Behind the music: TikTok star Jacob Givens brings you the ’90s

There’s a good chance Jacob Givens is your favorite rockstar’s favorite ’Tok Star.

If you’re a fan of the era that produced Nirvana, Nine Inch Nails, Deftones, Rage Against the Machine, and the angsty like, he’s probably come across your feed at some point. Givens’ videos have been seen tens of millions of times globally, and lauded by many of the same artists he’s made content about.

With over 500,000 followers across platforms including TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, Spotify and Apple Music, the 46-year-old Sunland resident — who refers to himself as “that 90s Music Reaction Guy from the Internet” — has revived decades-old songs for old and new audiences alike through a mix of scroll-stopping creativity and the insight of someone that has spent countless hours consumed by the music.

“Everything that I do is in the moment, what I felt. I think that that comes across,” Givens said. “People see it and they go, ‘I don’t think this guy is trying to make a career out of this. I think he’s just having a good time on his phone.’ And I like that.”

One of his most viral moments came courtesy of his wife Jamie, a leaf blower, and a song by his favorite band, The Smashing Pumpkins.

That’s how the TikTok algorithm first introduced him to millions of viewers — with a video of Givens having a conversation between two different angles of himself, discussing the magic of “Siamese Dream” deep cut “Mayonaise” and getting his face blown back (off-screen by his wife with a leaf blower; her idea) every time Billy Corgan fires off an airy burst of distorted guitar fuzz. When the centerpiece solo hits, Givens is like a golden retriever with his head out of the car window, jowls flapping in the wind.

The clip was so widespread it eventually reached the Smashing Pumpkins team, who responded with “Oh Hi” on TikTok, essentially sending Givens into orbit.

“I was in a newspaper article in Kansas City, about the Pumpkins playing there and they interviewed a teenager and this quote, it was ‘Some guy on TikTok made this video where he’s listening to ‘Mayonaise’ and now it’s my favorite song,’” Givens said.

“She couldn’t remember my name, which I don’t really care. But, then, I’m ‘some guy.’ I’m that guy. So I made a video about it. She did find me. Her father found me. They wrote to me and the dad was like, ‘I want to thank you for introducing my daughter to one of my favorite bands,’ which was, I mean, dude, that’s so sick.”

Givens grew up in a Protestant household in Tulsa, Okla. His mom listened to Beethoven. His older brother introduced him to the bands that would become his musical awakening: Def Leppard, Motley Crüe, Poison, Warrant, and Guns N’ Roses.

“Guns N’ Roses was the most dangerous. And it was around that time that we were getting into this music,” he said. “I think my brother and I started watching Headbangers Ball on MTV against my parent’s knowledge.”

In high school he became a drama standout. By the early 2000s he had moved to L.A. with his then soon-to-be wife to become an actor after graduating from the University of Illinois.

Givens spent the better part of two decades working to get his art seen on a wide scale. Desk jobs at various studios paid the bills and supported his family, while over the years he also wrote scripts, acted in a successful internet comedy series, and wrote and co-starred in a film festival award-winning vampire comedy.

But his big Hollywood breakthrough never materialized.

He left comedy and acting behind by 2019 to take a job as a marketing director for the environmental company Biofriendly. The pandemic began a year into his new job, and he found himself working from home and searching for ways to ignite his creativity.

“I wasn’t living [in Sunland]. I was living in this tiny space and I was just kind of slowly losing my mind. Somebody said to me during that time, ‘You should make a TikTok,’ Givens said. “I’m in my 40s … but boredom prevailed. … So I signed up for it. I’m making really silly nonsensical videos, like I would have back in the Vine days.”

Givens’ friend Ryan Demarest, a Highland-based comedian, died during lockdown in April 2021, leaving Givens with feelings of profound loss. On the day it happened, he spent the day sitting outside listening to music to decompress. When the seminal “Smells Like Teen Spirit” by Nirvana started playing, he pulled out his phone and recorded a video in the TikTok app talking back and forth with himself about what it was like to see the music video for the first time as a kid.

“No amount of money, no amount of fame, matters as much as to have these connecting moments with people in my life that I admire,” Givens said.

(Emil Ravelo/For The Times)

“OH MY GOD. It’s SO STRONG!!!” one angle of Givens proclaims to the other as the chorus hits.

“IS HE GARGLING NAILS?!!” the other angle screams back as Givens shakes the camera to match Kurt Cobain’s screams for maximum effect.

He had to caption the clip after realizing there was no audio of him talking because he was playing the song while recording the video — a particular function of the app, akin to accidentally making a “Buster Keaton silent film.”

“I read it back to myself and I’m like, this is ridiculous. I put my phone in my pocket and I don’t publish it,” Givens said.

Some creators go entire careers working toward their viral moment. Givens almost hit delete on his: “I had like 23 followers and I was like, ‘This is dumb. I was crying all day yesterday. Oh, who cares?’ Publish.”

By the time he went to bed that day the video had a million views and he was wondering if he could do it again. He made a video reacting to the thunderclaps in the Radiohead song “Creep,” and once again, a million views in a day.

“It was like everything I had ever done, my 10,000 hours on all these things coming together in a one-minute format. I didn’t know I had been training for that day,” Givens said.

“I really think of Ryan to this day because I think had that loss not happened, I don’t know if I would have thought to do that thing that day. I don’t know. Ryan has always felt like I’ve got a force ghost from Star Wars … like it’s all happening and I’m looking over, and Ryan’s over there [nodding].”

He started making different types of content but it was the reaction videos that would strike hundreds of thousands, and sometimes millions, of views with entertaining skits built around songs by Alice in Chains, Metallica, Weezer and more.

Though he began on TikTok, he has spent the last several years creating thousands of posts to diversify his presence across platforms. And like Riki Rachtman and Matt Pinfield — the beloved MTV hosts of his youth — Givens has grown into the role of rock ‘n’ roll preservationist and celebrity in his own way.

He’s used to people walking up to him at concerts, staring, in an attempt to figure out why he’s so familiar. They tilt their heads, squint, and maybe whisper an unsure “Are you … ?” He is.

Givens said the challenge of consistently making his videos for several years comes from being spread thin between work and family, and keeping up the momentum he had during COVID lockdowns.

“I know a lot of video creators that batch and they film concepts and they have tons in their drafts,” Givens said. “… I literally will get in my car, a song will play and I’ll go, ‘Ah, when I get home, I’m going to do that.’”

Online, he’s received love from esteemed places: Tom Morello of Rage Against the Machine cosigned Givens’ take on Rage’s “Freedom” with a tweet, which was written about in an article by Spin Magazine; Fred Durst of Limp Bizkit messaged to say he sent Givens’ “Institutionalized” clip to Suicidal Tendencies singer Mike Muir; and elusive Silverchair frontman Daniel Johns put up an Instagram story writing, “Don’t give up on your grunge dreams Jacob, Regards, Dan.”

IRL, Frank Iero from My Chemical Romance approached him at Riot Fest to tell him he loved his videos. He’s met Jónsi from Sigur Ros, all of Sunny Day Real Estate, Kevin Martin of Candlebox, and many more.

Givens also evolved as a content creator and personality through the launch of his podcast, “Waterproof Records,” where he discusses seminal albums and interviews famous musicians.

“The reward of social media has been the way that it affects people’s lives in a positive way,” Givens said. “Day by day, I’m in it for meeting every music hero and, honestly, giving people something to look forward to.”

(Emil Ravelo/For The Times)

He dreams of one day opening a record store in Los Angeles of the same name, picked by his then-3-year-old son who was playing with a blank CD in the bath and exclaimed it to be a “waterproof record.” They set up a pretend version of the store the next day in his bedroom. Now, nearly 15 years later, Givens still has the plan tucked away: “It’s going to be a pub. If you buy a record, there’s going to be booths where you can close a door and you can sit down and listen with your friends and drink.”

And, as far as dreams are concerned, he eventually did meet the Smashing Pumpkins, too, through guitarist Jack Bates — son of Peter Hook (“New Order, Joy Division, rock royalty”) — who was the band’s touring bass player at the time. Givens had him on a podcast episode in March 2022; later that year Bates would bring him backstage in Santa Barbara where he would pass Givens’ “Mayonnaise” video to Pumpkins drummer Jimmy Chamberlin for the first time.

“They load up the video and I’m right next to Jimmy Chamberlin as he’s watching me get my face blown with a leaf blower. And he’s laughing,” Givens said. “… I’m like, ‘What, what world am I living in?’”

Eventually, after several more shows — and even working with the Pumpkins and Jane’s Addiction marketing teams to help promote the bands’ joint tour — Givens finally did meet Billy Corgan backstage in Irvine in 2023, where they bonded over shared experiences in the Chicago suburbs, where Corgan is from.

“He’s seen my videos and he likes them. He thinks they’re funny,” Givens said. “Teenage Jacob was screaming. Forty-five year old Jacob was going, ‘This is exactly how I wanted it to be.’”

He’s dreaming even bigger these days, and hopes to eventually land Corgan as a guest on his podcast.

“No amount of money, no amount of fame, matters as much as to have these connecting moments with people in my life that I admire,” Givens said. “And the feeling that people would get — like that daughter writing me and being like, ‘It was this guy that turned me on to this band.’”

Given how hard he pushed to make it in Hollywood, he admits the social following hasn’t translated into lucrative income or a cascade of sponsorships, though he’s had the opportunity to go that route a few times. He prefers to mostly keep it that way.

“The reward of social media has been the way that it affects people’s lives in a positive way,” Givens said. “Day by day, I’m in it for meeting every music hero and, honestly, giving people something to look forward to.”