Jon

"Ech!"

- Jon Jafari

Jonathan Aryan[1 ] "JonTron" Jafari (born 24 March 1990), more commonly known on the internet as JonTron, is an entertainer and the co-founder of the show Game Grumps, alongside his friend Arin Hanson. Besides Game Grumps, he is known mostly for his game reviews and being part of the community known as NormalBoots. Jon's tenure on Game Grumps lasted for 619 episodes (18 July 2012 - 24 June 2013) before the announcement of his departure on 25 June 2013.

YouTube and NormalBoots
Jon started his show in 2010 with a standard review of the video game Daikatana, but he didn't gain internet popularity until he retooled the series with a more original style. After a fan posted Jon's "DinoCity BRO!!!" video on Reddit with the description "After watching this, video game reviews really aren't the same anymore," Jon's popularity boomed. This is also when Jon's videos were first brought to Arin Hanson's attention. He was a grump, ironically, since he played the role as "Not-so-Grump".

Jon is the co-creator of the NormalBoots website, alongside PeanutButterGamer. NormalBoots was shut down as YouTube's partner program became a much better way to earn money than ad revenue on NormalBoots. However, it has recently been resurrected due to uncertainties surrounding the long-term viability of being dependent on ad-revenue from a site that is becoming increasingly mired in copyright controversies that could potentially end up shutting down channels such as Jon's. Jon has appeared in videos of fellow NormalBoots member "Continue?", and he has also done many voiceovers for episodes of "Did You Know Gaming?".

Jon started contributing to Channel Awesome in 2011, working on the subdivisions "That Guy With The Glasses" and "Blistered Thumbs."

Jon is also a member of The Game Station, now rebranded as Polaris.

He has a pet parrot named Jacques who appears in his videos.

Style
Unlike many reviewers on YouTube, Jon has an energetic and random approach to his videos. Much like PeanutButterGamer and The Angry Video Game Nerd, Jon usually chooses obscure, unknown or just plain bad games to review on his channel. He starts his videos in random matters, either they be simple as playing with Barbie dolls in his Barbie Games video or completely weird like when the ghost of Macaulay Culkin came to him through over-cooked nuts in his Home Alone Games video.

Throughout the video, he usually assess the game/s in calm and collected matter, explaining the things he likes and the things he doesn't. However, when things become weird, scary or rage-inducing, Jon either cracks a joke on what he's just seen, gets up, leaves and comes back a few seconds later or screams and shouts at the top of his lungs while babbling random nonsense or letting out his signature 'Ech!'.

As the video ends, Jon doesn't give his opinion on the game/s. Very much like the start, he ends his videos in random ways, either when he's going through an LSD-induced space trip or getting his soul eaten by a Haunter inside a Pokemon creepypasta cartridge.

Music
Jon is educated in musical theatre. He will occasionally display his musical talent in videos that he produces, as well as many episodes of Game Grumps.

Jon made a cameo appearance in a Pepsi commercial with Mike Tompkins, where he appeared along with many others singing the tune "Take Me Out to the Ball Game" in honor of the 2013 World Series. The original publisher of the video, Maker Music, had posted in the video's description a link to Jon's YouTube page, asking fans to get him to sing the National Anthem for the World Series.

Trivia

 * Jon is half Iranian and half Yugoslavian.
 * Jon has a high affinity for birds, claiming himself to be "something of a bird whisperer". He owns multiple pet birds; aside from his conure parrot Jacques, who is frequently featured in JonTron episodes, Jon owns another conure parrot named Cinnamon, and for a brief period owned a large sun conure parrot named Spaghetti. Prior to Jacques, Jon owned a parakeet that had passed away. Through his pets, Jon knows how to properly handle and care for birds, a trait he shares with Ross's wife Holly, which lead to Jon doing a guest spot on her YouTube channel to discuss birds.
 * Jon has been called out for saying "legitimately" a number of times in early episodes of Game Grumps. As of later episodes, he had become self-conscious about using the word.
 * As explained in episode 3 of Castlevania and 97 of Sonic 06, Jon has a lot of trouble with flying. So much so in fact, as detailed in these two episodes, he drinks to a degree that it makes the airline employees get worried/suspicious of him.
 * Jon has stated that his favorite games are Conker's Bad Fur Day, Banjo-Kazooie, Banjo-Tooie, Donkey Kong Country, Donkey Kong Country 2, Donkey Kong Country 3, Yoshi's Island, Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask, and Half-Life 2. He has also expressed a distinct fondness for the Mass Effect series. And if his "Stairfax Temperatures" video is any indication, Starfox 64 is also a favorite of his.
 * Jon had little patience for Arin's frequent burping, which constantly frustrated him during recording.
 * The way Jon got most of his fame and got Arin's attention was through his Dino City episode. The episode became a front page post on Reddit with the quote "After watching this, video game reviews really aren't the same anymore." Arin saw the Reddit post, and contacted Jon asking him to hang out.
 * There is a reference to Jon and their real talk meme in the game, DLC Quest.
 * According to the Completionist's episode of Luigi's Mansion, Jon is also known as "the Pizzapletionist". Jon has since stated that this was a misunderstanding between them, and his title was actually "the Pitz-pletionsist". (Pronounced "Peetz-plee-shun-ist").
 * He was the fourth player to be eliminated in the Diablo III: Reaper of Souls Hardcore Tournament, hosted by Polaris.
 * Jon was featured in a flashback in the Faileontology episode of Castle Crashers on Steam Train. The flashback was from the Biz Casual episode of Sonic '06. This is Jon's last appearance on the Game Grumps channel, even though the episode was recorded before he left the channel.
 * The 109th episode of Pokemon FireRed included the first mention of Jon's name on the show since he left Game Grumps, in recognition of the series overtaking Sonic '06 as their longest playthrough.
 * He was mentioned again in episode 15 of Zelda II: The Adventure of Link when Arin was discussing an unreleased episode of Joe & Mac.
 * He was also mentioned in Toon Grumps when Ross was elaborating on the origin of Game Grumps.
 * He has been mentioned multiple times in Super Mario 64 and in Donkey Kong Country 3: Dixie Kong's Double Trouble!.
 * He appeared as a main character in the music video for the Ninja Sex Party song "Let's Get This Terrible Party Started!" The video came out shortly before his departure from Game Grumps (Barry and Ross were also featured in the video, while Suzy made props and it was directed by Arin).
 * At the NormalBoots Panel at SGC, Jon was revealed to have gotten in trouble as a child for teaching his neighbor the f-word.
 * Jon used to play the alto saxophone, but was "really bad at it."
 * Jon went to high school at Palos Verdes Peninsula High School, with Barry Kramer, the editor of game grumps.
 * At the NormalBoots panel at Magfest 2015, Jon stated that his weirdest fan experience was at Magfest where at a signing, a fan handed Jon a photo of himself naked and holding a firearm over his dick. The fan then requested Jon sign it "to the greased beast from the musty yeast." The photo can be found online.
 * After he and Nostalgia Critic did their own separate reviews on Foodfight!, they did an intro to Nostalgia Critic's Halloween specials which involved Jon going to Nostalgia Critic's house to murder him for reviewing the movie.
 * Like Arin, Skyward Sword is Jon's least favorite Zelda game.
 * Jontron's video "Bootleg Pokemon Games" is the most viewed video of the NormalBoots community with over seven million views.
 * Jon is an atheist.
 * Unlike Brian, Jon doesn't have a PhD.
 * Jon and Danny seem to be on good terms, as Jon has collaborated with him on a number of projects, and they have mentioned each other after Jon left.
 * in 2015, Jon hosted a 9-episode series called "Starcade", a retrospective of Star Wars video games and merchandise sponsored by Disney in celebration of the upcoming Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens. In the series, Jon is forcefully persuaded to review all Star Wars merchandise by Darth Vader, who in the final episode, is revealed to in fact be Arin. This would be the first time Jon and Arin had appeared in a video together since Ode to Jon in 2013. Ross also cameos in Episodes 2 and 9, with Holly joining him in the latter episode.