Game Grumps is a YouTube Let's Play channel where the hosts play video games while providing unscripted commentary and back-and-forth banter.

Where did Game Grumps come from?

It launched on July 18th, 2012, when JonTron and Egoraptor announced the collaboration and uploaded a pilot episode playing Kirby Super Star.

What does Game Grumps mean?

The name refers to the hosts' habit of grumping, complaining and joking their way through video games rather than playing them seriously.

How do you use Game Grumps?

Fans typically remix audio clips from episodes into music edits and animations, and reference running jokes like Seven Asses or Wolf Job in comments and art.

Is Game Grumps still popular?

It is a classic Let's Play channel with a long-running fanbase that grew from a million subscribers within its first year and stayed active through host changes.

Game Grumps

2012viral videoclassic

Published August 23, 2026

Game Grumps is a YouTube Let's Play channel launched in July 2012 by animators JonTron and Egoraptor, built around unscripted commentary over retro video games1. The show became a cornerstone of the Let's Play format and spawned recurring in-jokes like Seven Asses and Wolf Job that took on lives of their own across Reddit and Tumblr3.

lets play memes gaming youtube culture memes streamer memes 2012 memes

Overview

Game Grumps is a collaborative Let's Play channel on YouTube where the hosts play video games while riffing off-the-cuff over the footage2. The original pairing was animator Arin Hanson, known online as Egoraptor, and Jon Jafari, better known as JonTron, and the format leaned heavily on the friction between their personalities rather than gameplay skill1.

A signature quirk is the hosts breaking into improvised singing mid-conversation, and those soundbites got picked up by fan remixers who chopped them into EDM tracks and mash-ups with video game themes1. YouTube musician WaterFlame built much of his channel around Game Grumps audio samples, turning throwaway lines into full songs3.

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Origin & Background

Platform

YouTube

Creator

Arin Hanson and Jon Jafari

Date

2012

On July 18th, 2012, JonTron and Egoraptor each posted an introduction video to their personal YouTube channels announcing the new collaboration1. That same day, the pilot episode went up on the main Game Grumps channel, featuring Kirby Super Star for the Super Nintendo, and it pulled in around 368,000 views within the first month4.

Over July and August 2012, the channel put out at least 41 episodes covering Zelda: A Link to the Past, Mega Man 7, Goof Troop and Pokemon Emerald, hitting nearly 7 million views and more than 150,000 subscribers in the first two weeks1.

How It Spread

By June 2013, less than a year after launch, Game Grumps had released over 600 videos and passed a million subscribers with more than 197 million total views1. On June 25th, 2013, the channel uploaded a video announcing JonTron's departure to focus on his own projects, introducing Ninja Sex Party member Dan Avidan as his replacement6 7. The handoff hit fans hard and the discussion spilled onto YouTube comments, Facebook and the subreddit r/GameGrumps1.

Recurring bits from the show became their own micro-memes. The July 30th, 2012 Mega Man 7 episode titled "Seven Asses" spawned a Facebook page and a Source Filmmaker animation by Sed1er within days, and "Seven Asses" ended up as the joke printed on the first official Game Grumps t-shirts2. Another running gag, "Wolf Job," got a dedicated Game Grumps Wiki page in December 2014 and appeared as a silhouette on that year's holiday shirt5.

On November 6th, 2018, Arin Hanson posted an 11-minute apology video after fans spammed the channel and subreddit over a scaled-back Ghoul Grumps Halloween week, citing burnout and illness1. The response thread on r/GameGrumps racked up over 3,700 points, mostly siding with Hanson and pushing back on the angry comments that prompted the video1.

How to Use This Meme

Game Grumps is watched more than remixed, but audio clips from episodes get pulled into YouTube compilations, animated shorts, and EDM edits by fan channels3. Community in-jokes like Seven Asses and Wolf Job are typically referenced with the original soundbite or a fan-drawn illustration rather than a fixed image template2.