Jirard Khalil

Jirard Khalil (born January 3, 1988), also known online as ''The Completionist'', is a YouTuber who focuses on reviewing and completing video games. Throughout his career on YouTube, Khalil has uploaded reviews of over 340 games.

Early life

Khalil was born on January 3, 1988 and is a native of Los Angeles, California. He is also the brother of Kellee Khalil, an entrepreneur who founded the wedding planner website Lover.ly.

Khalil attended California State University, Fullerton. After Khalil got his college degree in theater and film, he worked at a Best Buy. After his manager pushed him to pursue his YouTube dreams full time, Khalil started his YouTube channel, originally called "''ThatOneVideoGamer''" but later renamed ''The Completionist''.

Career

Khalil's YouTube career began in 2012. He had attempted to start his YouTube career multiple times, but had restarted due to a lack of success in gaining an audience. After meeting internet personality Arin Hanson, Khalil became inspired to create his YouTube career again, with an emphasis towards playing video games to 100% completion. Khalil's content on The Completionist involves him reviewing and discovering every aspect of a video game, including completing the game on all difficulty options, finding every collectible and defeating every boss. At the end of his reviews, Khalil also shows the number of hours taken to complete the game along with the amount of collectibles he acquired. He stated that his style of completing games originated from his childhood, where he often played games repeatedly in order to convince his parents to buy him new games. Mike Andronico of '' CNN'' described Khalil's videos as "backed by his articulate, authoritative and entertaining narration, which make the channel's deep dives on retro games and modern blockbusters accessible for even non-gamers."

Khalil worked on ''The Completionist'' with collaborator Greg Wilmot. However, due to a falling out between the two members, the first 120 episodes of the series were removed, leading Khalil to recreate the episodes. In addition to ''The Completionist'', he also creates Let's Play videos on the channel ''Super Beard Bros.'' with collaborator and friend Alex Faciane.

Khalil was a member of the gaming collective Normal Boots, a YouTube network featuring creators such as PeanutButterGamer. He signed with the Creative Artists Agency in 2020 alongside YouTuber Alpharad. In 2021, as a part of Sonic's 30th Anniversary, the official Sonic the Hedgehog YouTube channel featured a new series called ''Sonic Rings''. In the series, Khalil discusses his history with the franchise. That same year, Khalil joined G4's Xplay. In 2022, Khalil debuted his new series, ''God of Work''. Created alongside Emily Rose Jacobson, the premise involves Khalil portraying Kratos from ''God of War'' in an office setting. Xplay and G4 averaged 1,000 viewers before G4 faced its second shutdown in 2022, thus ceasing the production of G4's Xplay.

On March 18, 2023, Khalil uploaded a video about buying every single Nintendo Wii U and 3DS game from the Nintendo eShop before the online store closed in 2023. The project took 328 days, US$9,673 in Wii U games, and $13,118 in 3DS games, with a grand total of $22,791. The video was funded by multiple sponsorships throughout 2022. Khalil planned to donate the consoles to the Video Game History Foundation. However, most of these games Khalil preserved were already preserved on illegal ROM websites.

Other work

Khalil appeared as a character in the video game ''Asagao Academy'', a dating sim and visual novel created by and featuring members of Normal Boots in 2014.

In August 2022, he appeared in a '' GameSpot'' video with other gaming personalities to discuss the impact of ''Final Fantasy VII''.

As of April 2023, Khalil is co-developing his upcoming game ''Elsie'' with developer Knight Shift Games and publisher Playtonic Games.

Awards and nominations

References

Primary sources

External links

*
* {{Official website, thecompletionist.com

Living people
1988 births
People from Los Angeles
21st-century American people
American YouTubers
Gaming YouTubers
Video game critics
Video game commentators
YouTube channels launched in 2012
YouTube critics and reviewers
YouTubers from California