearly wearing matching outfits. While we don't see Spamton's lower half, there's no reason to believe it didn't match Tenna's.

(Him wearing white pants and shoes in present day doesn't actually tell us anything about his personal style preferences, given that his outfit as a whole is a failed attempt to impersonate Swatch that he then got stuck wearing because he couldn't afford new clothes.)

And it's actually more than just their outfits that they chose to match. There are several lines in the game implying that Tenna's nose is fake, and that he has multiple noses lying around. But Spamton's nose is real, and considering their clear desire for looking alike, this was likely why Tenna got himself a nose.

One of Spamton's old products is a bow tie (B.ShotBowtie), but their matching outfits have them wearing long ties, and the TennaTie you can get in Chapter 3 is also a long tie, so I'm inclined to believe that Spamton may have started out wearing a bow tie, but switched to a long tie to match Tenna.

I've said this in a different post, but I believe that the red shirt collar originated with Spamton as a way to have a clear distinction between his body and clothes, and Tenna wore a red collar to match.

Assuming that Spamton also used to wear a tailcoat, I would guess that this originated with Tenna, since he would've been more used to wearing fancy clothes, having been successful from the start.

With both of them so clearly committed to matching each other, with Tenna even adding a new feature to his face, I'm actually starting to wonder if his white gloves are an attempt to match Spamton's naturally white hands.

What I want to emphasize is that the visual similarity between their designs is not something they had organically; it's something they actively chose to create. They weren't cosmically set up to be a matching pair, they made themselves a matching pair.

We have a sense of what Spamton originally looked like based on the other Addisons' designs, and while we have little to go off of when it comes to what Tenna used to look like before he met Spamton, even if you assume minimal difference from his current design, the two wouldn't have been all that alike.

Spamton had a humanoid head with a big nose, Tenna had a TV head with no nose (or eyes). They dressed differently. Spamton is small, noted to be smaller than other Darkners of his own species, while Tenna is huge. Although Tenna can change size, and at least some of that is clearly voluntary, even the smaller form we've seen him take when introducing the Green Room, or when he's in his room in Castle Town, is still noticeably bigger than Spamton - and it makes sense that he'd be big by default, given how CRT TVs are pretty big. Even Tenna's ability to change size, while Spamton is locked into one size, is itself another difference between them.

But there's an area in which these two have always been alike, and it's their personalities.

Both of them can come off charismatic from a distance, when they're performing on screen, but are perceived as "annoying" or "too much" on an interpersonal level. I mentioned the other Addisons finding Spamton annoying earlier, and I'll once again bring up Tenna's pre-battle dialogue, in which he confidently assumes that the reason the Fun Gang must be upset with him is that he's "doing too much talking", a belief which had to have come from somewhere.

So, even while these two were successful, they were lonely, finding it hard to connect with others. Both of them value having someone who listens to them talk, hence both of them having a connection to Mike, who doesn't appear to be able to talk, but would've been able to listen to them. It was also likely a key part of why they became close with each other - they found someone who listened to them and appreciated them, rather than tolerating them (like the Addisons or Tenna's employees), and they also found someone who was a lot like them and thus understood them, making them feel seen and heard.

They worked together, they got close, and they fell in love. At some point during that time, they decided that they wanted to look alike, and they came up with their new outfits, matching to the highest degree.

It's important to note that it's only their outward appearance that either of them changed in order to be more alike, and that the look they ultimately agreed on came from a mutual exchange of ideas, rather than one of them simply copying the other and completely throwing away their own style.

While Spamton did become more like Tenna in his personality with the help of Tenna's advice about how to come off more charming on screen, it was through acquiring a new skill (or improving an existing one) and not through sacrificing any part of himself. Neither of them had to give up their own core identity to be more like the other. Their personalities already worked well together, they just also wanted their appearances to match.

And even after these two were forcefully ripped apart and spent years believing (in Spamton's case) or convincing themselves (in Tenna's case) that they had been betrayed and abandoned, they're still constantly thinking about each other and their dialogue is full of references to their past together.

As an example, they both recite their old jingle, but can't bring themselves to steal each other's parts, so they repeat their own and then say the shared part:

Since Spamton is homeless and stuck in Swatch cosplay, we only see Tenna still keeping items associated with Spamton and only see Spamton's influence on Tenna's appearance. But if Spamton had been in a better living situation, he would've mirrored Tenna here too.

Despite the flimsy hater personas they both put on, deep down they yearn for each other and would be happy to reunite if they knew that it was an option and that their feelings are reciprocated. Spamton has already dropped the pretense and was excited to see that Tenna kept the pipis, which one of his Valentine's cards implies to be their child.

These two are deeply devoted to each other despite everything, and yet not only were they not cosmically designed to be a bonded pair in this way, but being close with each other led them to deviate from their intended purpose.

An outdated piece of technology like a CRT TV shouldn't know what an email is and shouldn't even want to know that. Spam emails, on the other hand, shouldn't be on TV and shouldn't even want to be. And yet, while Tenna doesn't quite get what an email is, he knows it exists and wants to know more, while Spamton's commercials played on his TV show.

Although Spamton switching to scripted TV commercials instead of direct sales was already an instance of him somewhat deviating from his original design, he was at least still a salesman, so he was doing his intended job, even if he got to do it in a way that was more comfortable for him.

But then, it seems that Tenna offered to "put him on TV" and "make him a star" in a different way - my theory is that he was going to make Spamton his co-host. Spamton, meanwhile, was going to tell Tenna more about modern technology, and he also agreed to share his secret. His deal with his benefactor was a privilege granted to him alone, but he was willing to risk losing it by trying to share it with Tenna.

They went from bending the rules to outright breaking them. The punishment was swift and brutal.

As soon as the deal was signed, Spamton got that phone call, panicked and ran away, and Tenna never saw him again. Spamton tried to call Tenna later, but was unable to contact him, leading him to believe that Tenna had betrayed and abandoned him after their deal caused his entire life to fall apart, and he continued to believe this until Chapter 3. (On top of this, he also had to live with the knowledge of Tenna's fate in the prophecy, which only hurt more.)

On the other hand, Tenna, having no information at all about what happened to Spamton, went into deep denial about the whole situation, latching onto an alternative narrative that lets him tell himself that Spamton is okay, but is just an asshole that chose to abandon him. Although this is what he tries to tell himself, the way he frames his request for help as "sweet talk" in his Sword Route monologue, and the way he leaves in Spamton's visible panic, reveals that deep down he blames himself for what happened.

Despite seeming like they were both blaming each other on the surface, in reality both believed the situation to be Tenna's fault. Ironically, it's actually Spamton that seemingly no longer believes this now that he knows that Tenna cares and didn't cause him harm on purpose, while Tenna still thinks it's his fault. The phrasing of "You really do care!!!" as though this is news to Spamton certainly feeds into that perception.

Combine that with Spamton looking absolutely wretched and probably still smelling like he came out of a dumpster, and his reappearance in the studio being so sudden and unexpected from Tenna's perspective, while Tenna was already going through a lot and also in denial about what happened between them, and no wonder he freaked out and ran away. He wasn't ready for that conversation yet.

But with the help of the Fun Gang, these two can probably get another chance to reunite and once again be happy together.

TL;DR: Spamton and Tenna were not cosmically designed to match and were not meant to become close at all, but once they got to know each other, they actively chose to become a matching bonded pair. Their love for each other led them to deviate from their purpose, for which they were harshly punished by being forcefully ripped apart, but they remain deeply devoted to each other even after all these years.

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