The TikTok Husband Knows You’re Laughing at Him

We’re all familiar with Instagram Husband—a certain type of guy willing to go to tremendous lengths to help their partner get the perfect photo. Well, there’s a new groom at the internet’s altar. Meet 2020’s rising star: the TikTok Husband.

While the Instagram Husband lives behind the scenes, the TikTok version is center stage, a crucial part of the platform’s micro narratives. He isn’t hoisting camera equipment or diving down to get the ideal angle. He’s more of a foil—a character in some domestic drama that’s unfolding in less than a minute. While Instagram is all about crisp aesthetics and curation, TikTok is dictated by impromptu ideas and trending hashtags. And whereas Instagram strives to look candid, TikTok often is candid.

“It’s really aspirational on Instagram, but I feel like TikTok really captures the reality of being in a relationship which is kind of raw, not always pretty, and often very funny,” says Taylor Lorenz, a technology reporter at the New York Times. 

So who is the TikTok Husband? To understand him, it’s worth taking a look at his predecessor.

The Instagram Husband rose to prominence as a joke in 2015, in a viral video from The Mystery Hour. “I’m basically a human selfie stick,” says a crestfallen Instagram Husband in the staged support group video. The caricature paints a portrait of agonized men photographing their wives in front of brick walls and picturesque houseplants.

While meant to be candid, the highly orchestrated photos have since been a trademark of influencer culture. The Instagram Husband has emerged into a badge of honor for many—there’s even a podcast created by Jordan Joseph Ramirez, husband to the popular influencer Dani Austin.

There’s no catchall “look” for the TikTok Husband—he’s just an average guy prepared to shed a modicum of privacy for public consumption. 

The TikTok Husband is a bit harder to define. He may be aloof or totally flummoxed by his partner’s candid recordings. At his best, he’s an eager participant who isn’t afraid laugh at himself. He’s game to answer questions in the hot seat with a camera in front of his face, dance with his partner to “Blinding Lights,” participate in viral challenges, and even plot a few pranks of his own.

For some husbands, TikTok is a single-cam reality show broadcasting their follies and reactions. There’s no catchall “look” for the TikTok Husband—he’s just an average guy prepared to shed a modicum of privacy for public consumption. He’s a darling of the attention economy, and he’s still learning what that means.

“I was never really huge into TikTok as long as [my wife’s] been into it, but I've always been super comfortable on social media and I'm kind of a social butterfly, so the camera didn't really freak me out,” says Chris Harvey. His wife, Danni, started using the app when it was still Musical.ly in 2015 and has an impressive 124,100 followers on TikTok.

For newcomers to the app, TikTok encapsulates the bizarre zeitgeist of 2020. As the world grapples with the coronavirus, more people are signing up for the app for a respite. The Gen-Z-dominated platform was flooded with millennials and Gen-X'ers quick to assimilate. One thing most new users have in common: They’re terribly bored.

“It was quarantine, it was boring, and I just wanted something to do,” says Stacey Loper, a TikTok user with 2.3 million followers acquired in six short months.

Stacey and her husband, Joaquin, who share the website Blended and Winning, have always found ways to keep their marriage interesting. “I’m always making him laugh, but I just started filming it,” explains Stacey.

With tact and comedic timing, she often catches Joaquin off guard with “wholesome” jokes in videos garnering hundreds of thousands of views. In nearly every video, Stacey walks into the room and says, “Hey babe, I got one for you.” Joaquin, no matter what he’s doing, sits in anticipation as Stacy delivers. In one challenge, Joaquin reads a book as Stacey asks, “What does the punching bag say to the boxer?” Stacey lunges into a Britney Spears song, with the lyrics “hit me baby one more time.” Joaquin’s boisterous laughter, which looks to leave him in tears, is just as important to the couple’s magnetism as Stacey’s jokes are.

“I just love seeing her have fun and if it’s at my expense, so be it,” says Joaquin, who feels that TikTok has helped strengthen their marriage. “She gives a punch line everything she has. It has always been funny to me.”

The Lopers’ shared jokes have grown their platform overnight, but the most common couple videos on the app are ones that partake in trending pranks. While husbands sometimes play pranks on their wife, it’s clear that TikTok’s audience has an affinity for making the husband—in a cis, straight relationship—the butt of the joke. The #wifechallenge has 9 million views, while the #husbandchallenge has 51.3 million views.

When TikTok user Stacy Griffith followed a trending prank, her video racked up over 8.2 million views. In the clip, which was shared in July, Stacy calls her husband to say she was pulled over by police for speeding. She tells him she lied to the cop to get out of it, claiming he—her husband—had fallen. 

“Listen, he’s following me home,” she tells her husband, who’s on speaker phone. “Lay down like you fell bringing in the groceries.” Spoiler alert: There was no cop following her home. As the camera pans over to her husband sprawled across the front porch, Stacy laughs. It’s exactly the kind of video that can generate millions of views on the platform, even though pranks like this one could be seen as tone-deaf in the middle of a national reckoning over police violence. 

When asked about his reaction, Josh explains, “I’ll do whatever it takes so that we don’t get a ticket.” Stacy adds, “He’s also very dramatic, so that always works in my benefit.”

Like the Lopers, the Griffiths got on TikTok out of boredom and “to embarrass their children,” says Stacy. Now the couple looks forward to showing their nearly 101,900 followers their lives.

“If we could get a reality show, people would really laugh all the time,” says Josh.

TikTok challenges are often innocuous. One trend shows a woman walking in on her spouse naked to capture his stunned reaction. In others, a spouse might send a dirty text from across the table to capture their wide eyes and even the occasional wink.

“I think a lot of the boyfriends [or husbands] are playing along,” says Lorenz. “Not to say that they totally get it; I think sometimes it’s playing off their stupidity or the fact that they’re not super into TikTok. I feel like a lot of these partner relationships are more collaborative than people imagine.”

But even if a couple is in it together, some stunts aren’t well-received, especially those that seem to make light of abuse or toxic behavior. A popular trend has one partner asking to see the other’s phone to show if they have trust in their relationship. Viral TikTok challenges have also led to disturbing outcomes. A recent fad, the #pursechallenge, sets up a scenario that seems comedic on the surface. The passenger in a vehicle grabs their purse from the backseat only to knock the driver in the head to capture an inflammatory reaction.

During the spike of the controversial film 365 Days in June, couples—especially teens—were quick to bring elements of the film into the bedroom. The Polish erotic romance film, which glamorizes domestic abuse and sexual assault, sparked the #365DaysChallenge, wherein couples would grab their female partner by the neck on camera or post graphic videos documenting their bruises.

And then there’s the fact that the trends and pranks that TikTok Husbands partake in are often grounded in if not offensive, then at least gendered tropes. Still, LGBTQ+ TikTok has carved out its own niche.

“I quickly noticed that there was this huge LGBTQ+ community on [TikTok],” says Samantha Weller. She and her fiancée, who live in South Florida, already felt isolated from their long-distance friends when the pandemic broke out. “Half of it was total boredom and half of it was wanting a community,” says Weller, who has made friends through the app.

While she feels most of the challenges can apply to LGBTQ+ couples, there are definitely some glaring differences she’s seen on “straight TikTok.”

“One [challenge] the LGBTQ+ community would never do is pretending I’m my husband for the day,” she says. The trend shows classic stereotypes like “a woman taking off her clothes and leaving them on the floor,” she explains. “It’s just a very hetero stereotype.” Her fiancée is not an avid social media user, but Weller will include her in select videos with her permission.

Weller has so far experienced a flurry of support on TikTok, but she’s also had to deal with discrimination and trolling. “It’s very clear the only people giving me these negative comments are these men who are just clearly uncomfortable or upset by lesbians existing,” she says. Still, Weller is grateful for the community TikTok has provided her. And the opportunities. 

As with any social media platform now, a prominent profile on TikTok can get you attention and even fame. “TikTok is still in a growth phase. It's only been around less than two years, and it is really fertile ground to grow a new audience on,” says Lorenz. “I feel like the Instagram market is really saturated and TikTok is still a little bit of the Wild West where you can go viral and still get a lot of followers.”

“If you are able to garner a large audience on TikTok, you're going to secure better brand deals,” Lorenz notes, citing recent brand campaigns from juggernauts like Chipotle and American Eagle. “It's much easier to grow on TikTok than it is for other platforms, so I think the pressure to go viral is almost higher.” 

For Rory and Anna Mellor, who have more than 181,000 followers on TikTok, the pressure is certainly on. After a video of their anniversary date went viral, the couple tried to replicate the success. “We were chasing the viral videos. We got a social media high from it,” says Anna.

Rory is the content strategist. “I think when we started it, we kind of found our niche pretty clearly that people wanted to see couples pranks and challenges and reactions kind of thing,” he says. “That's what was getting more traction, so we kind of lean toward that.” 

The TikTok starlets, who’ve acquired multiple brand deals, feel that becoming an influencer couple would be “a dream come true.” Anna says that they love to entertain and “really feel like TikTok was made for us.”

While the two are self-described class clowns, there are times when pranking becomes grating. Both admit that they’ve sometimes gone too far in pursuit of a punch line. (Anna told Rory that her water broke when she was pregnant with their son to get his reaction. Rory once cracked a raw egg in Anna’s mouth.) 

“We try to keep it fun,” Anna says. “We love it and have fun with it. If we’re upset, it’s not something that we’ll be upset about for very long.”

Rory, consummate TikTok Husband, agrees: “Whether I’m mad [at a prank] or not, at least it’s going on TikTok and I’m sure some people other than me are going to think it’s funny.”

Originally Appeared on Glamour