But Jon leans into the jank. Unlike polished streamers who hide the bugs, Jon yells at them. He accuses the headset of being possessed by the ghost of ET for the Atari 2600. He personifies the chaperone grid as "that annoying blue cage."
Jon famously responded to a tweet about the Apple Vision Pro: "That costs more than my car. I’m going to wait until it’s $20 on Steam." Jontron in VR is the perfect storm. You have a comedian who thrives on absurdist humor trapped in a simulation that is inherently absurd. You have a control freak forced to deal with unpredictable physics. You have a guy who hates loading screens forced to stare at "Oculus Home" for five minutes while the game caches. johntron vr
The beauty of Jontron VR is the internal monologue. He stops mid-swing, looks at his virtual hands, and asks, "Am I the bad guy?" He then answers his own question by using a pool cue as a javelin. It’s lowbrow, it’s silly, but his improv skills turn a tech demo into a character study. Let’s be honest: Jontron’s VR videos are held together by duct tape and hope. You can see the tracking glitches. You can see the moments where his controllers drift into the void. In one famous blooper, he tried to lean on a virtual table in Half-Life: Alyx and face-planted into his carpet. But Jon leans into the jank
Furthermore, his VR videos brought a new audience to the medium. Many of my own friends bought Quests specifically because they saw Jon screaming like a banshee while trying to reload a virtual shotgun. He made VR look accessible because he was bad at it. As of today, Jon hasn't fully committed to VR full-time. He dips his toes in for sponsored videos or when a massive title drops (like Metro Awakening or Behemoth ). He has admitted on stream that VR makes him "too sweaty" for regular recording. He personifies the chaperone grid as "that annoying
Then came Jontron playing Gorn .