The Computer Guy of Chicago strikes when you least expect.
Sitting in a coffeehouse. Reading your phone on the train. Working out. Waiting for food. Walking down the street. When the Computer Guy approaches, his targets, everyday Chicagoans, adopt the same expression, a sort of Do-Not-Engage-This-Crazy-Person blank stare with a pinch of Wait-This-Isn’t-the-Usual-Crazy-Person curiosity. Their eyes are full of questions, like: Who is this guy? Why is he talking so calmly? (Why to me?) What’s with that keyboard? Hold on, WHAT did he just say?
He says stuff like, “Computer, make both these guys extra horny.”
Or, “Computer, turn this guy into particulates and spread him across the cosmos.”
He waves his hands before himself, as if performing a Jedi mind trick.
Then he walks away.
The Computer Guy delights in confusion!
Indeed, in this city, this birthplace of comedic improv, he appears so suddenly that it becomes evident that even the Computer Guy doesn’t know exactly what he’s about to say to you.
The Computer Guy wears black, thick-framed Ray-Ban Meta glasses with a camera, through which he records all of these interactions, later posting the brief videos on TikTok. Should he approach you, here’s what to expect: The Computer Guy will simply begin talking nonchalantly, tapping absentmindedly at a desktop keyboard he carries, a prop, connected to nothing. He swats at keys the way people do in movies, when they’re not really typing. Once he has your attention, he regales you with commands.
Like, “Computer, give this guy the strength of a thousand warriors.”
“Computer, activate hair follicle reactivation.”
“Computer, program this man. Make sure he has a really good day at work and also every time I come in, he gives me 75 burritos for free.”
“Computer, free this man from all childhood trauma.”
“Computer, activate joy-based sequence. Make sure everyone here has a wonderful day and they know they are loved and confident — you’ve been programmed.”
When he started doing this, way back in January, it wasn’t always so charming. He was just as likely to command his computer to make someone have a bad day or to shrink their genitals or torture their body; for a while, he was telling his computer to make people “gay and freaky.” He doesn’t normally show his face in these videos, but you don’t need to see it to know what’s behind it: The Computer Guy comes off as a dude’s dude, certainly young, and relatively immature, one of countless online pranksters — yet also kind of chill and well-meaning, smart enough to explore a thin idea, and wise enough to realize his videos, silly or ugly, are one-act plays, lasting seconds.
The Computer Guy is, in fact, 26.
His real name is Julius Mondragon, Aurora native; he’s lived in Chicago for a couple of years. For work, he sells shoes. He also DJs; last year, he graduated from SAE Institute Chicago for media creatives with future plans of producing and making music. But at the moment, he’s getting traction with Computer Guy, a true creature of Chicago TikTok who’s so ubiquitous on social media right now, talent agents have been calling. If you follow any local TikTok content, he’s probably in your algorithm. (His primary account is Okjuskiii.)
We met the other day at Union Station.
I was just early enough to sit on one of those wooden benches in the Great Hall, notice plenty of security guards walking around and begin to grow worried about the Computer Guy. Here is an echoey and relatively quiet limestone room full of people — Mondragon’s deep laconic monotone would attract attention in a second. Plus, the guy does street pranks (his hero is Eric Andre), so I asked ahead of time, please don’t record me. I’m not alone here: He’s become well-known enough on social media to have reaction videos to his videos, many suggesting a (jokey) fear of running into him. He is often talked about with a faux-folksy solemnity — as if he were an urban legend, or Bigfoot. As one video puts it: “There are two reasons I’m afraid to walk the streets of Chicago. The first is ICE. And the second is that ‘Computer, program this guy’ guy.”
The truth is, IRL, in person, Mondragon is pleasant, handsome, a little stern-looking, lanky, reserved, with angular Mephistophelian facial hair and a stray eyebrow piercing.
But he’s also too cerebral to be intimidating, which is one reason he slips so soundlessly into the daily routines of Chicagoans. If his videos are becoming sweeter — leaning more into “joy-baiting strangers than shrinking their (expletive),” he said — that’s because of his mom.
“My father thinks this is hilarious. My mom… she gets nervous about what I’m doing. She told me to remember everybody has something going on in their lives. All of these people I’m approaching, they could be having the worst day of their lives, or they could be having the greatest day. Then I come up and say stuff to them. She said just to be aware, you never know who you are going to run into or how they could take this. I get her point — I totally get it. I just don’t listen to my mom much.”
To be fair, those Meta glasses — the whole reason he is able to sidle up to strangers, without holding a cellphone in their faces — were a Christmas present from his parents.
And what else are you going to do with them?
To be even more fair: If every son listened to his mother, mankind would be without hours of TikTok videos of witless bros pranking baffled elderly farmers in Target. As an online genre, the street prank looks bottomless. Last fall, even longtime Chicago rapper Adamn Killa went viral with an online prank, begging a Chicago traffic cop to arrest him as he gyrated, pleading, “Arrest me, daddy.” Someday, we may place these things in a museum of the meaninglessness, alongside chants of “6-7” and Italian brainrot and, stretching further back, nonsensical cultural icons such as Jerry Lewis and Dadaism.
There really is no way to describe this stuff without sounding 150 years old.
Which is precisely why it works; the younger it feels, the more effective it is.
Mondragon, though, mostly transcends meaninglessness by having to stare intensely at a stranger’s reaction — the medium is the message, as always. He’s not looking to rage bait; in fact, his targets rarely get mad. They ignore him or try to process him. He told me he has a trove of unedited videos of long conversations that happened after he dropped his “Computer” act, people who then ask about his life, why he’s doing this. He thinks a lot about why he’s doing this, and the importance of connecting with strangers, the not-always-easy act of merely being in the moment. He admires Eric Andre, but also Sacha Baron Cohen’s high-wire Borat. He’s thinking of taking classes at Second City.
“I randomly get in these modes where I tell friends crazy stories and see how far I can make something up. Doing it in real time, with strangers, you feel the pressure, but also how it could be art. For a long time, I was doing videos, music, different content. Super random — I have a (expletive) old video of me in a diaper running through Walgreens.”
From when?
“Probably a year ago.”
As we talked in a food court at Union Station, I gestured to the people around us: Did he see them as opportunity? Potential content?
“Oh, sure,” he said. “It’s gotten to the point where I have to sometimes intentionally not bring (the Ray-Ban Metas) with me so I can enjoy myself, so I don’t have the temptation to say, ‘OK, I can get just one more clip here.’ This is how I am by myself, too. I strike up conversations and maybe say something outlandish to throw it off a bit. The world is very repetitive. But sometimes I see someone and by their look I can tell they’re going through something, so I give them words of inspiration: ‘Computer, make this girl have a smile on her face …’ The joy-based (videos) do better. People like them more, I think, as corny as that sounds. I mean, look man, I have been through my own mental health struggles. I have been in hospitals. I have gone through really bad depression and anxiety, and I think part of why I do this is that it helps me with the anxiety. I can show my brain, ‘Hey, it’s not that hard to just go talk to someone or wish a stranger a good day.’ People get dealt terrible cards in life. If I have the spare energy, I want to bestow it.
“I know what it’s like to feel like you’re at the bottom of the bottom, especially the last five or six years. You go down a hard path and you don’t want to be here anymore. I’ve been through that. I’ve tried and failed a lot of times, with content, with making music. Now that I have buzz with this, I’ve realized I learned so much from not liking life. I mean, just the genuine conversations I have now with people because of these videos?”
He wore black running pants and a black hoodie and carried his loose keyboard between the straps of his backpack. His hat was black. He said he isn’t worried about being chased out of places; he’s a skateboarder from way back, he knows the drill.
Then he demonstrated the Computer Guy routine.
He fist-bumped a man with a walker: “Computer, activate joy sequencing.” He got out similarly hopeful words to three more Union Station visitors before police were on him. They looked puzzled, trying to figure out if this guy was alright or just trouble or a bit of both. And Mondragon, for his part, looked a little startled to be stopped this quickly.
“Computer, activate anti-rage sequencing,” he said to the cop.
The officer ignored him and turned to one of his targets.
“You know this (expletive) idiot?” he asked.
The target, a young man who knew the Computer Guy from TikTok, smirked:
“He was just programming me, bro.”
cborrelli@chicagotribune.com