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Jon Bois
Born (1982-09-24) September 24, 1982 (age 42)
OccupationCreative Director
EmployerSB Nation
Notable work17776, Chart Party, Pretty Good
Websitesbnation.com/authors/jon-bois

Jon Bois (/bɔɪs/;[1] born September 24, 1982) is a sports writer, video producer and YouTuber. He is currently employed as the creative director at SB Nation.[2] Bois is known for his speculative fiction works on sports, such as 17776, its follow-up 20020, and "The Tim Tebow CFL Chronicles," as well as his documentary video series including "Pretty Good", "Chart Party", and "Dorktown".

Career

Jon Bois was born on September 24, 1982 and is originally from Louisville, Kentucky.[3] From the fifth grade until high school, Bois was homeschooled.[4] He dropped out of college after one semester.[4] Bois started as an editor at SB Nation in 2009.[5] From 2013 to 2015, Bois published "Breaking Madden," a series of articles in which he created unusual football scenarios in the Madden NFL video games.[6] In August 2014, he published "The Tim Tebow CFL Chronicles," a sports story based on the fictional premise that NFL quarterback Tim Tebow had joined the Canadian Football League.[7][8]

In May 2015, Bois published the first episode of a documentary video series called "Pretty Good." The series told true stories of unusual events, often related to sports, such as the career path of baseball player Lonnie Smith, professional poker, and the infamous 1904 Olympic marathon, but also including a variety of other topics such as the Lawnchair Larry flight and the TV series 24. As of July 2019, the series has thirteen episodes, the last of which was published in September 2017.[9]

In 2016, Bois began another documentary video series called "Chart Party," in which he used statistical analysis to explore and understand sports stories. Of particular note, Bois published an episode in December 2016 called "Every NFL Score Ever," in which he discussed how football's scoring system makes some final game scores very unlikely, and coined the term "scorigami" to describe the act of achieving a never-before-seen final result.[10] The video led one viewer to create a website to track new scorigami instances, and the term has seen usage in other sports publications.[11][12]

In July 2017, Bois published a serialized multimedia narrative called 17776, a work of speculative fiction describing unusual forms of football played in the distant future.[8] According to Bois, the story garnered four million pageviews from 700,000 unique visitors in two weeks.[13] The series won a National Magazine Award for Digital Innovation from the American Society of Magazine Editors.[14] Bois began a sequel to 17776, entitled 20020, in September 2020. A sequel to 20020, called 20021, will be released in Spring 2021.[15][16][17]

A chapter of Upon Further Review, a collection of sports what-if scenarios compiled by editor Mike Pesca published in 2018, was written by Bois, with his scenario being "What If Basketball Rims Were Smaller Than Basketballs?"[18]

In April 2018, Bois and fellow SB Nation personality Alex Rubenstein began the series "Dorktown", which followed a similar format and style as his prior series "Pretty Good", showcasing unusual events, statistics, and personalities from sports history. In 2020, Bois and Rubenstein released a 6-part special mini-series of Dorktown chronicling the history of the Seattle Mariners baseball franchise.[19]

In 2018, Bois collaborated with Felix Biederman of Chapo Trap House on the five-part documentary "Fighting In the Age of Loneliness", presented in style influenced by British documentary filmmaker Adam Curtis, which focuses on the development of Mixed Martial arts from the early development of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu and Vale Tudo in the development of more complex fighting styles. It focuses on the development of Mixed Martial Arts (MMA) as a mainstream sport, including Pride Fighting Championship and the development of Ultimate Fighting Championships, and their parallels to the 21st century neoliberal socio-political landscape of financial collapse and inequality.

In 2019, Bois released a two-part series on professional athletes named Bob.[20][21]

In September 2019, Bois and SB Nation video producer Kofie Yeboah started a video series called "Fumble Dimension". Similar to Bois's earlier "Breaking Madden", it consists of using in-game mechanics to create unusual scenarios, usually with fan input.[22]

He is a Kansas City Chiefs fan.[23]

References

  1. ^ "We destroyed the NBA's future with a video game | Fumble Dimension Episode 1". SB Nation. September 18, 2019. Retrieved January 25, 2020.
  2. ^ "Masthead". SB Nation. April 28, 2017. Retrieved July 7, 2019.
  3. ^ Bois, Jon (September 25, 2012). "What It Feels Like To Be 30". SB Nation. Retrieved July 8, 2019.
  4. ^ a b Bois, Jon (May 1, 2013). "Go to Homeschool". Vice. Retrieved November 17, 2020.
  5. ^ Colon, David (August 3, 2015). "How'd you get that cool job: Jon Bois editor at SB Nation". Brokelyn. Retrieved July 7, 2019.
  6. ^ Bois, Jon. "Breaking Madden". SB Nation. Retrieved July 8, 2019.
  7. ^ Bois, Jon (August 18, 2014). "The Tim Tebow CFL Chronicles". SB Nation. Retrieved July 8, 2019.
  8. ^ a b Crouch, Ian (July 12, 2017). "The Experimental Fiction That Imagines Football-Obsessed Americans in the Extremely Distant Future". The New Yorker. Retrieved July 8, 2019.
  9. ^ Bois, Jon. "Pretty Good". SB Nation. Retrieved July 8, 2019.
  10. ^ Mattingly, Dave. "NFL Scorigami". Retrieved July 8, 2019.
  11. ^ Musgrove, Kole (December 3, 2018). "Seahawks continue bizarre 'Scorigami' streak under Pete Carroll". Seahawks Wire. USA Today. Retrieved July 8, 2019.
  12. ^ Roeder, Oliver (September 17, 2018). "Significant Digits For Monday, Sept. 17, 2018". FiveThirtyEight. Retrieved July 8, 2019.
  13. ^ Bois, Jon [@jon_bois] (July 19, 2017). "over the last two weeks, 17776 got four million pageviews and 700,000 unique visitors. people stuck around for an average of 11 minutes" (Tweet). Retrieved July 25, 2017 – via Twitter.
  14. ^ American Society of Magazine Editors [@ASME1963] (March 13, 2018). "Ellies 2018: @SBNation wins Digital Innovation category for '17776: An American Football Story'" (Tweet). Retrieved July 17, 2018 – via Twitter. {{cite web}}: |author1= has generic name (help)
  15. ^ "20020". Secret Base. SB Nation. Retrieved October 2, 2020.
  16. ^ MacAree, Graham; Bois, Jon. "20020 Open Thread". Secret Base. SB Nation. Retrieved October 2, 2020.
  17. ^ Bois, Jon [@jon_bois] (Oct 13, 2020). "PROBLEM: the giant football game in 20020 is way too large, there are 111 teams and 134,000 miles of field, we'll never be able to talk about this entire thing in just 12 parts SOLUTION: https://t.co/5WF7wlVPnA" (Tweet) – via Twitter.
  18. ^ Roberts, Stephen V. (June 29, 2018). "What if Nixon had excelled in college football? What if Ali hadn't been banished?". The Washington Post.
  19. ^ Bois, Jon (2020-03-25). "Why we're making a 3-hour documentary series on the Seattle Mariners". SBNation.com. Retrieved 2020-05-04.
  20. ^ Bois, Jon (29 Apr 2019). "The Bob Emergency: a study of athletes named Bob, Part I". Retrieved 26 Apr 2020 – via YouTube.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  21. ^ Bois, Jon (21 May 2019). "The Bob Emergency: a study of athletes named Bob, Part II". Retrieved 26 Apr 2020 – via YouTube.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  22. ^ "We destroyed the NBA's future with a video game | Fumble Dimension Episode 1". Retrieved 2020-10-26 – via YouTube.
  23. ^ Bois, Jon (6 Oct 2015). "CHART PARTY: THE CHIEFS KICKED SEVEN FIELD GOALS AND LOST". Retrieved 16 Feb 2020 – via YouTube.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
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