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Jon Jafari
JonTron Nightshade

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Jonathan "Jon" Jafari (born 24 March 1990), more commonly known on the internet as JonTron, is an entertainer the co-founder and former co-host of the show Game Grumps, alongside his friend Arin Hanson. Besides Game Grumps, he is known mostly for his game reviews and being a founder and ex-member 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 from Game Grumps on 25 June, 2013.

Biography

YouTube and NormalBoots

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Jon's Face.

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 the original "Not-so-Grump".

Barry was Jon's primary creative partner in the early days of his show, which lasted up until he decided to leave Game Grumps and move to New York. Afterwards he wrote and produced most of his episodes with Paul Ritchey and the rest of the Continue? crew. Today Jon's primary co-writer is Zach Hadel, better known as PsychicPebbles .

Jon is the co-founder of the NormalBoots alongside PeanutButterGamer. NormalBoots was briefly 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?". In May of 2017, it was announced that Jon was officially leaving NormalBoots to work exclusively on his show, and NormalBoots continues to honor him as an honorary co-founder.

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

Since his departure from Game Grumps, Jon became infamous for voicing controversial political views on social media, such as his opposition to contemporary feminism and the social justice movement, as well as appearing in an interview on the far-right publication Breitbart. In early 2017, he defended Republican congressman Steve King and his anti-immigrantion comments,[1] and appeared on a livestream together with antifeminist YouTuber Sargon of Akkad, in which he described the participants in the Women's March as "fucking commulists" [sic]. [2]

In an infamous debate with Twitch streamer Destiny, Jon further elaborated on his anti-immigration stance, claiming that white people could eventually become a minority in the United States, and that it was against their best interests to accept immigrants from "incompatible places".[3] He also (falsely) asserted that wealthy black men commit more crime than poor white men in the US, and that Mexicans intend to break off territory from the southern United States back into Mexico.[4] These comments led to some of his associates distancing themselves from him, including Playtonic Games, who removed Jon's voice cameo from their game Yooka-Laylee.[5] However, since late 2018, Jon has become significantly less outspoken about politics on his social media accounts, and has since apologized for his comments.

In the latter half of 2017, Jon has acknowledged his show is no longer simply focused on games, and would now focus on a variety of content such as movies and television shows. He also provided a voice cameo for the independent 3D Platformer A Hat in Time.

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, whether as 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 assesses the games 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 to leave 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 games. Much like the start, he ends his videos in random ways, as shown when going through an LSD-induced space trip or getting his soul eaten by a Haunter inside a Pokemon creepypasta cartridge.

Jontron eventually stopped doing reviews on games and instead did reviews on movies and shows. His first show review was Birdemic: Shock and Terror, and his last game review video was on Disney Bootlegs. If you want to use a more broad definition of a "game review video" then his last game review video was "Virtual Reality Mukbang (sort of)"

Now, Jontron decides to make videos on a wide variety of topics such as cooking a Turducken, making an Architecture tier list, reviewing (and "improving") oversimplified logos, buying strange things online, and more. So far, his latest video is "Titanic II" where he talks about the replica of the titanic that Clive Palmer was planning on making.

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.

Quotes

All the Jews and whites and blacks and Asians and Latinos should all die.
— Jon Jafari, It's Retro
You died in a fucking shallow pond, you piece of shit, you imbecile, you useless piece of fucking oats!
— Jon Jafari, Average Velocity
Well, to be honest this would be one of the only shows someone without eyes could enjoyably watch, so maybe we have a pretty big eyeless demographic that we just insulted... they're probably gonna fucking get on their computer and comment "difigitdifgitifffitigffidd".
— Jon Jafari, Eye See What You Mean
One, two, three, four, five, six, seven... seven asses.
— Jon Jafari, Seven Asses.
Arin, do you remember that part where neither of us are funny?
— Jon Jafari, Rugrats in Paris: The Movie
I didn't know Picasso was dead!
— Jon Jafari, Route of All Evil
I would suck a dick to get Meatloaf on this show, and I'm not kidding. If you can get Meatloaf on this show, and you want your dick SMICKETY-SMACKERED UP... and sucked too, well give me a call.
— Jon Jafari, Green Grass and Load Screens Forever
ECH.
— Jon Jafari, all the time

Gallery

Trivia

  • Jon has a high affinity for birds, jokingly 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 has since passed away. Through his pets, Jon knows how to properly handle and care for birds, a trait he shares with Ross's ex-wife Holly, which lead to Jon doing a guest spot on her YouTube channel to discuss birds.
  • Jon is of Persian-American ethnicity.
  • Jon co-founded NormalBoots with fellow YouTube personality PeanutButterGamer. As of 2017 however, PeanutButterGamer has declared they are no longer friends. In 2017, Jon formally left NormalBoots in order to focus soley on his own show.
  • Jon attended Highschool alongside Jirard Khalil, also known as fellow NormalBoots member The Completionist.
  • 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. Fans also coined a common catchphrase of his, "Don't worry about it", which eventually even Arin noticed, asking fans for a compilation of every time Jon had said it.
  • 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 DayBanjo-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.
  • 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 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."
  • 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 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 video games (a-la Mystery Science Theater 3000) 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.

References

  1. @JonTronShow on Twitter: "Wow, how scandalous, Steve King doesn't want his country invaded by people who have contempt for his culture and people! NAZI!!!" March 12th, 2017
  2. Sargon of Akkad Live: Punished Shitposting with #JonTron, January 27th 2017
  3. Destiny: Debating JonTron, March 13th 2017
  4. Popular YouTuber JonTron Has Some Batshit Crazy Thoughts on Immigration He'd Like to Share - Bryan Menegus, Gizmodo
  5. Yooka-LayleeDitches JonTron's Voice Acting Over His 'Personal Viewpoints' - Nathan Grayson, Kotaku

External links

External wikis

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