Jonny Sun Knows How To Balance The Darkness And The Light In Art, Work, And Twitter

By Michell C. Clark


If you’ve ever felt alone in your thoughts and feelings — almost like you’re an alien from another planet — you’re not the only one. Jonny Sun gets it.


Whether on social media or in his book, everyone’s an aliebn as soon as ur an aliebn also, the writer and illustrator strikes a balance between weighty social commentary and relatable humor. His work is simple, although powerful, and begins conversations about being open and susceptible about traditionally stigmatized feelings like loneliness, sadness, and fear. That process, he says, can be comforting and cathartic.


“There’s this confessional nature to social media,” the Calgary, Alberta, native mentioned while in a recent TED Talk, entitled, You Are Not Alone In Your Loneliness. “It can feel like you are writing in this personalized, intimate diary that’s totally private, however at the same time you want each person in the world to read it.”


“Every time we post online, there's a chance that these little micro-communities can form,” he added. “And some days, via muck of the world wide web, you get to find a kindred spirit.”


in case you go by Twitter numbers, Sun currently has almost 600,000 kindred spirits following along as he reasons his via highs and lows of life. Through a mix of jokes, sincerity, and illustrations, he’s hit a chord with followers, especially those who relate to adjust ego, an alien named Jomny, who provides an endearing outsider perspective on the creatures that inhabit Earth. Through oftentimes humorous dialogue with different animals and flowers, Jomny uncovers several of the social dynamics that cause conflict in human interactions.


It’s fitting that he writes for Bojack Horseman, a satirical Netflix original series that uses the main character’s cynical, trauma-induced worldview to tackle dark themes via lens of the entertainment industry — including addiction, imposter syndrome, abuse, and death — while allocating viewers with glimpses of light at the end of the tunnel. And Sun also permits his creative pursuits and academic statistics to synergize each other; he is also a doctoral candidate at MIT as well as a creative researcher at the Harvard metaLab studying social media, virtual place, and online community.


MTV News talked with Sun about how he noticed the courage to be so sincere about his feelings, how he commits to using social media for positive purposes, and the method of making a digital public of your own.


MTV News: You recently gave a TED Talk — how did it come about and why did you determine what you aspire to discuss?


Jonny Sun: TED approached me about giving a talk. We had a lot of back and forth communication with their curative team to calculate what the topic should be. I wanted to talk about creativity, and to make community around shared feelings of loneliness and sadness. I also wanted to talk about breaking the stigma that comes with speaking publicly about anxiety, depression, and mental health.


My original idea was more academically oriented; I wanted to incorporate my academic work, which examines online communities and the way that groups of people come with each other online. Nevertheless as we were working on the talk it became more oriented towards my creative work. I’m happy with the result, because we brought with each other a lot of topics that I wanted to touch on for the final version.


MTV News: Do you ever feel challenged to find a balance between your academic pursuits and your creative work?


Sun: At times balancing the two does feel like a tug of war, yet I’m working on thinking of it as a process where one side meets the other. I’m not picturing them being at odds together. Alternatively, I’m allowing the stuff that I have been reading academically to inform my work and practices on the creative side. I’m also allowing the work that I do as a creative to inform the topics that I analyse as an academic. Now, I have to question how much bandwidth I have give attention to these different things. Where am I going to direct my attention and my energy? I believe that in the long run, being able to strike a balance strengthens my work in both of those fields.


MTV News: What did you hope people took away from the Talk, and what did you take away from the experience?


Sun: To be straightforward, I'm really bad at letting myself adore a win. For a long time immediately following the talk, I felt anxious. I partitioned it away in my head and didn’t devote much thought to it. It still feels surreal. I don’t feel like I gave that talk. I sort of blocked it out.


I wanted people to look at The world wide web as something that brings people with each other. I also wanted to talk about how creating work that touches on our shared feelings of loneliness and sadness can bring people with each other. It speaks to people. Those are the things that I care about the most.


MTV News: You’ve expressed that you usually feel more comfortable writing through a pseudonymous identity rather than using your own face. How did it feel to deliver your Ted Talk as Jonathan Sun the man, alternatively opposed to Jomny Sun the character?


Sun: I’ve been beginning to use my real face and my real identity more regularly within the past year or so. It’s been a slow process. I think that there really is power in pseudonymous character work. At times, people connect more to fictional characters than real people. It’s really interesting to observe, in so several ways.


Lately, I’ve felt drawn to show people who I am and what I stand for. I don’t wish to fall into the trap of saying that I enjoyed hiding in back of a certain character, or a certain way of doing things, because I don’t think that communicating anonymously or pseudonymously is routinely related to the feeling of hiding. Talking via alien character that I created helped me to be more open, because it was much less scary to be sincere and susceptible. My direct identity wasn’t tied to the character.


Right now that my face is on front stage, my present work requires me to continue to be as open and as trustworthy as ever. That’s why the talk was so scary and hard. It felt really bare. There was no one else although me on that stage.


MTV News: At the starting of your TED Talk, you explained that you began writing jokes on Twitter to cope with feelings of loneliness and intimidation as you began your doctoral program at MIT. Did you ever worry that others would judge you for sharing such taboo emotions?


Sun: Absolutely. While in my first lab at MIT, I told my colleagues that I couldn’t make it to a meeting because I had an appointment with my therapist, and people looked at me like I had just mentioned the most inappropriate thing in the world.


In certain spaces, it’s still very taboo to talk about therapy, mental health, anxiety, and depression. There was pressure to come off as “perfect.” It felt as though we weren’t allowed to admit that we were struggling or feeling anything negative. That sort of culture permeates everywhere. Twitter offered an outlet for me to talk about how I really felt, and also a release from those unrealistic expectations. Attempting to don't think about those emotions would have led to more self-destructive emotions and behavior.


MTV News: What about Twitter appealed to you as a platform for sharing your work? Did anything about that process surprise you as you kept going?


Sun: Talking about complicated topics is easier on Twitter than it is in real life. There’s a different excellent to conversations on Twitter. I don’t attribute those contradictions entirely to anonymity or pseudonymity, nevertheless I feel the contrast. Having a cartoon alien avatar on Twitter and speaking through that platform made the sentiments that I shared more palatable and digestible.


Each person who knew me at school was aware that I had this account. It wasn’t a totally anonymous effort. As I started to share my thoughts, I became segment of a community that talks about a lot of the same things that I talk about. If I get online I feel connected to the companions that I’ve made. I wasn’t the initial person to ever write about my feelings. I’d never mention that I built a community around me as much as I would mention that I discovered a community.


I was surprised to find other people who were discussing mental health and wrestling with feelings of loneliness and sadness. The bonds felt very natural. We’re a loosely-connected order of people who routinely existed. I’m writing however also feeling seen by seeing others having similar discussions in their own ways. It feels like a true community and support system.


MTV News: As soon as did illustrating come into the mix?


Sun: I had habitually wanted to be an illustrator. I’d also done visual art in the past at architecture school. I was serious about visual representation. Once I began to write jokes, I had this hope in the back of my head that one day I would find the time and discipline to do a web comic, or a recurring series where I would illustrate something each week. That never coalesced correctly, so I attempted concentrate on a finite, project-based effort with a definitive end point. I determined to work on a book. That book became everyone’s an aliebn whenever ur an aliebn too. I certainly hope to revisit illustration, and I’m currently figuring out what my second book will be.


MTV News: Your work is often a mix of dark humor and soft reassurance. How do you strike that balance?


Sun: I've habitually felt drawn to like work that like dark and sad. Oftentimes, I find that strong feelings of sadness are comforting, because they permit me to acknowledge that people have these emotions, and that not everything has to have a happy ending. Life is dark and complex, and it’s alright for us all to feel these negative emotions.


I’m comforted by stories that illuminate that more so than by stories that pretend everything has a happy ending. The balance comes any time as soon as you acknowledge and discuss dark feelings and emotions in a way that leads to comfort and warmth. That’s a main theme of what I'd like to address with my work.


MTV News: Any time as soon as you began working on Twitter, did you have an end objective, or imagine you’d do something like land a gig on BoJack Horseman?


Sun: Not at all — BoJack was such a large inspiration for me early on. It’s a landmark career accomplishment. It’s actually piece of how I understand that balance between humor, sadness, comedy, and comfort. It’s been surreal [to join the writing team] because of how long I’ve been a fan. It still doesn’t feel real.


MTV News: What are a few of the largest challenges you’ve faced so far as segment of the writing team?


Sun: It’s been a challenge for me to deal with my emotions as a first-time writer. I felt a lot of self-doubt and heavy doses of imposter syndrome. Those feelings certainly got in the way of my ability to contribute at the starting. I felt intimidated, and wondered if I was good enough for the task in this instance. Luckily, the team is full of astonishing people who are excellent, smart, and kind, which helped me to work through those feelings.


MTV News: What fundamental changes to social media platforms would you like to be able to see implemented for the good of the billions of people who use them?


Sun: Social media platforms need to do a higher class of job of addressing hate speech, hate groups, and online violence. The reason that platforms are failing to do so is because they drive traffic. There really are a lot of capitalism-driven reasons to keep these groups online. I believe that there really are a lot of parties interested in hacking these platforms and these algorithms to further hate speech, violence, and hate groups. I think that’s the obvious distribute that they have to address first.


MTV News: What keeps you coming back to social media every day?


Sun: When I first began to share my thoughts on social media, it was a public physical training. I determined that no matter what was going on, I’d attempt to sit down and tweet either one joke or thought day-to-day. I wanted to share one thing day-to-day that I felt was good enough to tweet out.


I eventually noticed people whose thoughts, work, and advice I wanted to hear as often as possible. Those people have incentivized me to be more present online. That’s piece of what has kept me there. Finding human connection was the most crucial thing for me — which is why despite all the terrible issues that we have with these platforms, I’m still drawn to them. There really are interesting people I like with whom I can only connect via internet.