Jack Innanen doesn’t fold under pressure, but he does panic.
We’re at a thrift store in Bushwick, and Innanen, a 25-year-old Canadian comedian, actor, and fashion TikTokker, is creating two outfits using a word generator — his go-to resource when he's at a creative standstill. The words: "mathematics," "Paris," and "combination." One outfit is for work, the other for a night out, like a bar or, as Innanen prefers, chess club.
"What people don't know is that chess club is cool," he tells Mashable. "Chess night is fun. Chess night is a good time. You go there, and you kick some ass." He got into chess during the pandemic, claiming he was in the top 90th percentile of players globally (it is unclear to me where he got that number), though he admits he’s since "fallen off."
Back to the panicking: He can't find a pair of pants that feel Parisian enough (he's looking for corduroy, but we're faced only with a barrage of camo). So, he starts "fully breaking down."
"Oh god, I'm not even thinking about 'combination,'" he says, running his hands through his hair and darting his eyes across the room. "OK, I've got to get serious."
The only difference between this and how he approaches his TikTok videos when he’s feeling stuck — "I just use a random word generator and do word association until something hits" — is that he’s being timed. It makes him flip through the clothes faster but doesn't necessarily improve the quality of his choices. He spins in circles. He moves his hands frantically, all pointing to a level of physical comedy you might not notice in the closeup way he records TikTok sketches. He's like a goldfish that grows to fit in their given space, and this thrift store is big. His linguistic mannerisms — "holy shit" or "what people don't know" — echo across the selection of cowboy boots that don't fit him.
Despite the pressure, Innanen assembles two surprisingly cohesive outfits. The first includes a Notre Dame sweatshirt (Paris), pleated slacks (Paris), a Mickey hat (combination, although his explanation eludes me), and a leather briefcase (mathematics). The second outfit features pleated pants that don’t button (mathematics), a shirt with an eagle (combination, somehow), a blazer (Paris), and the Mickey hat again (combination).
Innanen's flair for fashion is apparent — look at his brand collaborations with Ralph Lauren, Louis Vuitton, Acne Studios, and Coach — and an interest he finds "really fun." But it's a side quest; he sees it as separate from the rest of his content, centered almost entirely on sketch comedy. He typically plays two characters, one eccentric and the other normal. Take, for instance, the vegan who doesn't want to kill the bacteria on his body, the guy who can't stop slipping engagement rings into random girls' drinks, and the marketing exec who sexualizes a slogan.
"I just love telling good stories and funny stories," he says at SEY Coffee, where water drips on our shoulders from an overactive air conditioner. "Whether that's the writing aspect, the performing side, the editing side — I love it all."
For Innanen, it's particularly fun to have complete creative control over his work and mold it himself.
"Online stuff gives you the full ability to have [the] freedom to do whatever you want, whenever you want, which is fun," he says. "I write it myself. I perform myself. I edit myself. I distribute it myself."
Innanen has two TikTok profiles: his main account, @yungjackinnanen, with 3.3 million followers, and his secondary page, Spammy Boy or @oldjackoutoutout, with over 988,300 followers. His main account is polished, while his more chaotic spam account, spawned during the pandemic, operates under one rule: no drafts.
He posts frequently on his spam account, sometimes multiple times daily, yet it’s rare to see unsupportive or negative comments under Innanen's videos. Most popular influencers have snark pages and subreddits devoted to hating them. Innanen does not. While there’s a level of privilege to his online experience — straight, white, cis, men rarely receive the vitriol faced by marginalized communities — the absence of hate is still notable. That is until you meet him; Innanen is hard to hate.
Talking to him, you never know which character will respond — Schmidt from New Girl? His comedic inspirations Jake and Amir? Or Innanen himself? Regardless, he’s undeniably charming and down for anything. It isn't easy to anticipate what he might say next.
He recalls how his grandmother introduced him to Kurt Vonnegut when he was 16, though he was too busy playing Minecraft to appreciate it then. After she passed, he rediscovered Vonnegut in college and began admiring the author’s unique blend of dark humor, absurdity, and satire.
"He's so clever and funny," he says, noting that The Sirens of Titan is his favorite of the author and recommending a deep cut he just finished reading: A Man Without a Country. "He's not setting up jokes and punchlines. It's in the cleverness. It's very subtle. I love that in people."
Replicating that kind of humor online is tricky because short-form content only has a few seconds to capture an audience. While TikTok is ideal for sketches, it lacks the nuance and space to play with more depth, something Innanen aspires to create more of in future projects.
"There's an aspect of my sketches that are to the mass audience where I'm like, 'OK what's a good hook here? What will most people find funny? Can I deliver this line in a goofy way?' Versus if, in a different medium, like if I were to write a movie or something, I would want [to replicate Vonnegut's humor]. I love just how subtly witty he is, and I'd love to have a character like that or lines delivered like that that are not as slap-sticky as sketches can be."
For now, though, his focus is on acting. Innanen was recently cast as a lead in FX‘s ensemble comedy pilot Snowflakes, created by The Tonight Show writers Ben Kronengold and Rebecca Shaw. It follows a cohort of twenty-somethings "trying to be good people, despite being neither 'good' nor 'people' yet," according to Deadline. It's Innanen's "first serious acting gig" and only his second audition.
"The script for Snowflakes came across, and I was like, 'This is the funniest thing I've ever read,'" Innanen says. "We shot the pilot, and it was the most incredible experience. Everyone's hilarious. The whole cast is hilarious and so talented — the creators and everyone producing it. And I just got to be myself." He says acting allows him to "hone in just on performing."
"I don't write my own lines. I'm not filming it," he says of the differences between short-form content on TikTok and film. "But I just love being silly on camera. It's just the best.”
He fell into acting in the same way he fell into TikTok: by following his passion. As a teenager, he made YouTube videos that are now unlisted, videos he seems deeply ashamed of and does not want to show me, like "What Guys Look For In Girls." He was a Minecraft YouTuber, made lyric videos for songs he liked, and eventually studied astrophysics at university. He even tried his hand at playing music, to no avail. (His Spotify On Repeat is a mix of Drake, Frank Ocean, and Otis Redding.)
Now, he stands on the cusp of extraordinary success — the kind that could propel him far beyond TikTok fame. It’s unclear if he’s fully aware of his position or doesn’t want to tempt fate.
Ultimately, Innanen always creates something memorable, no matter how chaotic things seem in the moment. Whether it's an outfit, a conversation, or a video on his spam account asking Google to "look up 'try not to squirt challenge impossible edition,'" he thrives in the unpredictability — and that's exactly what his audience wants.
