Claire Wheeler (born: November 8, 1985), better known by her online alias Proton Jon, is a Canadian[1] Let's Player, game collector, and Twitch streamer who has been making content online since 2006. Depending on both when a video she's done was made and whatever's happening in the game she's playing, her commentary style can alternate between wry, witty commentary and hysterical, profane, and incomprehensible rambling, sometimes in the same sentence.
Claire found her debut from the Something Awful forums as one of the original Let's Players. She is largely responsible for the spread of the Let's Playing phenomenon to YouTube, with many Let's Players who have become quite popular in their own right citing her as an influence. Claire's early videos archived on her YouTube page where she played through the original Ninja Gaiden games, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and other several difficult games. The most well known videos coming from her attempts at Kaizo Mario, Early Super Smash Bros. Brawl, her Superman 64 Let's Play, and her playthrough of Resident Evil 5. Around the time of the Resident Evil 5 LP finishing off, Claire was moving to doing more streaming content on Twitch than YouTube. Claire is now considered a full time Twitch streamer, averaging out about 3 or 4 streams a week.
As of the mid-2010s, Claire has made streaming on her Twitch page her main source of content, with Let's Plays and other YouTube videos on the side. Signature among the varying types of streams she does are "Game Clearing" streams, where she attempts to beat as many of the unfinished games in his massive collection as she can, and various types of "Fortune Cookie" streams, where Claire rolls a set number of randomly-selected games, and then puts up a poll to see which one the stream audience wants to see her play. Claire has 104.9K Twitch followers as of 2024. Since Twitch automatically deletes archived streams after two months, Claire created a second YouTube channel, where all of her streams will be uploaded.
Alongside her own Let's Plays, Claire is also a founding member of The Runaway Guys collaborative Let's Play YouTube channel, along with Timothy Bishop (NintendoCapriSun) and Emile Rosales (Chuggaaconroy), who have done 46 Collab Let's Plays and reached 487 thousand subscribers and reached 397 total video views in 2023. In addition to their videos, The Runaway Guys have also created the "Thrown Controllers" event, a live game show which focuses on video game trivia and challenges. The group has also done gaming live-streams for charity, hosting The Runaway Guys Colosseum stream for the non-profit organization Direct Relief. Claire is also a great player, but is usually messed up by the game or Emile, and tends to act like she's surrounded by idiots.
Channel History[]
Claire found her debut from the Something Awful forums as one of the original Let's Players. She is largely responsible for the spread of the Let's Playing phenomenon to YouTube, with many Let's Players who have become quite popular in their own right citing her as an influence. Claire's early videos archived on her YouTube page where she played through the original Ninja Gaiden games, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and other several difficult games. The most well known videos coming from her attempts at Kaizo Mario, Early Super Smash Bros. Brawl, her Superman 64 Let's Play, and her playthrough of Resident Evil 5. Around the time of the Resident Evil 5 LP finishing off, Claire was moving to doing more streaming content on Twitch than YouTube. Claire is now considered a full time Twitch streamer.
Career[]
Let's Playing career[]
Claire was part of the original group of Let's Players from Something Awful. Like most of them, she created a YouTube account to host the videos she made. One day, she posted a two part LP of a level from Kaizo Mario World. It became a huge hit, and one of the seminal LP videos on YouTube, eventually leading to her becoming a YouTube Partner on October 18, 2010. Claire is largely responsible for the spread of the Let's Playing phenomenon to YouTube, with many Let's Players who have become quite popular in their own right citing her as an influence. Depending on both when a video she's done was made and whatever's happening in the game she's playing, her commentary style can alternate between wry, witty commentary and hysterical, profane, and incomprehensible rambling, sometimes in the same sentence. Many of her unique turns of phrase have gone viral, sometimes to her chagrin.
Claire's most popular videos are her Super Mario World romhack Let's Plays and her posts of Super Smash Bros. Brawl matches with her friends, both of which are on indefinite hiatus, especially the former, due to having become burned out on Mario World romhacks as a whole. She is perhaps more infamously known for her long-running Let's Play of Superman 64. In addition to her Let's Plays, she also did an occasional brief review series called "You Should Play/Avoid This", starting with Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons.
In 2021, Claire briefly returned to making Let's Plays with the help of a couple of her Twitch mods for editing support, starting Let's Plays of Jet Set Radio Future and Super Metroid (as well as uploading one video of Superman 64 as a treat). She also started posting stream highlight compilations to catch up her unsuspecting YouTube fanbase to her stream shenanigans (her 2020 update video notwithstanding). The LP channel is currently in hibernation once again, but her Twitch VOD channel is updated every time she streams. Claire has 213 thousand subscribers and 67 million views as of 2023.
Twitch Streaming career[]
As of the mid-2010s, Claire has made streaming on her Twitch page her main source of content, with Let's Plays and other YouTube videos on the side. Signature among the varying types of streams she does are "Game Clearing" streams, where she attempts to beat as many of the unfinished games in her massive collection as she can, and various types of "Fortune Cookie" streams, where Claire rolls a set number of randomly-selected games (usually 5, with additional options added by viewers and whomever is commentating with her), and then puts up a poll to see which one the stream audience wants to see her play.
Since Twitch automatically deletes archived streams after two months, Claire created a second YouTube channel, where all of her streams will (eventually) be uploaded. Currently, barring any issues on Claire's end, newer streams are generally uploaded to this channel roughly a day after they initially went live. Claire has 104.9K Twitch followers as of 2024.
Claire is a variety streamer, so she likes to play many types of games from all the consoles she owns, spanning multiple decades of gaming. She may also surface bugs and glitches without even trying... but she can't help that. Turning the increasingly difficult and competitive hobby of video game collecting into a job, she welcomes viewers to seek her wares on stream for amusement and... whatever chaos comes of it.
Her signature (but not exclusive) stream type is the Fortune Cookie, powered in part by video game cataloguing site Backloggery. There is a "Fortune Cookie" puller on the site that picks a random game (based on parameters chosen by the user) out of your game catalog. Pulling a few games out of what comes up is the basis of a poll that is then run by chat to see what plays next. Outside of that and its variations, you may see her working on clearing one game (or more than one fast-to-clear games), doing a podcast, racing her mods on specific games, and more!
Other projects[]
The Runaway Guys[]
Claire is a founding member of The Runaway Guys, a collab channel with Timothy Bishop (NintendoCapriSun) and Emile Rosales (Chuggaaconroy). Emile is in charge of maintaining the channel, although Claire has made posts and comments for the channel as well. For the first two years, updates usually only occurred every Saturday, but this was changed to Saturday, Tuesday, and Thursday following an announcement on February 8, 2013. Videos for Mario Party games (starting with the third) and Fortune Street were also posted daily (each board beginning on Saturday and continuing every day until its end).
Their first Let's Play premiered on February 5, 2011. The three of them were the only ones participating, but many of their later videos featured additional players. After the creation of the channel in 2011, 46 main collab LPs were produced, along with five side collab LPs and six tournament LPs. Along with their official long-running LPs, they did one-shot filler LPs (labeled "The Runaway Gaiden"), tournaments featuring multitudes of guest players, and side collab projects that they gradually update and use as filler between regular projects.
On occasion at various conventions, the Runaway Guys had their own panel, called Thrown Controllers, a live game show which focused on video game trivia and challenges. The event was broadcast on numerous gaming conventions such as PAX, Magfest and Momocon. In its debut at PAX East 2012, two teams took turns answering questions and playing video game challenges, either against each other, solo, or against members of the audience. At PAX Prime 2012, they retooled the game into a single-person quiz show with challenges, similar to the initial concept except for one person at a time, and this is how it has been done since. Many prizes were awarded at these panels, ranging from character pins from Fangamer to (as a grand prize) an actual video game console, such as a Nintendo 3DS, Wii U, or Nintendo Switch.
In May of 2018, The Runaway Guys Colosseum was live streamed as a weekend long event to raise money for Direct Relief. This was followed up in 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, and 2023. All of them once again in benefit of Direct Relief. With the combined efforts of the community, event staff, and the performers, a total over $1,000,000 was raised by 2023.
NormalBoots[]
As of May 2021, Claire is also a member of the re-refreshed NormalBoots collective, joining longtime friends and collaborators The Completionist, PeanutButterGamer, and DidYouKnowGaming? creator Shane Gill, as well as fellow newcomers Chadtronic and Lady Pelvic. Claire disassociated with The Completionist following the charity fraud controversy in 2023.
Personal life[]
Claire entered a relationship with fellow Let's Player, The Runaway Guys member, and now-VTuber Reese (Lucahjin) on January 7th, unknown year, as they celebrated their anniversary at MagFest.[2] Claire proposed marriage to her at Pax West 2017 and she accepted.[3] They married on September 28, 2018.[4]
Claire and Reese adopted a cat that only has one eye, and Reese was the one who named the cat Bagel. The reason for the name was because of how, when it curls up, it looks like a bagel.[5] Bagel has also been affectionately nicknamed 'Big Boss', after the character from Metal Gear Solid 3, for only having one eye. Claire and Reese later got another cat and named her Eva (continuing the MGS3 reference). Bagel, as it turns out, doesn't like bagels.[6]
Claire officially came out as a transgender woman during a Twitch stream on April 19, 2025. [7]
References[]
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 https://youtube.com/@protonjon/about
- ↑ https://twitter.com/lucahjin/status/817889317259452418
- ↑ https://twitter.com/lucahjin/status/904060687722266624
- ↑ https://twitter.com/lucahjin/status/1045734267282771970
- ↑ https://youtu.be/g2_7OkrcSHY?t=3h13m17s
- ↑ https://twitter.com/crushgirljos/status/904043166038245376
- ↑ https://x.com/lucahjin/status/1913835379976769629