Jack Douglass

John Patrick "Jack" Douglass (; born June 30, 1988), better known as jacksfilms, is an American YouTuber, videographer, musician, and sketch comedian. He is best known for his series ''Yesterday I Asked You (YIAY)'' and ''Your Grammar Sucks (YGS)'', in which he commentates on content sent by fans. Douglass' career on YouTube spans over 18 years.

Douglass, who was born in Columbia, Maryland, created his main YouTube channel in 2006. His content was initially focused on parodies, music videos, and sketch comedy, or a combination thereof. Douglass has referred to this series of videos as ''PMS'' (parody, music, sketch). His musical output includes both parodies of popular songs and original content. In 2011, Douglass began ''Your Grammar Sucks,'' in which he reads comments with excessive grammatical errors. Douglass created the ''Jackask'' series in 2014, where he answers user-submitted questions satirically.

In 2015, Douglass started ''Yesterday I Asked You'', originally a segment within ''Jackask'', where he asks his audience questions and reads humorous responses. Originally intended to be a daily series, new episodes are released every few days. ''Yesterday I Asked You'' is Douglass' most successful series, with over 600 episodes as of 2024. He has adapted it into various other formats, including a board game, a book, a YouTube Originals show, a tour, and an online party game with ''Be Funny Now.'' Since 2018, Douglass has streamed regularly on Twitch. In 2023, Douglass created a new channel, ''JJJacksfilms'', where he reviews and critiques reaction videos.

Douglass has collaborated with a variety of other YouTubers, including PewDiePie, Markiplier, RoomieOfficial, h3h3Productions and Dan Bull. The hundredth installment of ''Your Grammar Sucks'' includes contributions from jacksepticeye, Rhett and Link, Ryan Higa, and Vsauce.

Early life

John Patrick Douglass was born on June 30, 1988 to David Douglass and Donna Douglass. He grew up in Columbia, Maryland, and is primarily of Irish ancestry. During high school he started to develop a love for music, learning to play the French horn and the piano. In May 2006, during his senior year of high school, he created short video sketches for a school assignment, leading him to decide to create films. The next month, he started using YouTube and uploading videos. After graduating from high school, Douglass attended American University, where he majored in film and minored in music theory.

YouTube career

Early career (2006–2010)

Douglass launched his main YouTube channel jacksfilms on June 26, 2006. He uploaded "The WTF Blanket ( Snuggie Parody)" on January 22, 2009, and it remains his most-viewed video as of February 2025, amassing over 25.9 million views. Many of Douglass's early videos consisted of sketch comedy, music videos, or parodies, often about infomercials, and Apple or Samsung phones.

Douglass has subsequently grouped these videos as part of a series called ''PMS'' (parody, music, sketch). Although ''Your Grammar Sucks'' and ''Yesterday I Asked You'' later became the main focus of his channel, Douglass continues to upload ''PMS'' videos.

''Your Grammar Sucks'' (2011–2021)

On June 20, 2011, Douglass began the series ''Your Grammar Sucks'' (''YGS''), mocking internet comments with excessive grammatical and spelling errors. ''Your Grammar Sucks'' would ultimately be the catalyst that jumpstarted Douglass's popularity on YouTube, and on June 27, 2013, the jacksfilms channel reached 1 million subscribers; this sits at a combined 6.18 million across his YouTube channels as of March 2024. In 2014, Douglass's channel jacksfilms was listed on ''NewMediaRockstars''s list of the top 100 YouTube channels, ranked at #54.

A typical episode of ''Your Grammar Sucks'' is between 2 and 8 minutes long, and consists of Douglass reading the comments aloud word-for-word. Some episodes feature Douglass adapting the grammatically poor comments into a rap, a drinking game, or a sketch. An hour-long special, ''Your Grammar Sucks #100'', premiered on November 2015. It features several other YouTubers, including jacksepticeye, Markiplier, Rhett and Link, Ryan Higa, and Vsauce. As of 2025, it remains the most viewed installment of ''Your Grammar Sucks'' to date.

Around 2017, episodes began to be released less frequently under an inconsistent upload schedule, with plans to end the series due to repetitiveness. On May 8, 2021, Douglass switched over to the blind format where his team picks posts for him to react. On September 18, 2021, episode #145 was released, and the series came to an indefinite halt.

In 2014, Douglass created the ''Jackask'' series, where he gives satirical answers to user-submitted questions. Since the introduction of a blind format in 2021, his responses have become more genuine. As of 2024, ''Jackask'' has over 100 episodes.

Also in 2014, Douglass created the ''Gamergod88'' series, which parodied Let's Play videos on YouTube. ''Gamergod88'' was short-lived, and the last episode was uploaded in the same year.

''Yesterday, I Asked You'' (2015–present)

Douglass created the ''Yesterday, I Asked You'' (''YIAY'') series in 2015, which involves him asking various questions to his audience and reading his favorite responses. The series was inspired by a segment on ''Jackask'' where the roles between him and the audience were switched. Originally intended to be a daily series, as implied by the title, new episodes are now released on a weekly or semi-weekly basis. In a typical episode, Douglass reads and reacts to answers submitted by his audience in response to a previous question. At the end of the episode, Douglass proposes a new question.

Throughout 2016 and 2017, Douglass released a series of phone commercial parodies, on the first-generation iPhone SE, Galaxy S8, and iPhone X. These parodies received media attention from '' CNET'' and ''Kotaku''. On April 15, 2018, Douglass won the 2018 Shorty Award for YouTuber of the Year.

After Douglass made videos poking fun at ''The Emoji Movie,'' he received a package from the film's marketing team on July 20, 2017, thanking him for being "the o. 1fan of ''The Emoji Movie''". They invited him to the world premiere on July 23, and sent ''Emoji Movie–''related merchandise.

Douglass launched a Kickstarter campaign for ''YIAY: The Board Game'' on October 28, 2020, transforming the YIAY video formats into a board game which combined the ''Cards Against Humanity'' format with ''YIAY''-themed questions.

On January 4, 2021, Douglass announced ''YIAY TIME: The Game Show'', a new YouTube Originals show. It premiered the next day on January 5, 2021, for free on Douglass's YouTube channel. The first episode was poorly received by viewers, with many criticising the sound design and lack of the series' usual adult humour. In response to this criticism, Douglass re-edited the following episodes to be more in line with what fans expect from the series.

On May 17, 2022, Douglass and Galvanic Games released ''Be Funny Now!'', a free-to-play online party game for iOS, Android, and Steam, where players compete to answer prompts in the funniest way possible. On November 8, 2022, the game received a 2.0 update, which introduced a revamped voting system. The game ended service in 2024.

On April 24, 2021, Douglass reworked the series to a blind format, where his team picks the answers for him to react on camera. This would be the format that he would use from then on.

On April 30, 2024, Douglass created the channel YAIY, where he reads and reacts to scripts for YIAY episodes created by a generative AI.

JJJacksfilms (2022–present)

Since 2022, Douglass has criticized YouTuber Alia "Lia" Shelesh, better known online as SSSniperWolf, over her reaction video content. Douglass's criticisms stemmed from Shelesh's use of viral videos from TikTok without attribution. Douglass also characterized her commentary as "extremely base-level" and not sufficiently transformative to qualify as fair use. Douglass had previously engaged in similar criticisms of reaction channels such as Jinx and LeafyIsHere. Douglass created the channel JJJacksfilms, and began uploading videos reacting to Shelesh's content. In response, Shelesh made several social media posts accusing Douglass of sexism and content theft.

On October 14, 2023, Douglass accused Shelesh of stalking and doxing after she posted information about Douglass's residence online, including recording a video of herself outside of his home on Instagram. About a week later, YouTube temporarily demonetized Shelesh's entire channel, writing on Twitter: "off-platform actions that put others' personal safety at risk harm our community & the behavior on both sides isn't what we want on YT. Hoping everyone helps move this convo to a better place." On October 20, 2023, Shelesh issued an apology to Douglass, her fanbase, and to the wider YouTube community, in the form of a Twitter post.

On November 3, 2023, Douglass posted a video to YouTube about the situation. He revealed that he and his wife had been doing "pretty rough to say the least", and said that they were scared to leave their home after the doxing, and were considering moving out. He also thanked his fans for the support after the doxing incident, and revealed his plans on repurposing the JJJacksfilms channel with a new series called ''Creator Bingo''. He stated that viewers could send him content through a Google Form, and that he would react to it, giving constructive criticism and advice in order to better their content, along with marking a Bingo board based on what happened in the video. He continued to stress the importance of crediting the creators, providing links to videos submitted and only reacting to videos he had permission to react to.

Personal life

Douglass currently resides in Los Angeles, California. In 2018, Douglass married his long-time partner Erin. They have three American Eskimo dogs which are named after ice cream snacks: Klondike, Sundae, and Chipwich. In 2021, Douglass and Erin created a joint podcast series, ''Erin is the Funny One,'' where they discuss various topics including pop culture, tech, and celebrity news.

In 2019, Douglass described himself as agnostic, citing ''Angels & Demons'' by Dan Brown as the influence that made him question his Christian faith when he was in high school.

Filmography

Gameography

Awards

References

;Primary video sources

External links

*

Jack Douglass's ''GET JACK'D'' live chat series
on Vokle
*

Douglass's music
on Spotify

{{Authority control

1988 births
Living people
21st-century American male actors
American comedy YouTubers
American male comedians
American male musicians
American male songwriters
American male voice actors
American male web series actors
American people of Irish descent
American Twitch (service) streamers
American University alumni
American YouTube vloggers
Atholton High School alumni
Comedians from Maryland
English-language YouTube channels
Fullscreen (company) people
Infomercial parodies
Musicians from Maryland
Music YouTubers
People from Columbia, Maryland
Shorty Award winners
Songwriters from Maryland
Streamy Award winners
YouTube channels launched in 2006
YouTubers from Maryland