Jake Shane has quickly become one of TikTok’s most beloved creators, even getting the attention of A-listers like Sophie Turner.
“I was like, ‘I literally don’t even know what’s happening,’” Shane, 24, exclusively told Us Weekly of Turner, 27, being spotted wearing his long sleeve “Puss Casino” T-shirt in September. “I was in bed and I was like, ‘What?’ It was wild.”
The Los Angeles based content creator, who’s known as @octopusslover8 on the social media app, explained that he had been working on a skit with the Jonas Brothers and sent them merch after.
“I was like, ‘I’m just going to put one in for Sophie Turner,’ because Joe Jonas had told me that he found my account through his wife,” Shane told Us. “And so I put one in for Sophie Turner, and I never thought she’d get it.” (Jonas, 34, and Turner have since split.)
The improv comedian has amassed an impressive following on TikTok, with over 2.5 million followers to date. But his path to stardom has not followed a traditional route.
Shane initially came up with an idea of rating octopus dishes via Instagram in 2021, noting that the videos started out just for his friends. After launching his foodie account, Shane created a TikTok profile and had one post that went “kind of viral,” which convinced him he could stretch his content muscle.
“I was like, ‘Oh, I guess I can just start doing these,’” he recalled. “It gave me the confidence to start just posting random videos aside from octopus reviews.”
While still critiquing octopus, Shane began creating skits reimagining how famous events would have unfolded through a Gen Z lens, which he said “really just catapulted” his account over the span of a week in early 2023.
“It was one of the most wild things I’d ever seen,” Shane said to Us. “At the time I kind of thought, ‘Oh, if you go viral on TikTok this is what happens.’ I wasn’t processing. And then someone was like, ‘No, it is pretty cool what’s happening.’”
Since, Shane has stayed true to his eight tentacle roots, with his bio still reading “Rating/reviewing octopus from all over the 🌎.” But much of his content is now his skits, which have included funny reenactments of historical events like the Founding Fathers begrudgingly discovering John Hancock’s signature is the biggest on the Declaration of Independence, the Trojan Horse getting claustrophobic on its way to Troy and Abraham Lincoln considering a Santa hat before settling on his signature black top hat.
“I usually relate it to a scene from reality television or something from the Housewives,” he said of his skits. “I think of a scene, think about how I can play it to this, and then I’ll be like, ‘OK, let’s just do it like this.’”
Shane, who was recently listed on Forbes 30 under 30, often collaborates with his fans — whom he affectionately calls “pussies” — to generate ideas for his videos.
While his videos with his signature sass primarily tend to recreate historical or cultural events, he confessed he isn’t always knowledgeable about the topic he’s asked to tackle. Shane admitted to not knowing the backstory behind a follower’s suggestion in February: “Do one of the three women who saw Jesus wasn’t in his tomb three days later.”
“Sometimes they’ll ask me … people will ask me historical questions and I’m like, ‘I don’t know,’” he revealed. “I think what makes the video so special is I take the prompt for what it is and I’ll maybe know one historical fact about it and just throw it in there, but at the end of the day, make it super shallow, and surface level, which is the fun in it.”
While Shane already has a lengthy list of TikTok collaborators from Ed Sheeran — who acted out a square root symbol finding out it isn’t getting an album title — to drinking “blood” with Olivia Rodrigo — relating to her song “Vampire” — he has one dream guest in mind: Taylor Swift. “Puss can dream,” he quipped.
Shane frequently posts about his love of Swift, 33, including one in October of him speechless after his video of listening to “Is It Over Now? (Taylor’s Version) (From The Vault)” received a TikTok “like” from the artist. “I CANT FORM F–KING WORDS,” he captioned the post.
In his self-declared 1989 era, Shane saw the “Cruel Summer” singer four times in concert during her The Eras Tour and recalls the thrill of being there when she announced the release of 1989 (Taylor’s Version).
“When she popped out in the blue, like, the energy in the stadium was, like, everyone knew,” he said, doing some fangirling of his own. “It was one of the craziest moments in my life.”
With reporting by Aileen Bergin
