If you're a fan of the strange, dark, and mysterious, delivered in story format, then you've come to the right place, because that's all we do.
John Allen, better known as MrBallen
, is an American YouTuber and former Navy SEAL who relates strange, dark, and mysterious stories, usually involving true crime, accidents, unusual incidents, and the occasional paranormal occurrence. He is also the co-founder and former CEO of Elite Meet, a career networking organization focused on Special Operations members who are transitioning back into civilian life.
One to five videos are typically uploaded per week, and videos generally feature a single long story or three shorter stories united by a theme. Shorter TikTok versions of many stories can be found on the secondary channel MrBallen Shorts, and audio-only versions of stories make up the MrBallen Podcast.
Though the channel started in 2015, regular uploads only began in 2020, and since then the channel has amassed 8.4 million subscribers. Starting in 2023, Allen's channel has become the flagship of a broader project called Ballen Studios, a partnership and collaboration with founder-narrator Richard While of the older, more established horror production Bedtime Stories.
Please gently trope the Like Button:
- Always Murder: While the Youtube videos cover a variety of topics, MrBallen's podcast-exclusive episodes are exclusively true murder stories, usually revolving around the killing of a young woman.
- Butt-Monkey: The YouTube Like button. MrBallen's riff on the typical call to "hit" or "smash" the Like button is to refer to that action as mistreating the button in some way, as if it were a real person. This runs a wide spectrum, from harmless rickrolling to outright murder.
- Caption Humor: Captions are often used on images to provide helpful information, such as making it clear that the image is or isn't an actual photo of the thing being discussed. In one instance, however, MrBallen is describing how the subject of the story is an experienced hiker, and that they've hiked well-marked and dangerous trails alike. A normal trail photo is used to illustrate a safe trail, and a frame from a video of a mountain lion leaping at the camera is used with the dryly humorous caption "Real photo of a dangerous hiking trail".
- Character Tic:
- Allen tends to bow toward the camera while turning his head to the side and spreading his arms during certain phrases in his intros and outros.
- When miming holding or shooting a long gun, he'll usually position his left hand as if he's holding a grip that's horizontal and perpendicular to the body of the gun (like the handlebar of a bike).
- Chocolate-Frosted Sugar Bombs: During one sponsorship spot for a meal kit service, MrBallen claims (likely in exaggeration) that one of his favorite foods as an 18-year-old was "cereal" consisting of an entire sleeve of Oreos in a bowl of milk.
- Content Warnings: Particularly gruesome or harrowing stories will at minimum have a "*MATURE AUDIENCES ONLY*" disclaimer in the title, and will also usually include similar disclaimers in the video description and in a title card after the intro, along with MrBallen giving a specific verbal warning about the intense nature of the story at the very beginning of the video.
- Dice Roll Death: An unfortunate young man in one story died while going about his day in a small town while listening to music. He was apparently unaware of a nearby helicopter experiencing mechanical failure, and happened to be right underneath it when it crashed.
- Early-Installment Weirdness: Early videos lack music, a title sequence, and MrBallen speaks more slowly and with less gesturing. One of the earlier featured stories is "The Russian Sleep Experiment", perhaps the most famous Creepypasta of all time, and several other stories from the era are based on Reddit posts of dubious authenticity, when most stories on the channel are true or at least have backing evidence.
- Foreshadowing: If MrBallen begins describing a particular natural or mechanical process during a story, especially if that process sounds like it would be unpleasant to a human, someone in the story is probably going to have that happen to them.
- Iconic Outfit: MrBallen's backward baseball cap and flannel button-up shirt combo, which he almost always appears in.
- Jump Scare: Not deliberately or marked by loud sounds, but some of the images used in some stories can be fairly (or even outright) creepy and freakish, and appear with basically no warning.
- "Not Making This Up" Disclaimer: Some stories covered are so unbelievable that MrBallen will open the episode with a disclaimer like this.
- Public Domain Soundtrack: The copyright- and royalty-free track "Something Wicked" by Ross Bugden serves as the intro and title card music.
- Retired Badass: Allen served on SEAL Team 2 from 2010 to 2017.
- Self-Deprecating Humor: After a slow
Schedule Slip in 2021 that culminated in a three-week period with no uploads, one of the Like button gags after uploads resumed was as follows:MrBallen: So if that's of interest to you, please tell the Like button you're going to upload on your YouTube channel three, four, even five times every week... and then knock it down to three or four times a week, and then two or three times a week, and then one or two times a week, and then go ahead and just don't post for three weeks straight. - Thanatos Gambit: One of the schemes against the Like button would screw it over one last time even after the viewer's death: it suggests that the viewer leave the button a treasure map to a pot of gold in their will, when in reality the gold is a $6 Blockbuster gift certificate.
