BEFORE Jesse Ridgway created the McJuggernuggets youtube channel, and would catapult himself
into fame with his staged freak out videos
BEFORE he would spin off his Dad Destroys X Box video into his 50 part psycho series,
which culminates with his psycho kid character murdering his psycho father
BEFORE revealing that the psycho series was fake all along
BEFORE creating numerous other series on his channel, and building two others, The Psycho
Series and RiGDGiD Gaming, bringing his combined youtube sub count to nearly 4 million at the
time of this recording
Jesse Ridgway is the name of both the creator of the Psycho Series, and the character he
plays in it.
The character of Jesse is also sometimes possessed by his evil alter ego from inside a mirror,
called Isaac, who other characters sometimes still think is Jesse.
Confused?
Me too.
This guy is like an onion.
The more you peel back the layers, the more it stinks.
But who is the real Jesse?
Well, growing up in New Jersey, a young Jesse was obsessed with video games and dreamed
of becoming a filmmaker.
All the while, he was building a youtube channel that wasn't getting much attention.
But that all changed when he discovered a new niche in the viral video game, and hopped
onto the trend with his own over the top contributions.
(I still can't believe that's not real.)
Jesse's freak out videos would help to popularize him on youtuber.
But when it comes to his family, he's let the power go to his head.
At least, it seems that way, judging by this leaked behind
the scenes footage.
YIKES!
My name's Michael McCrudden, documenting the life and career of McJuggernuggets prior to
fame, here for you on Before They Were Famous.
This is an updated video.
Azzy hosted the original McJuggernuggets video, but that was back before Jesse had clarified
with his fans that his content ain't real.
Aw, I miss Azzy.
Anyway, let's get into this update.
Jesse Tyler Ridgway was born on Spetember 29th, 1992, to Theresa and Jeffrey Ridgway
Senior.
While Jesse's dad's freak outs were exaggerated in the Psycho series, the guy did have a serious
temper.
On top of that, Jesse's big brother, Jeffrey Jr., would often bully him, but Jesse would
get a few shots in himself.
Young Jesse had issues with his weight, and a growing insecurity about his gaming obsession.
He also seems to have had a pretty terrible time when he was eight years old.
That year, his lower legs were immobilized after he walked through hot asphalt.
He also got attacked by one of his childhood dogs, Fred.
Both of these things landed Jesse in the hospital.
It was also around this time that Jesse met his childhood friend Georgie Stahlberger,
who would go on to create his own youtube channel in 2009, and made several appearances
in Jesse's now infamous Psycho Series.
Here's a clip of Jesse locking a young Georgie in a dog crate.
You're welcome.
While Jesse's never confirmed this, he's long been rumoured to hail from Elmer, New Jersey.
That would make sense considering his parents' relatively large house and property, and the
nearby woods.
Elmer is a small town with a population of just 13 hundred people, and had just 11 hundred
in the year he was born.
Some other notable folks from Elmer include professional golfer Todd Barranger, and civil
rights activist David Mixner.
Knowing that Jesse grew up in Elmer gives us a ton of insight about his childhood.
He likely would have gone through the Pittsgrove Township School District education system.
That means he would have attended Norma Elementary School for Pre K and Kindergarten, Elmer Elementary
school for grades 1 and 2, and Olivet Elementary School for grades 3 through 5.
For Middle school, he would have attended Pittsgrove Township Middle School, before
moving on to A.P. Schlalick High.
With dreams of one day becoming a filmmaker, Jesse's first fore into motion pictures would
be (kind of cringy) home videos.
(sarcastically) Now, when you're making gold like that, sooner or later you're going to
have to share your genius with the world.
So, in 2006, Jesse got to work on creating his youtube channel, McJuggernuggets.
How did he come up with the name?
Well, one day he was eating chicken nuggets while playing X box, and decided it would
be fun to mix the word McNugget with Juggernaut.
That's the whole story there.
He created the channel on December 9th, 2006, and dropped his first video the same day.
It was called Cops, The Untold Story.
At the time, PewDiePie had yet to set up his very first youtube channel, PewDie, Machinima
had a channel but was still months away from dropping their earliest video, and Twitch
didn't even exist yet.
So, it's safe to say that the whole gaming thing had yet to become a popular trend.
But it wouldn't be long before Jesse would be focusing his attention away from gaming,
beginning with a (released in 2008), which was part Spanish lesson, part leap frog.
Beginning with this video, called Bob's Spanish Project Part I, Jesse began to film for his
clips.
He did a reenactment of an incident that happened with a Pizza guy, with his back to the camera
the entire time, and his face seems to have made its first appearance on the channel in
a video called The Conductor.
A more scripted sketch would emerge soon after, called Beach Bum, in which a character portrayed
by Jesse is walking down the beach, when he discovers a woman is drowning.
Here's how he reacts.
Okay, that may not be comedy gold, but give the guy a break, he was just 15 years old
at the time.
Over the years, Jesse continued to work on his channel, all the while, receiving more
than a few hundred views per video.
In 2010, Jesse met his first serious girlfriend, Hannah, on Chat Roulette.
For those of you who don't remember chat roulette, it was a once-popular website that would randomly
connect users via video chat, who were, almost without exception, gross men fapping.
Also in 2010, Jesse graduated high school and began studying Film at Rowan University,
in nearby Glassboro, New Jersey.
He would eventually graduate with a student debt of over 70 thousand dollars, but by then
he would already be well on the way to youtube stardom.
While in University, he worked a string of odd jobs.
In 2012, he was working at a plumbing shop and would, apparently, come home smelling
like shit.
I'm not exactly sure when his relationship with Hannah ended, but I feel like its a safe
guess it was around this time.
With his channel still failing to make any real money, he started to look into what other
you tubers were doing to hit big numbers.
Eventually he would come upon the channel Wafflepwn, which was getting tens of millions
of views for freak out videos, which Jesse though were obviously staged.
Naturally, Jesse thought it would be a good idea to stage a freak out video of his own.
So, he recruited his brother to film the piece, and got his dad to smash his x box.
And the xbox was either his real working x box, or an old one that was already broken.
I'm not quite sure...
Whether it was a real laptop or not, the video would be very much fake, and released originally
under the title Dad Destroys X Box.
Viewers would soon be arguing over whether Jesse's work was real or not, but according
the Jesse, it was intended to be a parody, and thought people would get that it was fake.
Whether or not Jesse was clear about this being a parody, the video would eventually
become very popular, but it took some time to gain traction
In 2013, a now single Jesse was ready to love again, and met his current girlfriend, Juliette,
the old fashioned way: on Tinder.
Yeah, I guess his online game's a lot better than his game IRL.
By 2014, Jesse's first freak out video had become a smash success, and has since accumulated
over 21 million views at the time of this recording.
With the massive success of this video, Jesse got to work on follow up vids, with escalating
stakes.
The series would soon be known as the Psycho series.
That video, Psycho Dad Shreds Video Games, would become even more popular than Psycho
Dad Destroys X Box, garnering over 36 million views at the time of this recording.
Jesse's Psycho series would run until 2016, ending with its 50th videos, in which Psycho
Jesse murders his father.
At that point, it became clear to just about everyone that the videos were fake, but McJuggerNuggets
had become a massive channel with millions of subs and well over a billion views.
Jesse would also create two other channels, each with over a hundred thousand subs, and
develop numerous new series on his main channel.
With all of that work on YouTube, it was time for Jesse to move on from the platform, and
move out to LA to get into mainstream show business.
He announced his decision to move on from youtube on February 9, 2017, in a video titled,
I'm Leaving YouTube NOT CLICKBAIT.
But, not to worry.
That not clickbait video was followed up just two days later with a video called I'm Still
Here.
So, it seems, at the time of this recording, Jesse is still living with his parents in
New Jersey, and continues to produce content on YouTube.
As far as I can tell, the local police department has had just about all they can take from
the Psycho Family, who have received thousands of calls in regards thanks to the McJuggernuggets
channel.
As for the rest of the story, well, we'll have to wait and see.
This is Before They Were Famous.
My name's Michael McCrudden, thanks for watching this video.
I got two more for you down here.
Be sure to check those out, subscribe to this channel, and let me know who you want me to
document next in the comments down below!