After one-year hiatus, London TikToker with 18M likes is back online sharing takeaways

A Tik Toker based in London, Ont., who chose to log off the app for a whole year has just reemerged with lessons to share. 

Jacob Anstey, also known as Bungalow Jonathan, amassed about 18 million likes on TikTok for his satirical deadpan songs about anything from raising rent to seasonal depression, sock tans and Italian sub sandwiches.

"I didn't realize how bad that pressure was to keep posting until I took that time off and felt how it was to be without that anxiety," he said. 

Anstey's videos typically feature him holding a microphone singing in a monotone voice about relatable life struggles or small pleasures. The content took off and he gained more than 390,000 followers on TikTok and more than 160,000 followers on Instagram.

But as his followers grew, more anxiety began building up inside him, he said, and he started feeling burnt out. 

One month turned into one year

It was after he picked up a book called The Artist's Way by Julia Camera, he decided to uninstall TikTok. It's a workbook designed to unblock your creativity, he said, encouraging you to take breaks from media.

"I really started spending a lot less time online because it wasn't as attractive to me, like I could see how empty scrolling made me feel," Anstey said. 

Next, he decided to take a whole month off, but didn't feel it was enough, so went for a year. 

Instead of scrolling aimlessly or making videos, Anstey chose to do more wellness activities like daily journaling, meditation and therapy, he said. 

"I think when you put your phone down, and you put yourself out there, and you leave your house and spend time with your friends and family, you realize like how empty social media can make you feel, and how full those other things to make you feel."

It took him months to unlearn a lot of negative habits and clear his head, Anstey said. Eventually, he got back into writing songs again, but he said this time it was different. The songs weren't satirical, funny or shocking anymore, he said, but more honest and true to who he is. 

Logging back in a year later

However, when he logged into TikTok again recently and began posting again, Anstey said he felt the anxiety and the addiction creep back in.

"I really have to draw boundaries with myself and not get trapped in that again," he said. "It still takes work to kind of turn off the trap, so to speak, and resist scrolling so much."

Social media use may come with dopamine hits, but there can also be anxiety, said Kaitlynn Mendes, a sociology professor at Western University and Canada Research Chair in Inequality and Gender.

Striving to be a social media content creator is an intense amount of labour, she said, and the algorithm isn't friendly unless you're producing content.

"I think that it's actually way more time consuming than most people think," she said. "You're kind of at the mercy of other people. You're also at the mercy of tech companies and the algorithms and they're always changing the algorithms."

While social media also has lots of benefits, such as being a fun and creative output, we need to make sure we're paying attention to how we feel while using it, Mendes said. 

"I am a really big fan of boundaries. I think that everything in moderation is really important," she said. "Taking a break from screens, instead of turning to them when you're bored, is a nice way to fill that time without other things like making connections in your community and engaging with different sorts of hobbies."

Instead of mindless scrolling, Anstey is now trying to fill his time with more creative things, he said. 

He has an album coming out in August called Bungalow Heaven, and all of the songs are about the journey he's been on, more vulnerable and honest than he's written before, he said. 

Anstey's also taking a go at performing his first solo concerts live on May 9th at Paradigm Spirits at 100 Kellogg Lane in London and June 14 at The Yeti Cafe in Kitchener.