Jonochrome

:Not to be confused with Jono. 
Jonathan (born ), known online as Jonochrome (formerly known as JonBro or tehjonbro), is an American artist, animator, video game developer, musician, and voice actor. He is best known for creating the Riddle School games on Newgrounds, and the One Night at Flumpty's series, a cartoon parody of "Five Nights at Freddy's". His 2D Flash work combines black comedy and surreal horror. 
== History and career ==
=== Riddle School ===
Jon began animating with Adobe Flash in 2004, and joined Newgrounds on July 8, 2005. At only 11 years old, his game development career would begin with the first installment of Riddle School released on May 25, 2006, an episodic Flash series of point-and-click puzzle games starring a character named Phil Eggtree. Riddle School was originally intended as a parody combining two popular Newgrounds properties, Pico's School and Madness Combat, with Phil resembling a Grunt from Madness before taking on an original design.
Jon would continue the series for the next five years before taking a break. Initially cancelling Riddle Transfer 2 and leaving the story on a cliffhanger, it was finished by 2016. The final Riddle School game was released on the series' 10th anniversary, around when Jon turned 21.
=== Additional indie releases ===
Jonochrome has released a number of other indie games, most notably parodies of Nintendo's The Legend of Zelda series, and two games inspired by both Undertale and Deltarune by Toby Fox, taking on the form of a single boss battle. These include:
* Scary Ugly Face
* Fallopian Bird
* [Respawn]
* [Revive]
* The Button 1 & 2
* BlueBlock
* The Esotercism of Bargo: Ocarina of Typewriter
* The Esotercism of Bargo: Majora's Mastiff
* Undercook
* Alphachef
=== One Night at Flumpty's ===
On January 28, 2015, Jonochrome released a FNaF fan game titled "One Night at Flumpty's", involving original characters he and his friends had made in nonsensical comics, most of which has been lost. Starring a reality-bending cartoon egg named Flumpty Bumpty, the game was developed within three weeks, intended to be nothing more than a test of Jon's abilities in the program GameMaker, and an inside joke amongst his friend group.
This fan game would unexpectedly reach widespread popularity for its humor and artwork, and Jonochrome released a second game on April 11, 2015, with the intention of being the final entry in the series. However, Flumpty's notoriety would further increase past this point, with "One Night at Flumpty's 2" receiving acclaim for its unique gameplay elements. Jon intended to develop a third game titled "One Week at Flumpty's" in an attempt to innovate the series and give it a proper ending, but it would end up being cancelled on June 13, 2015. Three years after its cancellation, Jon would release short prank animations on YouTube taking the name of "One Week at Flumpty's" and declaring them canon, released on April 1st between 2018 and 2020.
In August 2020, Jon was contacted and invited to participate in the "Fazbear Fanverse", an initiative by Scott Cawthon, the original creator, in support of "Five Nights at Freddy's" fan game developers. He was motivated to make the third installment of the One Night at Flumpty's series, though he developed it secretly and finished the game on April 2020, four months before the initiative was announced. "One Night at Flumpty's 3" would release on Halloween 2021.
== Controversy ==
On November 8, 2021, an anonymous user on Twitter, claiming to be a part of one of Jon's old friend groups through Discord, alleged that Jonochrome had been in a five-year online relationship with a girl named Emily, who was 13 or 14 at the time while Jon was 20 or 21. Jon and Emily had become friends in 2016, and he had planned to meet her when she turned 18. The user linked several screenshots from DMs that Jonochrome had with her.
Though many users were skeptical, as news broke right after the release of One Night at Flumpty's third entry, upon Jon's confirmation, word spread throughout the Five Nights at Freddy's community, particularly on Twitter, with Jon denounced for his actions.
=== The woman and Jonochrome's responses ===
In his first response, Jonochrome admitted the messages were real, but stated he was "not a groomer" and that the relationship had since ended. Jon and Emily's relationship lasted from 2016 to 2021 until the gravity of their situation was realized. Emily took to Twitter to post her own response through an account that was deleted shortly after.
Both Jon and Emily stated their dynamic started as a friendship based on shared interests and humor while she was underage, with Emily saying, "He's shown no clear intent to harm me, nor has he sent ANY harmful content to a minor". They planned to consider entering a romantic relationship once she turned 18, with no attempts to meet before this time. However, Emily states despite Jon's best interests, waiting for several years until she turned 18 "did constitute as grooming".
Emily stated that Jon frequently apologized to her regarding their relationship even before the allegations broke, calling into question the motive of the accuser. Jon had sought therapy numerous times before the callout because of the relationship.
Emily revealed that Jonochrome had pondered talking sexually to her when she was still a minor, but wanted to wait for her to become an adult, which she said was, "still wrong and gross, but there was still genuinely a relationship between us. Not romantically, but a friendship that we had. I can confidently say Jonochrome was a good friend". She described the allegations as a mess, wishing that her response received more awareness so people can understand "what actually happened". Emily stated not to harass Jon, as he "doesn't deserve it".
Jon posted a further response after this, going over the entire situation in further detail. He explains what happened from his perspective, explaining how the relationship began, how it ended, and how he struggles to make sound social decisions due to being on the Autism spectrum. Jon mentions both he and Emily were concerned the relationship they were in would go public for years, primarily for fear that it would be misconstrued by others to make it sound worse.
=== Present and future ===
Following revelations in 2021, Jonochrome went inactive "until further notice", and disabled all monetization on his YouTube channel. As of May 1, 2023, his bio was updated to state he is alive and well, but still has unresolved personal problems to work through and diagnose before he can consider returning. A similar statement can be found when viewing the source code of his website, which can be done by pressing CTRL + U. 
Jon proceeded to put all of his creative projects on hold, including an indie game codenamed "Project Paintbrush" or "Project Comet", which began being brainstormed when Jon was 15. Jonochrome is seeking therapy and further development, particularly in areas of emotional and cognitive issues as an adult that were overlooked while he was growing up. 
== Hacking ==
Over a year after its controversy, on January 30, 2023, Jonochrome's channel was hacked, putting most videos unlisted or private, leaving only an uninitiated stream of the Falcon 9 launch, and with live chat disabled, the cause of the hack is unknown.
The channel was recovered on February 1, 2023.
==References==
Category:Gaming YouTubers
Category:Meme YouTubers
Category:Animation YouTubers
Category:Art YouTubers
Category:Music YouTubers
Category:American YouTubers
Category:Users who joined in 2013