Jordan Maron
# Jordan Maron

Jordan Maron (born February 10, 1992), known online as CaptainSparklez, is an American YouTuber and Twitch streamer mainly known for his Minecraft videos. As of July 2023, his main channel has over 11.4 million subscribers.

Maron created his first YouTube channel in 2010 when he was a high school senior and made Call of Duty videos. He started playing Minecraft when he moved to his second channel CaptainSparklez and streamed other games on justin.tv, which was later merged into Twitch. Maron developed a fanbase from his Minecraft-themed music videos and then-daily Let's Plays; he became a full-time YouTuber and reached one million subscribers in 2012. He has been involved in other projects, including a mobile game company and an athleisure line.

Despite mainly producing Let's Plays, Maron is known for the Minecraft-themed songs and song parodies he produced during the 2010s, in collaboration with vocalist TryHardNinja. Their animated music videos are the most viewed on his channel and for a time were the most viewed Minecraft videos on YouTube: "Revenge", a parody of "DJ Got Us Fallin' in Love", received three Guinness World Records, including the "Most watched Minecraft YouTube video".

## Early life

Jordan Maron was born in Los Angeles on February 10, 1992. His parents were never married and split up when he was very young, and his mother later married his stepdad. Maron spent most of his time with his mother, with whom he moved to Santa Barbara when he was around four. He attended the University of California, Santa Barbara as a chemical engineering major, but switched to computer science during his freshman year because he realized that video games could be a viable career. He dropped out after the first quarter of his sophomore year as he was doing well as a YouTuber.

## Internet career

Maron created his first channel ProsDONTtalkSHIT in February 2010 while he was a high school senior, because he wanted to show off his Call of Duty scores. While the channel only earned around ten thousand views per video, Maron decided to find a less vulgar username in case it grew bigger. He created a new channel on July 20, 2010, and, on a dare, named it CaptainSparklez. Another YouTuber named SeaNanners introduced Maron to Minecraft before it would break out online the following year. Although Maron was skeptical, he decided to start making Minecraft videos, and posted his first Let's Play of the game in August.

Maron began livestreaming his gameplay on justin.tv in 2011. The platform's gaming content was later migrated to Twitch. After it became possible to monetize his videos, Maron started doing YouTube full-time in December. He amassed a fanbase partly from his then-daily uploads, and, in April 2012, his channel reached one million subscribers. In September 2013, CaptainSparklez became the fifth solo gaming channel to pass one billion views. Maron signed to talent agency William Morris Endeavor (WME) in 2015.

In 2016, Maron and four other YouTubers voiced their Minecraft avatars in the sixth episode of the spin-off game Minecraft: Story Mode.

## Content

Maron is best known for his Minecraft content on YouTube. His gameplay videos are the focus of his main YouTube channel, while he uses his Twitch livestreams to try out new games, where he has a smaller audience. He uploads other types of Minecraft content, such as music videos, as well as fitness content. Maron previously uploaded once or twice every day, scattering more highly produced videos between his gameplay content. He has created ten additional channels.

### Minecraft songs

Maron is especially known for the Minecraft-themed songs he produced and uploaded to his channel. The Wall Street Journal dubbed him "the godfather of Minecraft song parodies" because of his status in the fandom. In the early 2010s, his animated music videos made up the most viewed Minecraft videos on YouTube, and the most viewed videos on his channel. While many of the songs were Minecraft-themed parodies of popular songs at the time, his team have also created original music. The animation is spearheaded by the pseudonymous Bootstrap Buckaroo, and the vocals by Igor Gordienko, who creates video game-based songs online as TryHardNinja. His songs are high-tempo synth and electronic music.

On August 19, 2011, Maron uploaded "Revenge", a Minecraft-themed parody of Usher's "DJ Got Us Fallin' in Love", to YouTube. As of June 2023, the music video has over 283 million views and is his most viewed video. It is sung from the perspective of a player who is attacked by creepers. In 2019, the song received renewed attention as an internet meme which challenged group chats to type the lyrics one-by-one and in order. In October, Maron released a parody of "Gangnam Style" titled "Minecraft Style", which similarly went viral.

From 2012 to 2016, Maron released four interconnected Minecraft music videos which form the main Fallen Kingdom series. "Fallen Kingdom" is a parody of Coldplay's "Viva la Vida" sung from the perspective of a king who loses his castle, while "Take Back the Night" debuted at No. 2 on the Billboard Dance/Electronic Songs chart because of its YouTube views. The storyline continued with "Find the Pieces" and "Dragonhearted". In 2017, Maron collaborated with producers Seven Lions, Illenium, and Said the Sky, and vocalist Haliene for "Rush Over Me".

## Other ventures

### Mobile games

Maron and Activision co-founder Howard Marks co-founded mobile game company XREAL. Marks first contacted him through a mutual friend of his grandmother. They released their first game in May 2015 for iOS and Android. In Fortress Fury, players craft weapons and items to build tile-based 2D fortresses before attempting to destroy others' in real-time multiplayer battles. Fortress Fury was developed by a contracted studio, but the production moved internally after its launch. The studio aspired to create games for mobile esports.

Fortress Fury was downloaded over two million times in its first three months, but did not make a proportional amount of revenue or enter the 200 top-grossing iOS games in the United States. Tasos Lazarides of TouchArcade suggested that this was because of Maron's attempt to make the game player-friendly by lessening in-game purchases, as well as the competitive App Store market, while Stuart Dredge of The Guardian speculated it was because many of his followers were children. Maron let his followers vote on the title, logo, and icon art.

### Merchandise and partnerships

Maron signed a partnership deal to Maker Studios' Polaris in 2013. After signing a similar deal with PocketWatch in 2017, Maron received an equity stake in the company and was one of the children's content creators featured in their first book, titled Watch This Book, which was released the following year.

A CaptainSparklez action figure was part of the initial Minecraft-themed Tube Heroes line, which was released on May 22, 2015. In February 2020, Maron launched an athleisure clothing brand called Quality Content.

## Awards and recognition

"Revenge" set the Guinness World Records for "Most watched Minecraft YouTube video", "Most watched machinima on YouTube" and "Most viewed fan film based on a videogame". In 2015, Maron and SethBling uploaded Verizon-sponsored videos demonstrating a working phone in Minecraft, which holds the Guinness World Record for "First working mobile phone in Minecraft". The server-client architecture instantly converts the phone software onto in-game blocks, using a web application developed by Verizon, Blockworks and Wieden+Kennedy called Boxel. In 2016, Maron was listed on the Forbes 30 Under 30 in Games and was nominated for the Shorty Award in Gaming.

## Personal life

In October 2015, Maron purchased a Hollywood mansion for $4.5 million near the mansion of Minecraft creator Markus Persson. He moved to Pasadena, California, in 2023.

## Appearances

| Year | Work | Role | Note(s) |
| - | - | - | - |
| 2015 | Wonder Quest | Himself | Web series |
| 2015 | Gamer's Guide to Pretty Much Everything | Himself | Guest |
| 2016 | Bad Internet | | Web series |
| 2016 | MatPat's Game Lab | | Web series |
| 2016 | Happy Wheels: The Series | Stephen (Business Guy) | |
