Jonathan Bartlett Allen (born October 1, 1988), known professionally as MrBallen, is an American

internet personality An Internet celebrity, also referred to as an Internet personality, is an individual who has acquired or developed their fame and notability on the Internet. The growing popularity of social media provides a means for people to reach a large ...

and a former

United States Navy SEAL The United States Navy Sea, Air, and Land (SEAL) Teams, commonly known as Navy SEALs, are the United States Navy's primary special operations force and a component of the United States Naval Special Warfare Command. Among the SEALs' main funct ...

. He is best known for his victim-oriented true crime stories and mysteries on

YouTube YouTube is an American social media and online video sharing platform owned by Google. YouTube was founded on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim who were three former employees of PayPal. Headquartered in ...

. He co-founded Ballen Studios, and the exclusive rights to his podcast ''MrBallen Podcast: Strange, Dark and Mysterious Stories'' were licensed to

Amazon Music Amazon Music (previously Amazon MP3) is a music streaming platform and digital music store operated by Amazon. As of January 2020, the service had 55 million subscribers. It was the first music store to sell music without digital rights manag ...

in September 2022. However, as of February 2024, the podcast is freely available across multiple platforms including YouTube, Amazon Music,

TikTok TikTok, known in mainland China and Hong Kong as Douyin (), is a social media and Short-form content, short-form online video platform owned by Chinese Internet company ByteDance. It hosts user-submitted videos, which may range in duration f ...

, and

Spotify Spotify (; ) is a List of companies of Sweden, Swedish Music streaming service, audio streaming and media service provider founded on 23 April 2006 by Daniel Ek and Martin Lorentzon. , it is one of the largest providers of music streaming services ...

, among others.

Early life

Allen was born in Quincy,

Massachusetts Massachusetts ( ; ), officially the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, is a U.S. state, state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It borders the Atlantic Ocean and the Gulf of Maine to its east, Connecticut and Rhode ...

to Jessie Thuma and Scott Allen, a reporter and editor with ''

The Boston Globe ''The Boston Globe,'' also known locally as ''the Globe'', is an American daily newspaper founded and based in Boston, Massachusetts. The newspaper has won a total of 27 Pulitzer Prizes. ''The Boston Globe'' is the oldest and largest daily new ...

''. He graduated from

North Quincy High School North Quincy High School (NQHS) is a public secondary school located in the North Quincy neighborhood of Quincy, Massachusetts, United States. The school serves grades 9 through 12, and has an enrollment of over 1,200 students. It is one of tw ...

in 2006. That year, he attended

UMass Amherst The University of Massachusetts Amherst (UMass Amherst) is a public land-grant research university in Amherst, Massachusetts, United States. It is the flagship campus of the University of Massachusetts system and was founded in 1863 as the Ma ...

for one semester before dropping out. He later returned to UMass Amherst and graduated with a bachelor's degree in philosophy in 2010.

Personal life

He was raised Catholic and met his wife, Amanda, in college. He is the father of three children. His mother is involved in his content creation. Allen mentioned in an autobiographical video that his family put academic pressure on him and highly values academic achievement. Allen's sister Evan Allen was a reporter for ''

'' who won a 2021

Pulitzer Prize for Investigative Reporting Pulitzer may refer to: *Joseph Pulitzer, a 19th century media magnate *Pulitzer Prize, an annual U.S. journalism, literary, and music award *Pulitzer (surname) * Pulitzer, Inc., a U.S. newspaper chain *Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting, a non-pro ...

. She left the ''Globe'' in December 2023 to become the full-time Head of Ballen Studios.

Career

Military service

After graduating from the

, Allen visited a recruiting office in Quincy,

and enlisted in the

United States Navy The United States Navy (USN) is the naval warfare, maritime military branch, service branch of the United States Department of Defense. It is the world's most powerful navy with the largest Displacement (ship), displacement, at 4.5 millio ...

, intending to become a

Navy SEAL The United States Navy Sea, Air, and Land (SEAL) Teams, commonly known as Navy SEALs, are the United States Navy's primary special operations force and a component of the United States Naval Special Warfare Command. Among the SEALs' main funct ...

. Allen joined the

SEAL Team Two The United States Navy Sea, Air, and Land (SEAL) Teams, commonly known as Navy SEALs, are the United States Navy's primary special operations force and a component of the United States Naval Special Warfare Command. Among the SEALs' main funct ...

Virginia Beach Virginia Beach (colloquially VB) is the List of cities in Virginia, most populous city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), U.S. commonwealth of Virginia. The city is located on the Atlantic Ocean at the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay in southeaster ...

in 2012. During his service, he was deployed to Afghanistan and later South America. In 2014, his team was attacked in

Afghanistan Afghanistan, officially the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central Asia and South Asia. It is bordered by Pakistan to the Durand Line, east and south, Iran to the Afghanistan–Iran borde ...

and a

grenade A grenade is a small explosive weapon typically thrown by hand (also called hand grenade), but can also refer to a Shell (projectile), shell (explosive projectile) shot from the muzzle of a rifle (as a rifle grenade) or a grenade launcher. A mod ...

hit Allen, with shrapnel impacting his hips and legs. He was medically retired from the Navy in 2017.

YouTube and TikTok

Allen launched his

YouTube channel YouTube is an American social media and online video sharing platform owned by Google. YouTube was founded on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim who were three former employees of PayPal. Headquartered in San B ...

in 2020 and began filming

true crime True crime is a genre of non-fiction work in which an author examines a crime, including detailing the actions of people associated with and affected by the crime, and investigating the perpetrator's Motive (law), motives. True crime works often ...

and mysteries. He attracts an audience of over ten million subscribers on the platform. The YouTube channel averages 40 million monthly views. He was noted for his

storytelling Storytelling is the social and cultural activity of sharing narrative, stories, sometimes with improvisation, theatre, theatrics or embellishment. Every culture has its own narratives, which are shared as a means of entertainment, education, cul ...

style that builds suspense throughout his videos. Allen started experimenting with TikTok the same year he started his YouTube channel in 2020. His first

viral video Viral videos are video, videos that become popular through viral phenomenon, a viral process of Internet sharing, primarily through video sharing websites such as YouTube as well as social media and email.Lu Jiang, Yajie Miao, Yi Yang, ZhenZhon ...

was about the Dyatlov Group. The video gained five million views the same day it was posted, prompting him to make additional TikToks about other unsolved mysteries. In October 2022, Allen was nominated for four YouTube Streamy Awards, in the Creator of the Year, Breakout Creator, and Podcast Categories. He received the most nominations for a first-time nominee. Additionally, Allen and his nonprofit organization, MrBallen Foundation, was nominated for the Creator for Social Good Award.

Podcast

In February 2022, Allen released ''MrBallen Podcast: Strange, Dark & Mysterious Stories''. The podcast ranked number one on Spotify's True Crime Podcasts chart. As of July 2022, the MrBallen podcast was downloaded over seven million times a month across all podcast platforms.

Ballen Studios

In 2022, Allen along with Nick Witters, opened a production company Ballen Studios, with Witters serving as the company's CEO. The studio focuses on scaling existing ventures into new media forms and creating advertising streams. Ballen Studios also signed with the United Talent Agency (UTA).

Amazon Music Partnership

In October 2022, Allen and Nick Witters signed a licensing deal with Amazon Music to make the podcast exclusive to their platform. The three-year deal also included first-look rights to any new content from Ballen Studios, which includes TV,

Film A film, also known as a movie or motion picture, is a work of visual art that simulates experiences and otherwise communicates ideas, stories, perceptions, emotions, or atmosphere through the use of moving images that are generally, sinc ...

Book A book is a structured presentation of recorded information, primarily verbal and graphical, through a medium. Originally physical, electronic books and audiobooks are now existent. Physical books are objects that contain printed material, ...

s, and

Game A game is a structured type of play usually undertaken for entertainment or fun, and sometimes used as an educational tool. Many games are also considered to be work (such as professional players of spectator sports or video games) or art ...

MrBallen Foundation

In 2022, Allen founded the charity organization "MrBallen Foundation" with the mission of honoring victims and supporting families of heinous crimes through education, training, and financial support.

MrBallen’s Medical Mysteries

In September 2023, Allen released “MrBallen’s Medical Mysteries”, a podcast that shares medical horror stories and diagnostic mysteries that are designed to be intriguing and chilling. It covers a range of topics from unheard-of diseases and miraculous recoveries to strange medical mishaps and unexplainable deaths. “MrBallen’s Medical Mysteries” is available on platforms like Amazon Music,

Apple Podcasts Apple Podcasts (known as simply Podcasts in Apple operating systems) is an audio streaming service and media player application developed by Apple Inc. for playing podcasts. Apple began supporting podcasts with iTunes 4.9 released in June 2005 ...

, and Spotify. New episodes are published every Tuesday.

References

External links

*{{YouTube, c=UCtPrkXdtCM5DACLufB9jbsA American TikTokers American crime podcasters United States Navy SEALs personnel University of Massachusetts Amherst alumni University of Massachusetts Amherst College of Humanities and Fine Arts alumni Living people People from Quincy, Massachusetts 1988 births YouTubers from Massachusetts American military podcasters