Freddie Wong is an American filmmaker, musician, VFX artist, podcaster, and competitive gamer. Wong participates in at least three YouTube channels; with RocketJump, his production company's main channel, supporting over 8 million subscribers; BrandonJLa, a secondary channel with behind the scenes videos and other content, which holds over 1.2 million subscribers; and Node, a gaming channel with over 2.4 million subscribers. He is also known for creating the web seriesVideo Game High School.
Wong competed in the World Series of Video Games in Dallas in July 2007. He won first prize in the Guitar Hero 2 competition, playing the song "Less Talk More Rokk" by Freezepop. It was around this time that he began uploading videos to YouTube and finding popularity with his comedic or video game-related content. During MTV's "Gamer's Week" celebration in November 2007, Freddie appeared as a guest on Total Request Live. Participating in the program with his newly formed band Hellanor Brozevelt, Wong was part of a country-wide search to find the best Rock Band ensemble. After receiving tutelage from well-known rockers Good Charlotte, Brozevelt performed at the Hard Rock Cafe in New York against Chicago-based Carrie Me Home. Wong has attracted mainstream attention as well, with Jimmy Kimmel in a bathroom tie battle, Andy Whitfield appearing in a Time Crisis tribute video, Kevin Pollak appearing in a Hypnotism stunt, Shenae Grimes in a romantic gun action scene, Ray William Johnson in a troll infestation video, Eliza Dushku appearing in an action scene, Jon Favreau featuring in his video based on Cowboys & Aliens, the glam metal band Steel Panther appearing in his video based on the Crossfire board game, and Smosh appearing in his video "Huge Guns ". In 2010, Wong helped Joe Penna, known as MysteryGuitarMan on YouTube, shoot a commercial for McDonald's, and assisted Wong Fu Productions in actions scenes of Agents of Secret Stuff. In 2011 Wong produced, co-directed, and acted in a TV commercial for Battlefield 3 at the request of Electronic Arts.
2011–present: ''Video Game High School,'' RocketJump, further success
In 2011, along with his partners Matt Arnold and Desmond "Dez" Dolly, Wong formed the production company RocketJump. Since then, they have worked on the web series Video Game High School, which began releasing episodes on May 11, 2012 and has since developed a following, amassing over 100 million views across various online platforms. The series is based on a concept by Will Campos and Chris Pappavaselio. The team was able to raise funding for the series through Kickstarter, where they set a funding goal for $75,000 to be raised in a 30-day period. That amount was quickly pledged in less than 24 hours and continued to climb from there. On October 22, 2011, pledging came to a close, with $273,725 raised for the project from 5,661 backers. The series ran for three seasons, with the final season having a crowd funded budget of over $2.4 million. The final episode of the series was released November 17, 2014, on the RocketJump website and YouTube. In late 2013, Wong's channel, 'freddiew' was renamed to "Rocketjump", and 'freddiew2' was renamed to "BrandonJLa". Brandon Laatsch also announced that he and Wong would no longer work together on projects, and any short videos or "shorts" would be posted on either NODE or BrandonJLa. This was done because they wanted to work on separate projects, as Wong was busy with Video Game High School, and Brandon started working on a VR engine and game Boneworks. Since April 2017, Wong has co-hosted the podcastStory Break on the Maximum Fun network. As described on the RocketJump website, the show features " Will Campos, Matt Arnold, and Freddie Wong sit down in the RocketJump writer's room and attempt to 'break' a story for a ridiculous concept, property, or idea that in NO way have any rights to." As of 2019 Wong is collaborating on a Dungeons and Dragons Live Play Podcast, called Dungeons and Daddies along with Will Campos, Anthony Burch, Matt Arnold, and Beth May. It’s a podcast about four dads from Earth that get lost in The Forgotten Realms, and go on a quest to search for their lost sons. Wong plays the character Glenn Close, with May playing Ron Stampler, Campos playing Henry Oak, Arnold playing Darryl Wilson, and Burch playing everyone else as the Dungeon Master. In 2019, the podcast won two Audioverse Awards. The show as a whole won "Best New Improvised Production" and Anthony Burch won for "Player Direction of a New Production."
Personal life
Wong is the older brother of actor and YouTuber Jimmy Wong, who co-starred in Video Game High School.
