Jesse Ridgway, also known by his online alias McJuggerNuggets, is an American Youtuber, filmmaker, and occasional actor. Among other web series he has created in his career, Ridgway is most notable for his Psycho Series, which depicted fictional altercations between himself and his family members. He also created Storyfire, an app meant to compete with YouTube.
Career Psycho Series Ridgway has been making content for the internet for over 20 years, having produced a number of dramatic web series. He has published over 600 episodes of his Psycho Series show, which depicted fictional feuds and dramatic events among his family members. The series generated more than 1.2 billion views on YouTube. Viewers speculated whether the videos were real or fake until 2016, when Ridgway admitted to staging the videos in the series. Many viewers who believed that the violent incidents between his family members were real made over a thousand reports to police after an episode where Ridgway murdered his father. As a result, Ridgway's house was ultimately visited by police twenty times.
He and his family were subject of 2017 mock documentary Psycho Family, directed by fellow YouTuber and Ridgway's future business partner Brian Spitz, produced by Complex Networks, and published by Go90. His YouTube channel has accumulated over 4 million subscribers.
Storyfire In July 2017, Ridgway and Spitz launched the app Storyfire, a collaborative storytelling app designed to compete with YouTube. This came after over 500 episodes of his Psycho Series were deemed unsafe for advertisers and in some cases deleted from YouTube, as well as his dissatisfaction with the corportization of the platform. Tubefilter described Storyfire as a hybrid between YouTube, Twitter, and Wattpad, allowing users to pay creators for video and text posts. The platform revolved around its own currency called Blaze, which users could gain by buying directly from Storyfire or by watching ads. Creators could then charge Blaze as a means of charging for access, though making videos freely available was also an option. Storyfire would split 30% of revenue generated from Blaze when cashed out by creators. All content on Storyfire was preapproved before it was uploaded, and video uploads were locked behind a system where creators would pitch their ideas to Storyfire.
Storyfire became trending on the Apple App Store within 36 hours of its launch. Several prominent YouTubers joined the platform, including Boogie2988, Rob Gavagan, and KidBehindACamera. In January 2021, Ridgway announced that Storyfire had failed to find external funding and that he could no longer sustain the costs of running the platform. In April, Storyfire, its branding, and its presence on other social media platforms were sold as an NFT via an auction through OpenSea to a user named Deckchair for 7.9175 Etherium, worth at the time approximately $16,400. Ridgway stated as part of the sales pitch for the auction that he had spent $3 million to develop and maintain the platform.
Other projects Ridgway has worked as executive producer on Getting Lost.
Personal life After the COVID-19 pandemic, Ridgway documented a decline in his health due to long COVID and shared details about people close to him that had died from the disease.
After marrying in 2025, Ridgway began documenting his wife's pregnancy in the following year. In May, they announced that they had agreed that she should have an abortion after an amniocentesis test reported that the fetus tested positive for Trisomy 21. The decision was criticized by anti-abortion advocates including U.S. House of Representatives speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA), and by the heads of the National Down Syndrome Society and the National Down Syndrome Congress. They received multiple private letters of support by people who have had similar experiences, as well as threatening messages.
Awards and nominations
!scope="row" |2015 |Psycho Dad Shreds Video Games |Viral Video |Webby Awards
! scope="row" | 2016 | Psycho Series | Show of the Year | 6th Streamy Awards
!scope="row" | 2016 |The Psycho Series |Best Drama Series |6th Streamy Awards
! scope="row" | 2017 | McJuggerNuggets | Best Ensemble Cast | 7th Streamy Awards
! scope="row" | 2018 | My Virtual Escape | Directing | 8th Streamy Awards
! scope="row" | 2018 | My Virtual Escape | Acting in a Drama | 8th Streamy Awards | | Nomination for Ridgway's acting
References