| “ | Greetings, Pokéfans! Michael here!
Haha! It is I, Grunty Boi! |
” |
―MandJTV's intro and the intro of his alternate persona, Grunty Boi | ||
Michael Groth (born: November 28, 1994), better known online as MandJTV, is an American YouTuber who creates Pokémon-related videos on his channel. He is known for his Pokémon Talk series, top 10's and rap battles along with his shiny hunting streams. As of 2020, he is the most subscribed non-card oriented Pokétuber, surpassing MunchingOrange in subscribers, hitting 1,250,000 before him.
Early Life[]
Michael was born in Anchorage, Alaska as his parents were in the oil industry. When he was born, his mother quit her job to raise him. When he was younger, he enjoyed playing in the snow and with his toys. His brother, Justin, was born when he was 3 years old and around the same time, his father was transferred to Bartlesville, Oklahoma where they lived for 2 years.
Michael came home from school one day to watch Clifford, but it wasn't on. Instead, it was an episode of Pokémon with Ash Ketchum and his rematch with Whitney, thus sparking his love for the franchise. When he was 7 years old, he moved to Houston, Texas and got his first Pokémon game and a GameBoy Advance SP on his 9th birthday. But as he got older, Pokémon was dying out in his school causing him to get bullied a lot and he did not handle being teased well causing it to be difficult to make friends. His father told him to ignore what they say but Michael couldn't because he loved Pokémon.
When Michael was only 11, his father was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and sadly passed away in only a few months. That tragedy affected Michael by a long shot, and his inability to react to the bullying got worse. He had a horrible temper, so going into middle school, he had fewer friends than he did before. He was angry most of the time and worried constantly, along with the common fights he had with Justin. The only thing he remembers of middle school was his pulled teeth, acne, and braces. Fortunately, his imagination never died out and made stories of a hero called ShockBoy, and started an even better hero called RacoonMan and made books of his own fake Pokémon.
After his creation of RacoonMan, Michael's imagination expanded and he and his brother Justin created a YouTube channel called MandJTV, short for MichaelandJustinTV. His inspirations were nigahiga and Fred because he thought they were funny. He made his videos with his mom's old Camcorder and Windows Movie Maker. The brothers found it fun, but Michael enjoyed it more than Justin. They never gained popularity, but they were able to make their mother laugh. Before the creation of his YouTube channel, his mother married a new man in 8th grade, who in fact was friends with his parents before they got married. After they got married they moved to Midland Texas because there was an oil company there, and it wasn't long until he got used to his step-dad.
When Michael moved he switched from a public school with 900 kids to a private school with only 40. He was glad to leave his other school but the private school wasn't any better. Michael still had bad temper, and he was uncomfortable there because the kids there were going to that school since they were 5 years old. His freshman year was horrible because he got into 4 fights and even got suspended for getting Sucker Punched in the face. His senior year went better, he got his braces off after 4 years and after three months of working in the oil fields and basketball practice, he gained 10 pounds of muscle. He started to style his hair better and got his first girlfriend along with a first kiss.
They didn't date for a while, but the experience gave him more confidence and realized most of the teasing were all just jokes and he gained a lot more friends, and he and his brother got along better than ever before, and got into his dream school Rice University. He also kept up with YouTube even though Justin quit after getting bored of it. After he graduated, his step-dad moved back to Houston, so the summer before college was very boring. But that summer, he created the "How old am I?" video which gained 1 million views which inspired him to create more videos. After seeing Pokémon videos, he decided to dedicate his channel to just Pokémon because they were more popular and that's what he has been doing ever since.
Youtube Career[]
Michael did not start his youtube career with Pokémon content, instead making skits akin to those of Nigahiga and Fred with his brother Justin when he was around 14. He describes these videos as "poor but at the same time amusing". He continued making videos well into university, though Justin had gotten tired of it, mostly focusing on a superhero called Racoon Man.
The oldest unprivated video on his channel, and presumably his oldest Pokémon video, is the first episode of his popular Pokémon talk series. His first "viral" video was about Ash Ketchum's age, shortly followed by a video discussing what happens in a Pokéball, which is currently his most popular video.
He has continued making Pokémon, and reached 1 million subscribers on the 7th of July 2020, and 2 million on March 13th 2023.
Trivia[]
- On October 13th, 2020, Michael hit 1,250,000 subscribers, surpassing Munchingorange as the most subscribed non-card Pokétuber.
- Michael had a girlfriend named Jubilee and they met via Tinder. They got engaged on February 14, 2019. However, they eventually broke up.[1][2]
- Michael's favorite Pokémon is Sceptile.
- Michael has another channel called MandJTV Plays (formerly known as Michael Groth).
- Michael has a girlfriend named Trinity. She has lived with Michael for over a year. Michael has stated on Instagram that "she's made my life immeasurably better".[3]
- Michael once woke up naked in a stranger's room while he was in college.
- Due to some Twitter controversy where she hid behind Michael, them having highly different personalities, Michael removing all her mentions except on his rarely used Instagram account, un channel boxing her, deleting his Twitter account, and taking a 2-week break from YouTube in late June 2020, it is assumed Michael and his fiancé JubileeBlais broke up around June 26, 2020.
- When the MBF's (Metronome Battle Federation) 2nd season was released Jubilee wasn't included further supporting the above listed break up.
- With Michael's current relationship with Trinity Brooke, his break up with Jubilee bas been solidified.
- When the MBF's (Metronome Battle Federation) 2nd season was released Jubilee wasn't included further supporting the above listed break up.
- Michael likes to refer to Pokémon as his own modified slang (e.g. Arkoos (like Zeus), Yavultal etc.)
- Whenever he has a paid promotion, he has a Team Rocket grunt persona/friend, named Grunty Boi, inform him about the product, and some lore for the MJTVCU.
- This persona has made three lets play episodes on MandJTV Plays.
- Michael's actual name (John Michael Groth) led to a friendly competition named "The John Michael Cup" with PM7, who is coincidentally also named John Michael. In the first season of the John Michael Cup, Mikey won.
- On October 10, 2022, MandJTV reinstated his Twitter account.
- Mikey dislikes how strict Pokemon is on using hacked/genned Pokemon, saying, "It's insane to me that Pokemon is being so strict about hacked Pokemon while simultaneously making their official format include Pokemon that you cannot obtain in the game the format is played in. Urshifu is top tier yet requires you to own a 4yo game's DLC to get legit" and "It would be like the Smash Ultimate circuit requiring you to have Smash 4. Competitive Pokemon will be taken more seriously if they built a damn teambuilder like Showdown has that only works for PvP battles. That's it. It is that simple and would avoid all these issues."
- Michael is 182 centimeters (5'11¾") tall, a fact he is annoyed by as he isn't quite 6 feet tall.
Channel milestones[]
Note: The following dates are according to Social Blade. Dates may vary by one or two days due to differences in time zones.
Subscriber milestones[]
- 100,000 subscribers: June 4, 2015
- 200,000 subscribers: March 23, 2016
- 300,000 subscribers: August 2016
- 400,000 subscribers: November 2016
- 500,000 subscribers: May 2017
- 600,000 subscribers: December 2017
- 700,000 subscribers: August 2018
- 800,000 subscribers: June 8, 2019
- 900,000 subscribers: November 7, 2019
- 1 million subscribers: February 7, 2020
- 2 million subscribers: March 13, 2023
Video view milestones[]
- 100 million views: June 2017
- 200 million views: January 2019
- 300 million views: January 30, 2020
- 400 million views: August 7, 2020
- 500 million views: March 26, 2021
- 600 million views: November 5, 2021
- 700 million views: June 27, 2022
- 800 million views: 2023