Boogie2988

Steven Jason Williams (born July 24, 1974), better known by his online alias Boogie2988 or simply Boogie, is an American YouTuber best known for his video rants about video games and nerd culture as a character named Francis.

Early life and education

Steven Jason Williams grew up in St. Paul, Virginia. His father was a coal miner, and his mother was a preschool teacher. He has two older siblings.

Williams described his childhood as a "sad" time period in his life, due to dealing with obesity, lack of friends, and suffering verbal and physical abuse from his mother. Despite this, he considers her death in 2009 to be the "saddest moment" of his life. He had already been depressed due to his father dying of cancer.

Williams graduated from St. Paul High School in Virginia and attended University of Virginia's College at Wise but did not graduate. He later moved to Fayetteville, Arkansas, where he did not leave his home for seven years while being financially supported by a friend. It was then that he discovered YouTube and started to create videos, which he said "gave islife a meaning."

YouTube career

The Francis character is based on stereotypes of nerdy video game players and often parodies trending video game news, reaction, and culture. Williams based the character on his early life experiences and has said that he wants viewers to hate the character for embodying gamer stereotypes. Williams' videos range from absurd rants to serious discussions on daily life, such as the ethics of paid promotion on YouTube channels, and his experiences with mental health.

Williams won the Trending Gamer award at The Game Awards 2016.

In June 2016, Williams' YouTube account was temporarily closed due to an anonymous hacker. The unidentified person got hold of his phone number via Verizon during his time at VidCon and was able to gain access to his accounts associated with it, including his YouTube channel. His channel was restored less than a week later.

On May 13, 2023, Williams faced ''Call of Duty'' streamer WingsOfRedemption, better known as Jordie Jordan, in a boxing match on the preliminary card of MF & DAZN: X Series 007. Williams lost the fight via TKO in the second round.

In November 2023, Williams appeared in a feature-length documentary by independent filmmaker Mike Clum, which analyzed his downfall as well as his financial situation.

Williams is currently a co-host on ''Lolcow Live'', a podcast created by fellow internet personality Keemstar, who also co-hosts the show, alongside WingsOfRedemption.

Controversies

In October 2018, Williams faced scrutiny due to his relationship with the controversial counseling service BetterHelp. He and other YouTubers sponsored by the service were accused of profiting from mental illness, which led to Williams publicly terminating his partnership with the company. Later that month, Williams was removed from a ''Dungeons & Dragons'' charity event due to concerns from LGBT activists about comments he made during a June 2018 H3h3Productions podcast regarding same-sex marriage.

In February 2019, Williams was criticized when he joked that he would "make a better team leader" over another player due to their parents' divorce and correlated it with anger issues during a live stream of the game ''Apex Legends''.

In April 2019, Williams admitted to potentially committing tax fraud. He stated that he purchases '' Magic: The Gathering'' cards for his channel, writes them off as a business expense, and then resells them without claiming the income on his taxes. The IRS states that income above $400 from self-employment must be reported.

In June 2019, Williams faced criticism after clips from older live streams of him making racially charged comments resurfaced. He commented during one live stream, "That's a lot of money, I guess, for a person of color, or is it not?" after receiving a $3 donation from a follower who frequently donated to him on his stream with the message "I am a black person". On June 24, 2019, while streaming an IRL Twitch vlog with McJuggerNuggets, also known as Jesse Ridgeway, Williams joked about Etika being the murderer in a proposed interactive murder mystery series. The two men were riffing back and forth about the stream actually being a new scripted series. During of which, Williams jumped in to build upon an idea that Ridgeway had said stating "And then, the phone hits the ground, and Etika shows up and goes, ‘surprise, bitch!’," His viewers that were watching felt the joke was insensitive considering the uncertainty of Etika who had been declared missing the week prior. Williams later posted an apology on his Twitter the next day on June 25 stating his intention was give hope that Etika was alive and that he had nothing but love and respect for him and his audience who were worried about his wherabouts. Etika was later found dead that same day by the New York Police Department, his death was ruled a Suicide-by-drowning. On June 27, Williams announced on Twitter that he had purchased a new Tesla automobile. Following his announcement, Williams held a live stream in early July in which he sarcastically asked for money to help pay for the new car, upsetting a portion of his viewers. Williams subsequently received harsh criticism for his live stream, prompting him to clarify that he did not actually purchase the car, but rather only put a down payment on it, and that he had cancelled the order as a result of the backlash against him, among other things.

In August 2019, Williams made a controversial statement against his internet trolls where he claimed "I think that there are rapists and Nazis out there who ... are more redeemable than you because at least they're doing something they believe in."

On June 27, 2024, Williams launched and promoted a new cryptocurrency called "Faddy Coin" on his Twitter. Stephen "Coffeezilla" Findeisen, a YouTuber who investigates online scams, accused Williams of promoting a cryptocurrency scam. Findeisen specifically noted that the Faddy Coin had lost 90% of its value by June 28, 2024. In response, Williams claimed that none of his fans would buy the cryptocurrency. Instead, he asserted that his cryptocurrency would only be bought by millionaires who would "waste .01% of their worth on a meme coin as a joke". Williams apologized on his Twitter on July 2, 2024. In the apology, he stated that he had deleted every Faddy Coin he had owned, before writing: "If any fan comes forward and can show me they lost money on that coin I will gladly apologize to them. I will try to do more than just apologize and see what else I can do to make you whole."

Alleged cancer diagnosis

On November 15, 2022, Williams published a video on his YouTube channel stating that he had been diagnosed with a rare blood cancer known as polycythemia vera, which is a genetic condition causing overproduction of red blood cells, in turn causing blood to thicken and increasing the risk of blood clots, stroke, or heart attack. During Coffeezilla's discussion with Williams regarding Faddy Coin, Williams stated that a majority of the money he made had been put to helping treat the condition.

On July 10, 2024, Williams was confronted on a live podcast by popular political streamer Steven Bonnell, known as Destiny, who alleged Williams was lying about having cancer. Bonnell alleged that the circumstances Williams has stated about his alleged diagnosis did not align with having polycythemia vera, but more closely aligned with secondary polycythemia, namely that a substantial cause of secondary polycythemia is taking exogenous hormones (Williams had stated he was undergoing testosterone replacement therapy), as well as another condition Williams has stated he has – sleep apnea – which causes a lack of oxygen intake overnight, thus causing a decrease in oxygen in the blood which would cause the blood to then produce more red blood cells, none of which are primarily consistent with polycythemia vera, as it is a genetic condition. Bonnell also pointed out that Williams has stated he is waiting on a biopsy to confirm his diagnosis, despite already claiming to be diagnosed.

Despite encouragement from Bonnell and other hosts of the podcast to release a portion of his medical documents confirming any sort of cancer diagnosis, and despite being offered thousands of dollars in exchange for such confirmation, Williams has openly refused to release any portion of his medical documents, stating that doing so would give away the last bit of privacy he has, and saying he would be okay with the internet believing he lied about having cancer as long as he retains his privacy. This claim has been heavily scrutinised by fans due to Williams sharing the contents of his medical documents in the feature-length documentary of himself which also did not include his diagnosis of polycythemia vera.

Later during the livestream, after Bonnell disconnected, Williams released a statement on his Twitter, stating that he has paperwork stating he has polycythemia vera, and saying that his doctor told him he had the condition, but that he should've "never jumped the gun like that" and saying "of all the fuck-ups that I've ever made in this life, this is the one that will haunt me to the bitter end, as it should."

Following this controversy, Williams was fired from a podcast he shares with fellow internet personality Keemstar, ''Lolcow Live'', but was rehired as a host after Williams agreed to tattoo the word "liar" on his face as a punishment.

Personal life

Shortly after his mother's death in 2009, he met Desiree, "Dez" for short, and she moved to Arkansas to live with him. She later became known in his content as Dez2988, taking on his numerical suffix and occasionally portraying the unseen character of Francis' sister. In October 2013, Williams and Desiree got married. Williams had gastric bypass surgery due to morbid obesity on August 1, 2017. On December 19, 2017, Williams announced that Desiree filed for divorce and had planned to for a while, but waited until he sufficiently recovered from his gastric bypass surgery which was back in August. In October 2018, Williams stated that his divorce was finalized back in February.

Williams is a theist.

On July 11, 2023, Williams announced that he was in a relationship with Deziree Davis.

Aggravated assault charge

In September 2020, Williams began trending on Twitter after news broke out of an ongoing conflict between him and Frank Hassle, a YouTuber who began harassing him over the course of several months after suspecting he was the cause of his channels' termination. After Hassle had made his way down to Williams' home in Arkansas, the two were interviewed by Keemstar, in which Williams threatened to kill Hassle if he stepped on his property. The next day after Hassle showed up at his house wearing a GoPro, Williams pulled out a revolver and fired a "warning shot" into the air, causing Hassle to eventually leave. A police investigation was launched shortly afterwards. On May 7, 2021, a warrant was issued for Williams' arrest on a charge of aggravated assault with a $5,000 bond by the Washington County, Arkansas sheriff's department. Williams turned himself in on May 12, was processed over the course of three hours and posted bail. On March 7, 2022, Williams stated that his case was settled on a deferred adjudication. Hassle, meanwhile, was never criminally charged for the incident.

Filmography

Commercial

Television

Web

Exhibition boxing record

Notes

References

{{Portal bar, Video games

1974 births
Living people
English-language YouTube channels
People from St. Paul, Virginia
American YouTube vloggers
American Twitch (service) streamers
People charged with assault
YouTube channels launched in 2008
The Game Awards winners
YouTubers from Arkansas
YouTubers from Virginia
Victims of cyberbullying