Christopher Luke O'Neill (Irish: Críostóir Lúcás Ó Néill; born 21 November 1990), also known by his Internet pseudonymOney (/ˈoʊni/) or OneyNG, is an Irish YouTuber, animator, cartoonist, video game designer, musician, and voice actor.[2] He is known for his Flash animations and being the founder and host of the YouTube Let's Play web series OneyPlays. He is also the owner of the video game production company OneyWare.
O'Neill began his online career on the American entertainment website Newgrounds, creating an account on March 28, 2006.[5] He created a YouTube channel at age 17,[6] and by 2013, it was ranked as Ireland's most successful YouTube channel with a total of 240 million views.[7][8] The channel's content includes animated music videos, video game parodies, live-action sketches and original series such as Leo and Satan and Hellbenders, the latter of which was made with fellow Newgrounds animator Zach Hadel (psychicpebbles).[7][6]
In 2014, O'Neill began posting Let's Play video content to the Oney's Video Hole channel, later renamed OneyPlays. The channel became prominent in 2017 for starting the Crash Bandicoot "Woah" Internet meme based on a common sound-effect from the PlayStation series.[9] The meme was referenced in an easter egg in the 2020 video-game Crash Bandicoot 4: It's About Time.[10] The channel features regular appearances from other personalities, such as Zach Hadel, Joshua Tomar, Lyle Rath and Cory Beck (Spazkid), after having featured Julian Marcel and the pseudonymous Ding Dong as co-hosts before they left the show in 2018. Guest appearances have included Matt Watson and Ryan Magee of SuperMega, as well as fellow Newgrounds alumni including Mick Lauer (Ricepirate), Jeff Bandelin, David Brown (PhantomArcade), and Harry Partridge.
YouTuber Jason Gastrow, known online as videogamedunkey, mentioned in a 2015 Reddit thread that O'Neill designed his YouTube channel profile picture.[11] O'Neill would later make appearances on Gastrow's channel.[12][13]
In 2019, O'Neill created the game studio OneyWare. A gameplay trailer for Bowlbo: The Quest for Bing Bing, an upcoming video game developed by OneyWare in collaboration with AlbinoMoose, was initially planned to release in March 2019, but as of 2024 has yet to be given a release date.[14][15][16]
In 2020, O'Neill collaborated again with Hadel when he and animator Michael Cusack created the Adult Swim animated show Smiling Friends. O'Neill created the ending credit music for the pilot episode of the series as well as providing 3D modeling and animation.[17] He later also voiced some minor background characters when Smiling Friends was picked up for a full season.[18] In 2023, alongside animation director Adam Paloian, O'Neill collaborated with Pinreel Inc. to create the music video for Tenacious D's "Video Games" song.[19] The video has over 36 million views as of 22 June 2024.
