# Jason Pargin

Jason Keith Pargin (/ˈpɑːrdʒɪn/; born January 10, 1975) is an American humor writer and novelist who formerly wrote under the name David Wong. He is the former executive editor of humor website Cracked.com.
Pargin is best known for his 2007 novel John Dies at the End, which was adapted into a 2012 film of the same name. Alongside John Dies at the End and its three sequels, Pargin has also authored three books in the Zoey Ashe series and one standalone novel, I'm Starting to Worry About This Black Box of Doom.

## Early life

Jason Keith Pargin was born in Lawrenceville, Illinois, on January 10, 1975. He and fellow Internet writer John Cheese (real name Mack Leighty) attended high school together and met during an art class they shared. Pargin then attended the Southern Illinois University (SIU) radio-television program, graduating in 1997. While at SIU, he was part of a student-run TV show on Alt.news 26:46 called Consumer Advocate. A number of episodes were produced.

## Pointless Waste of Time and Cracked.com

In 1999, Pargin started the humor site Pointless Waste of Time (PWOT), which would eventually be absorbed into Cracked.com. While working as a copy editor at a law firm, Pargin would spend his days copy editing insurance claims and nights posting humor articles on PWOT. Every Halloween on the site he wrote a new chapter of an online story that he published as a webserial. An estimated 70,000 people read the free online versions before they were removed in September 2008. Pargin used the feedback from people reading each episode of the webserial to tweak what would eventually become the book, John Dies at the End.
Demand Media hired Pargin to be the head editor for their revamped online magazine, Cracked.com, although Demand was not aware of Pargin's book deal. As part of the deal, he merged PWOT into the Cracked forums. Pargin has described a disconnection between the old Cracked print magazine and the humor site Cracked.com due to multiple relaunches and almost entirely new staff. As a child, he read Cracked magazine's biggest competitor, Mad magazine.
In a popular article published at Cracked.com, Pargin coined the neologism "monkeysphere" which introduces the concept of Dunbar's number in a humorous manner. Pargin referred to Dunbar's number again in his second novel, This Book Is Full of Spiders.

## David Wong pseudonym

When Pargin started PWOT, he took on the pseudonym of David Wong to keep his real and online lives separate. Since much of his writing involved situations similar to his real life, he did not want co-workers and his employers to think that his rants about fictional characters were inspired by real people. The origin of the name was a character from one of his first short stories:
   It's not a very interesting story, 'David Wong' was the villain in a story I had written way back in the day, so when I was signing up for my first online accounts in 1998 I started using it. Then when hate mail started coming in with a bunch of racist anti-Chinese insults, I realized I had either gone badly wrong or badly right.
After his book and movie deal, his real name became common knowledge, but Pargin accepted it, saying, "It's not like I'm under the Witness Protection program or anything. I was just trying to keep things simple in my personal life."
In late 2020, Pargin announced that he was retiring the pseudonym, with future editions of his works being published under his real name instead.

## Published works

Pargin's first novel John Dies at the End was at first rejected by publishers, and he considered withdrawing it from consideration until indie horror publisher Permuted Press agreed to publish it in 2007. A second edition by Thomas Dunne Books was published with additional material as a hardcover on September 29, 2009. Three further novels in the series have been published: This Book Is Full of Spiders (2012), What the Hell Did I Just Read (2017) and If This Book Exists, You're in the Wrong Universe (2022).
Pargin published the first book of the Zoey Ashe series in 2015, Futuristic Violence and Fancy Suits. He has since published two further novels in the series: Zoey Punches the Future in the Dick (2020) and Zoey is Too Drunk for This Dystopia (2023).
Pargin published his first standalone novel in 2024, I'm Starting to Worry About This Black Box of Doom.

### Adaptations

After enjoying some success John Dies at the End came to the attention of Don Coscarelli, who decided to adapt it as a film. In 2007, Coscarelli optioned the film rights. Filming took place from late 2010 until January 2011 at locations in Southern California. The film, starring Chase Williamson, Rob Mayes, Clancy Brown, and Paul Giamatti, premiered at the Sundance Film Festival on January 23, 2012. It also played on March 12, 2012, at South by Southwest, in Austin, Texas.

## Personal life

Pargin is married and has a dog. He lived in Marion, Illinois, until 2014, when he moved to Nashville.