John

In the Smash community, a John is an excuse for a player's underperformance in a Smash Bros. game, such as not using the correct attack, having a poor controller, or narrowly losing a match, among others. It can be considered roughly equivalent to the word "excuse". In addition to its use as a noun, the term can also be used as a verb, where players can be accused of "Johning". "No Johns" has also seen use, primarily to counter players who are said to be Johning. Making excuses for why a player lost is generally frowned upon by the Smash community, and players who repeatedly John are often criticized for making these excuses.

Origin

The term "Johning" was started by the Crystal City crew from Crystal City, Texas. In addition to future professionals such as Caveman and Rob$, another member of the crew was named John; this player became notorious amongst the other members for frequently making excuses for his losses. Eventually, the other members of the crew began to accuse him of "Johning" whenever he made another excuse; the terms "John" and "No Johns" were also eventually used by the players in order to generically refer to excuses.

As the crew began to gain more exposure, including attending tournaments out of state, they still used the term "John" and its variants, spreading usage of the term to other crews and players; the term eventually became widespread throughout the Melee community, and the members of the Crystal City crew were surprised upon seeing its usage on Smashboards.

The smasher from which the term John originated from still plays Melee, under the tag "ACE".

Regional variants

In Sweden, the term "Yuna" can be used interchangeably with "John", here referring to the smasher Yuna, who became known for similar behaviour to John. Instead of "No Yunas", however, players instead say "Inga Yunas", pseudo-Swedish for "No Yunas".

Spain has numerous synonyms to the term "John", with the two most common being "No Veyrons" (especially in northern Spain due to Veyron being from Catalonia) or "No Joshis" (more common in the south due to Joshi being from Andalusia).

In Italy, for a certain period of time, the expression "No Dems" was used, referring to Dem-Long, a player from Florence who failed to pass pools in a tournament in June 2006; his supposed reason, that his hands were too cold, became an inside joke in Italy.

In Germany, a counterpart evolved called "No Stacos", leading back to the player Staco. Staco was known in the German community for frequently using excuses both for victories and losses, often claiming he could have performed better in both cases. While Staco later retired from competitive Smash, the phrase is still commonly used. As an extra in written form, especially on the Smash World Forums, the digit sequence "<<" was established by him, stressing his disapproval when something was not in his favor; the sequence is called kleiner als kleiner als, which, in German, roughly translates to "less than less than".

In Nintendo media

During EVO 2014's Super Smash Bros. Melee singles tournament, a short video was played that featured Nintendo of America's president, Reggie Fils-Aimé vocalizing Nintendo's support of the tournament. After sharing his appreciation for the Melee players at the event, Reggie wrapped up the video with a challenge for players to face him in the upcoming release of Super Smash Bros. 4; at the conclusion of the video, Fils-Aimé said, "And if we ever do go head-to-head, please, no Johns."

See also

• Broken
• Cheap