| “ | Welcome to JonTron! Hopefully laugh! | ” |
―JonTron's YouTube description | ||
Jonathan Aryan Jafari (born: March 24, 1990), better known online as JonTron, is an American YouTuber, commentator, comedian, and video game reviewer known for his reviews of retro, odd, or bad video games and movies.
He reviews video games, movies, and television shows of varying genres in a retrospective and comedic manner in his YouTube web series JonTron. Jafari was co-creator and former co-host of the Let's Play web series GameGrumps before his departure on June 25, 2013, and co-created the video game entertainment website NormalBoots.
He married Charlotte Jafari (née Claw) on October 23, 2019.
Career
Before Jon started his channel in 2010, he started a vlogging channel in 2006 that went inactive in 2007; to this day, the channel has still not been identified.
Later, Jon created the JonTron channel on August 31, 2010 with his 2-part review of Daikatana, usually posting videos on YouTube and/or Normalboots.com. Since then, his videos have been refined, as well as an upgraded in production values.
On July 18, 2012, he and Arin "Egoraptor" Hanson started a new shared gameplay channel named Game Grumps. However, after about a year of working on the channel, he eventually quit to return to his own YouTube channel, and was replaced by Danny "Sexbang" Avidan as Arin's co-host.
In March 2017, Jon had a livestream debate on twitch with another YouTuber, Destiny. Before the debate Jon had been expressing his views on the current political climate on twitter, when Destiny invited him to the stream. Jon was very strong and open about his views leading to him getting a lot of hate as many people did not agree with him. He lost a lot of sponsors as well as posted two (but now deleted) videos. One was his response to the whole incident while the other was a Q&A. In the Q&A, Jon mentioned that he would be taking a break for a few months. As of August 26th, he has returned to uploading videos.
Jafari played Banjo-Kazooie in June 2014 on a Twitch stream to collect donations for Teach For America's GoFundMe campaign. Jafari stated that if the $25,000 proposed goal was hit, he would reprise a cover of Katy Perry's song "Firework" originally recorded for his 2011 review of DinoCity. The full version of the cover was uploaded to Jafari's YouTube channel on February 14, 2016.
Jacques
Jaques
Jacques is the name of Jon's robotic bird (Green-cheeked conure) who assists Jon in filming his videos or, in most cases, criticizes Jon. He spent a brief period of time fighting in a war of unknown origins. Jacques, being a cybernetic bird, is equipped with lasers in his eyes, a teleporter, and the ability to morph into a falcon; he also has the ability to reconstruct himself after an accidental death occurs, whether by a self-given paradox or his lasers being reflected back at him by Jon over a copy of Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts, which is a horrendous game in Jon's point of view.
Malkovich
Malkovich's relation to Jon is unknown, and not much is known about him in general, although he seems to be of Slavic origins based on his "accent". However, he has starred in both of his public access television show, which Jon had displayed on his main channel. In Malkovich's Gaming Game Show, it is revealed that Jon had been impersonating Malkovich to keep him protected while he was in stasis in the Himalayas. He is also revealed to somehow be the key to the human race's victory in the war with the Randors.
Game Grumps
In mid-2012, Jon and his friend Arin Hanson started a joint gameplay channel where they played games that were typically less than par. This was inspired by "Continue?", another show on Normalboots.com. This channel was widely loved by both fans of Jon's original channel and Arin's animation channel, Egoraptor. Jon's run on Game Grumps lasted almost a year until, in June 2013, he left Game Grumps at the request of his fans to continue work on his original channel. Soon after he left, he was replaced by Danny Sexbang, one of the members of YouTube channel NinjaSexParty, who currently works as Arin's cogamer, and a part of the Steam Train, another group on the channel consisting of Danny, Ross "RubberRoss" O'Donovan, and occasionally by Arin himself. Whether he will return to work with the guys again is unknown.
NormalBoots
The "Normal Boots" logo
NormalBoots was created in late 2010 by Jafari and Austin "PeanutButterGamer" Hargrave to act as a hub where Jafari and Hargrave could post content and receive advertisement revenue. Soon after its creation, NormalBoots added DidYouKnowGaming?, The Completionist, Indie Games Searchlight, and Continue? to its roster of shows. The site was closed down in 2012, as Google's AdSense program offered better revenue options for the content creators. NormalBoots was relaunched on January 24, 2014, with the addition of other video game-focused channels ProJared and Satchbag's Goods. It was announced on May 18, 2017 that Jafari would no longer be an active part of the group, but still remain as a founding member.
Personality
Jon is known for his quirky personality, never really taking anything seriously until the situation calls for it. He's also known to have a bit of a temper, usually shown when playing any anger-inducing games.
Racial controversy
Despite his political views rarely entering his videos save for the occasional quip, Jon has expressed many controversial views aligning with alt-right and white supremacist talking points.
On March 13, 2017 Jon appeared on a livestream with noted political YouTuber Destiny, during which Jon spread false information about "wealthy blacks commit more crimes than poor whites" which has been debunked by multiple sources.[1]
His controversial statements have resulted in his voice lines being removed from the game Yooka-Laylee.[2]
Jon has since distanced himself from said statements, and has refrained from engaging in any form of political discussion.
Trivia
- Jafari was born and raised in Rancho Palos Verdes in Los Angeles County, California, and currently resides in Queens, New York City.
- Jafari is of Iranian, Croatian, and Hungarian descent.
- In 2003, Jafari created a Newgrounds account named "BirdmanXZ6" where he posted 5 animations depicting anthropomorphic onions. In 2006, he created a YouTube channel under the same name.
- Jafari's "robotic" pet bird, Jacques, is the same species as Jaiden Animations' pet bird, Ari.
- Jafari was going to make a cameo in the game Yooka-Laylee by voicing a minor character, but his voice work was later dropped due to the debate incident.
- Jafari is assumed to be a fan of the Philadelphia Flyers due to the fact he has merchandise bearing their logo in many of his videos.
- Jafari has provided voice-over work for A Hat in Time, a video game by Gears for Breakfast. He also recorded voice work for Playtonic Games' Yooka-Laylee but the content was removed from the game in a day one patch in light of his controversial statements on race.
- In an interview with Breitbart News, Jafari stated that he voted for Barack Obama both times and that he supported Bernie Sanders in the 2016 primaries, but has said that he doesn't identify as conservative or liberal, preferring instead to decide on a case-by-case basis.
References
This page was made on Feburary 5, 2013 by C halts.
