What does Jason from The Good Place sound like?

October 21, 2020 12:19 PM

Jason Mendoza speaks in a distinctive way in The Good Place. Is it an accent, and/or does it sound like anyone famous, or is it an idiosyncratic thing?

(I'm writing a fanfic and having a character react to hearing "Jianyu" speak for the first time.)

Assume for the purposes of the question that I'm fairly ignorant of pop culture and accents and no suggestion is too obvious.

posted by creepygirl to Media & Arts (13 answers total)

If no suggestion is too obvious, I would restate the obvious fact that Jason Mendoza's manner of speech is nothing like Canadian actor Manny Jacinto's real life accent, which you can listen to here. Without giving it too much thought, I always assumed it was a talented actor working to create a distinctive sound, informed by the character details that Jason Mendoza is not intelligent or educated, and leavened with a heaping dose of Filipino-American "bro" culture topped off with some urban Florida sauce.
posted by seasparrow at 12:42 PM on October 21, 2020 [3 favorites]

A Filipino American Floridian? Or is that too too obvious?
posted by CheeseLouise at 12:43 PM on October 21, 2020

Best answer: I saw a passing reference to him basing the voice off a particular YouTuber, but he didn't reveal who. I wasn't able to find any more info on that but maybe someone else would know. I don't know if he's doing something specifically Jacksonville, but I think if you actually dropped him in Jacksonville, FL he wouldn't really be out of place.
posted by cabingirl at 12:55 PM on October 21, 2020

Best answer: It makes me think of the Valley Girl speech pattern, which makes me wonder if it's a deliberate allusion to that type of stereotypical airheadedness.
posted by nakedmolerats at 12:56 PM on October 21, 2020 [9 favorites]

Best answer: At least 200 /r/TheGoodPlace users seem convinced it's from this video: Huge Iguana Invades House
posted by Rhaomi at 1:05 PM on October 21, 2020 [25 favorites]

Best answer: There is a heavy dose of uptalk in his accent, along with an element of Floridian drawl but compressed into fast speech. The tempo he uses is very very much like a child who is can get lost in the sentence. There are some Filipino elements too I think in terms of tone and vowels/n consonants, but from my experiences in Jax, he would absolutely fit in linguistically and socially. Less the tempo aspect but certainly the compressed drawl with uptalk.
posted by geek anachronism at 1:14 PM on October 21, 2020 [6 favorites]

Response by poster: Thanks, all. The character is unlikely to be familiar with Jacksonville or YouTube channels, but it's helpful to me to have more context for what's going on with Jason's speech.
posted by creepygirl at 1:55 PM on October 21, 2020

I'd describe it as stoner simpleton.
posted by willnot at 4:00 PM on October 21, 2020 [4 favorites]

I always thought there was a bit of Ted Theodore Logan in there.
posted by mookoz at 8:28 PM on October 21, 2020 [2 favorites]

"He sounded kind of like a California Surfer Dude, but off. She imagined they must surf in Florida too, but it's just not the same. Regardless, she heard the voice of a kid who grew up someplace where when you couldn't go home, you slept on the beach."
posted by bartleby at 10:13 PM on October 21, 2020

Best answer: I know this is marked as answered, but as someone who really did grow up on the east coast of central FL? He sounds Canadian to me because of the roundness of his vowels.
posted by verbminx at 2:42 AM on October 22, 2020 [2 favorites]

Response by poster: Feel free to keep answering! I marked a few as Best Answer but if you have more to add I'd love to hear it.
posted by creepygirl at 11:09 AM on October 22, 2020

Response by poster: Update: I was pleased with the fanfic I wrote and it was very well-received. Thanks all.
posted by creepygirl at 9:32 PM on December 2, 2020