How not to get bored in Montreal, a TikTok guide

Content creator Karl Haddad is showing people 'how not to get bored in Montreal' and gaining thousands of followers.

He’s the voice behind the social media handle “@iskarlok,” and he’s on a mission to make sure you’re never bored if you live in Montreal.

“I always start with a jump, straddle and turn,” says Karl Haddad.

For months, the content creator has been getting Montrealers of all ages out with his viral series called “How to Never Get Bored in Montreal.”

Haddad has produced more than 50 videos to date, suggesting everything from candle-making at Café Moonday, to trampolining at Upla, North America’s largest outdoor trampoline park.

He says it all started when he moved to the city during the COVID-19 pandemic.

“It was honestly [...] a very difficult time for me and for a lot of people. So as soon as COVID was done, I was like, ‘get me out of my place. I want to discover as many places, I want to meet as many people as I can,’” he told CTV News. “One day, a friend came up to me and he was like, ‘do you know what we can do tonight in Montreal? I don’t have a clue. I don’t want to go to a restaurant. It’s very basic.’”

The content creator is an engineer by trade, but he began curating experiences and posting on social media regularly last year.

He soon went from sharing recommendations with friends, to hundreds, then hundreds of thousands.

“I posted a video. It was a necklace-making workshop and it took off,” he said.

Now, with more than 5 million likes on TikTok and more than 20 million views on his content - featuring quiz games and immersive light shows - it’s safe to say he knows the city.

After growing up as a gymnastics champion in Lebanon, Haddad’s work as a content creator is a switch, but he says it’s a responsibility that he says he takes seriously.

“[I] need to be selective nowadays of the places that I go to, because if I post a video, a lot of people will go. Do they have the capacity? Do they have a good service to back it up?”

With a degree in research, Hadad has a lot more up his sleeve.

He’s already planning his next series - perhaps along the lines of “How Not to Get Bored as a Montrealer...Outside of Montreal.”