EXCLUSIVE – Steven Schenberg, a Midwestern father of four, is not the typical TikTokker.
Better known to fans as “HusbandTikTok,” Schenberg has won a large following with his sweet, short videos about his family, or by commenting on the pop culture trend of the day. But what drew this Chicago family man to the app to create an account that now boasts over 400K followers in the first place?
“Pop culture has been an interest of mine,” Schenberg told Fox News Digital. “Certainly has. I’ve always kind of followed it. Stay close to the zeitgeist, if you will. But, you know, I’ve always tried to kind of be the funny guy, if you will. Obviously, life happens. You get married, you have kids and stuff like that.”
Schenberg said he spent time at Second City, an improv school in Chicago, before the COVID-19 pandemic hit. In his search for a comedic outlet in that dark time, he downloaded TikTok, “like the rest of America.”
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Before long, he carved his own niche on the app.
“And I started posting content,” he said. “And at that time and probably even still today, there wasn’t a large group of kind of millennials on there. And then there weren’t – to double-click into that, there weren’t a lot of millennial dads on there posting about dad content or husband content. So I think that’s where I found some initial success and it kind of took off from there also.”
When does a dad with a full-time job also have time to post TikToks?
“Married, we’ve got four kids. We got a 5-year-old, a 3-year-old, and two twins that are three months old. So obviously that takes up a lot of time there,” he laughed. “And I also have a typical job – a job that, you know, keeps me in the office at traditional times, you know, kind of that 8 to 4 or 5. So the hours for me to TikTok are when the kids are in bed. There’s a window there. You’ll work, come home, family, dinner, bed. And then you’ve got a little window there, maybe from about 8 to 10 where you can try to put some time and effort in a TikTok. And that’s when I try to get it done.”
Asked to pick his favorite pop culture story in recent weeks, Schenberg seized on another opportunity to prop up dads on the app. He said he’s been captivated by Spencer Pratt and Heidi Montag, two former reality stars whose home was one of thousands that burned down in the California wildfires. In an attempt to gain the funds to rebuild, Spencer has had more of a presence on TikTok and has been promoting Heidi’s old pop music. The album unexpectedly shot to the top of the iTunes and Spotify charts, but Spencer admitted he’s not sure if it’s turning into a profit.
“Now what Spencer’s doing in pushing Heidi’s music, he just seems so relatable,” Schenberg said. “And you know, he’s just being a dad trying to, you know, make it work for his family and get his stuff back and his house back. And just that is something that consumes me and, and frankly, rooting for him here in Chicago for he and his family.”
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“And I love dads making an appearance,” Schenberg added. “When I first started, there weren’t a lot of dads making dad content, a lot of millennials, dads. But now when you look on there, you’ve got a lot of these dads popping up. You even see like Matt Leinart – he went from the football field, now a lot of his content – although still sports-related – is with he and his wife and their child or him having to have hip surgery and navigating being a dad and walking around, all that. You know, these things are fun to see. It’s fun to see other dads really kind of showing off online and frankly, showing what being a good dad looks like.”
TikTok service temporarily shuttered on January 18, leaving thousands of influencers worried about their livelihoods. But the app was restored within a day. Schenberg said he had a positive perspective on the situation.
“You know, for me, obviously I love TikTok,” he told Fox Digital. “So, you know, I’m not going to sit here and say I wasn’t disappointed, especially with my kind of uptick in popularity right towards the end, it kind of felt like, Oh, you know. But, if nothing more, I was ending on a high note…. I got to really expand my audience. And in those last couple of weeks, more people got to see my content than ever before.”
“So, if that truly was going to be the end of it – again, although some disappointment, I was going to be able to hang my hat on the fact that I put out some really quality videos, hopefully made some people laugh, encouraged maybe a few others, and just generally had a great, you know, four or five years on the app,” he continued. “So, that’s how I viewed it. I think it also – the fact that I have a more traditional job, that TikTok has always been kind of this again, this extra thing that I do. And so there’s some solace in knowing that.”
But not all TikTok influencers took the impending shutdown of the popular Chinese-owned social media platform so well after the Supreme Court upheld a law to ban the application if it is not sold in the United States. Some even posted videos of themselves in tears over the development.
“I just want a solution where it keeps TikTok alive,” Schenberg said. “That would be obviously great for me – not only as someone who puts out content, but just as a consumer of it. Again, not to go back to it, but I, when I want to find relatable things, things I think are cool, fashion, parenting, tips and tricks and, you know, anything of that. It used to be Google. But you go on TikTok now. You find parents, or other dads, families, things that are doing what you’re doing, and you look at them to say, ‘Hey, what’s actually the right answer here?’… Or, ‘is the thing that my kid is doing now is this okay? Is this what you’re seeing as well?'”
“There is this kind of community that comes together that is real people,” he continued. “That’s not, again, a Google response or an AI response… You can feel it. You can hear it. You can see it. And that’s really what I enjoy most about TikTok. And that’s probably what I’d miss the most if it went away, is just being able to hear and share experiences that other people are having.”
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While social media can be a fun tool for all ages, there have been concerns about how these apps have affected young adults’ mental health. Some health experts have warned that the constant need for likes, attention, etc., has negatively impacted kids and made them question their self-worth. In fact, a bipartisan coalition of attorneys general from over a dozen states and Washington, D.C., filed lawsuits against TikTok in October, alleging the short-form video app was designed to be addictive to kids and harms the mental health of young users.
With those concerns in mind, Schenberg was asked what age he’d start to allow his own kids to start to dabble in social media.
“You know, luckily we’re not there yet,” he said. “Again, the oldest child is five. So we do have a little bit of time before we have to have those conversations. And that’s one that my wife and I will just have to decide on our own and what works best for our family. So, you know, again, what other people do is their choice, obviously. And my wife and I will just have to decide when and what and where and, you know, have to decide that together.”
Schenberg said that in 2025 his TikTok fans can expect more of the gags they love, and maybe a few surprises, referencing his highly reported “friendly” feud with Landon Barker, son of rocker Travis Barker.
“This year I would love to continue those millennial jams that you hear – the songs of our high school years that were so nostalgic and still run in our blood,” he teased. “I would love to continue to push those out. The Fray just released some tour dates, so maybe some opportunity there. And then just generally continue to talk about being a dad, a husband. I would love to get my wife back into some more content and really just expanding again, what we do here in this house and what it’s like being a dad of four.”
