Meet Jordan The Stallion, TikTok's Fave Old-Looking Gen Zer

It still blows my mind that Jordan Howlett, or Jordan the Stallion as he’s known to his 25 million-plus combined followers on Instagram and TikTok, is only 27.

Maybe it shouldn’t be that shocking anymore, especially considering that his age is something he’s talked about multiple times in multiple interviews and videos. But denizens and netizens—that is, both people IRL and online—are still shocked to learn that Howlett, who looks like he’s in his late thirties and based in San Diego, California, isn’t even 30 yet. However, it’s largely because of his age and appearance—as well as the quality and hilarity of his content—that he’s become such a prominent poster.

The dude’s personable in an “uncle” sort of way, and that’s no shade. He’s funny, kind-hearted, soft-spoken, and knowledgeable. It’s cliché, but Howlett truly is wise beyond his years; he’s giving sage, especially with his little brown book of recipes, his smooth voice, and his ability to tell engaging stories. Those are great qualities, but the thing that really makes him so captivating is his propensity for knowing stuff. Need the name of a specific product? Jordan knows. Looking for a specific restaurant in a specific city? Jordan knows. Grossed out by a specific bug and you don’t want to know what it is? Well, unfortunately, Jordan knows.

All of this combined is probably why he wound up making videos with celebrities like Big Sean, Donald Glover, and Method Man. So, Complex sat down with Jordan to chat about looking old while being young, collaborating with such high-profile artists, the path toward social media fame, and the research it takes to get that recipe.

(This interview has been edited and shortened for clarity.)

Complex: How did you come up with your name and the nature of your content?

Jordan Howlett: The name was a joke. So at the time, I was in college, and Megan Thee Stallion was really starting to get super big and popular. And at the time, I played baseball and for baseball, people pride themselves on your leg strength, or you got to be able to squat real heavy in order to make it to the next level of things. I had just hit a max of I think 600 pounds or so. I was really feeling myself, so I was like, ‘Oh, I guess I got thick legs. I'm Jordan the Stallion.’

I changed my Instagram title to that, and I had like 800 followers and didn't think much of it. I was playing sports, so I didn't really focus on social media almost at all. If it wasn't for birthdays or big accomplishments, I really wouldn't post anything. So I kind of just kept the name in there and then when I started making videos, I just forgot to take it off and then it got so big to where the minute that somebody referenced me as that, I'm like, ‘Well, it's too late now.’ But I don't mind it. I like the name.

What was the timeline on going from a sports player to this social media star?

I played baseball really late. I started at 16. I really wasn't good. So, the fact that I made it to a Division 1 [at UC Riverside] was a big accomplishment for me. And I was about to get drafted in 2020, and so when COVID happened and those things got derailed, I didn't know my last day of my uniform was my last day of my uniform. And that really got to me badly. I really loved the sport so deeply. And so because of that, I would sit in my apartment, thinking I wanted to make a documentary because I really wanted people to know how I felt in the exact moment that I was feeling it.

So I made a documentary. After we got it done, it was called Dear Baseball, I started shipping it out to everybody. I emailed probably 150 people, 200 people a day. At that time I didn't have a computer. It was just on my phone, and it wasn't like copy, paste, send. It took all day, from the time I woke up to the time I went to bed. For weeks, I would just email people and it gave me confidence because LeBron James and his team saw it. They liked it. They gave me a chance, Uninterrupted, to tell a bit of my story on a thing called More Than an Athlete, which I thought was so much fun. And from there it kind of gave me the confidence to make videos. And then when I was making videos, I didn't think I was really talented.

At the time, when TikTok was really prevalent around 2020, it was a lot of dancing, a lot of singing, a lot of skits, a lot of incredibly creative concepts was a major factor of viral videos. I don't have any of these things. So because of that, I would just make videos for myself really. I mean, I would joke like, ‘Oh, I'm going to be famous.’ But it really genuinely was a joke. We just kept developing it, and people really took a liking to me explaining my day-to-day when I was working nine-to-five jobs and I had an issue with a customer or a coworker or my boss and I'm like, ‘This is insane.’

I love that you're kind of talking about that sort of twenties malaise, feeling like you're talentless and don’t have anything to really offer the world. But I think the way you've produced and posted videos with this kind of yapper style has really solidified.

[Laughs.] I'm so sorry. Okay. I'm so sorry. Continue.

I say that as a joke, but in all honesty, I think you have really helped solidify yapping, but ultimately that's just storytelling. As you're creating these videos, how does the storytelling happen? I mean, you're only 27, but you look 47. So how did that become the story you then used to really skyrocket your social media career?

I think that as time developed, I didn't realize I was storytelling until people brought it up. Like I said, my only thing was I liked sharing stories of my experiences, and my dad is the biggest storyteller I know. He'd always make everything into a lecture, into an anecdote all the time. And I think it just kind of rubbed off. It wasn't something that was intentional. I never got on the camera like, ‘Okay, I'm about to make this a big story.’ I really was kind of just reciting what happened. And then as time went on, people really said it was an engaging storytelling situation. I thought that was really neat.

With the age thing, that's been my whole life, for sure. Growing up, a lot of people always thought I was way older than I actually was. And that's always been a factor to the point where, when I was a kid, I thought my parents lied about my age. I thought they hid my birth certificate. I wish I was joking. I'm so serious because that's just how it was. And I think that with a lot of that, you just gotta embrace it. You have to embrace the reality of it. I have no issue looking how I look. I like the way I look, but I definitely look older.

A lot of people say it might be my beard or there's things to fix it. I've had the beard. I've had no beard. There's no fixing it. So I think that is kind of the underlying factor. But I think it definitely had a pivotal role [for] more people getting to know who I am, and I'm very grateful for that. I don't believe in being a poor sport about it. I'll always love making light of and making a joke about how I just look old. There's no getting around it.

So I remember the first time when I discovered your age, I was like, ‘Ain't no way.’ But everyone's in the comments going, ‘No, he's actually in his twenties.’ I was like, ‘Well, then I'm getting hella old. What?’

[Laughs.] I'll tell you what, I always feel so bad for people at times because I either make someone feel really good about how they look or I make people feel really old. Because I'll explain stories about how back when we were kids, and people in their forties are like, ‘Yeah!’ And then they find out I’m in my twenties and they're like, ‘Oh, no.’ It's always so funny.

I'll run into people in real life, whether it be in an airport or a public setting, and they'll pull me in real close and they're like, ‘Hey, between me and you, really, how old are you?’ And I’m like, ‘27.’ And they're like, ‘No, seriously. It's just between me and you.’ They really think it's a gag. They think it's a joke. They think that I am doing it for the social media aspect. That's just my existence.

I really like the way you start a lot of your videos. You will either be chuckling about something like those gigantic coconut crabs, which look absolutely terrifying.

[Laughs.] Terrifying. Oh yeah. Scary.

Your trademark “come here” and camera zoom is iconic now. What led to that being a regular occurrence in your videos?

Mostly accidental. Earlier on, I would be doing videos reacting to really scary bugs, kind of similar to the coconut crab, but a little more frequent because it'd be big underwater creatures or spiders or whatever. And my real reaction is pretty much what you see. I'm moving around, I'm saying ‘no’ a bunch of times. This is how I was.

One time I was filming and I was just kind of like, ‘Come here.’ I don't know why I did it. I just did it. And then the video went relatively viral, and I thought it was viral just because of the contents of it; it was a scary creature. I'm terrified of [scary-looking] creatures, but everybody in the comments were like, ‘Oh my gosh.’ They were raving about this ‘come here’ thing! In my head, I was like, ‘Oh, okay, that's cool.’

I didn't think much of it, so I didn't do it. After I did the one time, I kept doing videos without doing it, and people were genuinely upset. They were like, ‘Don't stop that.’ They were very upset about it, and I always tell people, ‘Look, the audience is your boss in this job and you want to make sure they're happy.’ If they want that ‘come here’ thing, I mean, I guess we'll keep it going at this point. I feel like a lot of people feel a lot of comfort in that pull ‘come here’ thing. I don’t mind it. 

It's kind of like a director zooming into the subject to create this more intimate moment. You're pulling them to your face to shake them, ‘Don't go near this coconut crab.’

[Laughs.] Oh, of course. I'm not going to lie to you. It does kind of help me a little bit when it comes to segmenting. So when I'm making videos and I'm talking [really fast] because I am incredibly scatterbrained and unorganized, I'll really forget to say things. And so sometimes I'll say ‘come here’ and it helps me focus. I'm like, ‘Oh, wait a minute. We're still talking about that terrifying coconut crab.’ And I keep going. So it helps because none of my videos are scripted.

Switching gears, talk to me about these recipes you have in this recipe book of yours.

I'll tell you what. I was en route to get my PhD because I wanted to be a professor. I love the idea of teaching. It was a lot of fun for me. And then the pandemic happened and that kind of derailed it a bit just because of finances. So I couldn't really see it through exactly, though I do intend to go back, but a lot of people at times would love to know things they might not be able to find or might not know. And if I'm able to know that, then I definitely want to provide that. And recipes are something that is a lot of fun for me. One of MY friends tells me it’s investigative journalism in a way. I do not want to disrespect investigative journalists by saying that it is exactly that, but I'm just saying it does feel like that in some ways.

It just takes a lot of research. The one thing for me is I do not like the idea of just looking at something and being like, ‘Okay, this has to be it,’ and just go for it. I want to double- and triple-check. I want to try it for myself. I want to really make sure as much as I can that this is the right thing. Because the idea is I want families to try it and be like, ‘Well, this is really accurate,’ or, ‘This is exactly what it is.’ So the research really does expand past more than just a search or two. You know? There's kind of an extensive process to it. Hence why when I do do—[chuckles] heh, I said ‘do do’—a recipe video, I really make sure all my research is done to the fullest extent.

You've done video collaborations with Method Man, Childish Gambino, and Big Sean. How did these opportunities come about and what has it been like working with these huge names?

Oh my gosh, it has been a learning experience, a gigantic one that I am so grateful to have had. I mean, because again, you get to learn the person, the human behind the things we all see from them and really love them for. You get nervous. You always hear [the phrase] ‘never meet your heroes,’ and that's always been the case for some people. But for me personally, I'm so curious about things that I do kind of want to meet them and just see, ‘Hey, what is this? What really goes on behind the scenes,’ you know?

Ranging from Kevin Hart to Method Man to Donald Glover to Big Sean, they all have different ways of conducting business, of conducting themselves. You learn something from every single one of them. All of it's incredibly valuable just to learn how they are as human beings and how they navigate this crazy life that they've had for decades at this point.

Because social media fame—and I think people have to understand this—is a learning experience. It is not the same level of fame as traditional media fame. Just because you might have more followers than an established actor does not mean you guys have the same level of intensity when it comes to fame or attention. It doesn't matter how many more followers I have than anybody else. People are going to want and love Method Man more than me, and I will live by that. He's a legend.

So, you cannot let fame or attention or anything get in the way of the reality of the fact that you are in front of a legend, somebody who has done things for Black culture—for pop culture in general—for so long. You have to humble yourself to learn from them.

When it comes to making these videos and doing these collaborations, I simply want to make sure that I can be a tool to aid them as much as I can, just to show them that social media can be a positive place, that you can just have fun. It doesn't have to be this ambiguous, scary question mark of an equation. Sometimes you can just have some fun and have a positive outcome, and people just enjoy it. And they had to trust me in order to do that, and I'm very grateful that they did trust me in order to do that.

It's cool to see that cross-pollination of generational cultures. I'm wondering about your thoughts on bridging the older and younger generations.

Oh my gosh, it is so much fun because people don't understand that we have so much in common with each other from millennials to Gen Z to Gen Alpha. Even the boomers. There's a line of commonality, and I think social media creates a gigantic gap between generations to where it feels like we're on an island by ourselves sort of thing.

Maybe younger people don’t know who Method Man is, which, okay, fair—but they know social media. They know TikTok, and if they've seen my videos, and I get Method Man in there and we're having some fun, they'll be like, ‘This guy seems cool, lemme go check him out.’ And then they learn the amazing work that Method Man and Wu-Tang Clan has done. They might be a new Method Man fan. And that right there is the coolest thing. I feel like everybody does know who Donald Glover, or Childish Gambino, is at this point and all the things he's done. But again, seeing him do a video with myself, his fan base will see that he can do some social media stuff, and it can be fun and it can be current. I think that’s such a beautiful thing.

I love trying my best to be a part of bridging that gap.