With the wide variety of content that YouTube holds, it’s always hard to predict what you’ll find on trending. That is unless it’s a day Markiplier posted. As someone who follows him and watches his videos regularly, it’s always fun to see the “trending” tag on a video that was posted a few hours ago. Markiplier has such a large following and wide influence that it’s hard to remember his humble beginnings, especially with an Amazon Prime series released and a movie on the way. So, who is Markiplier? And what is he up to now?
the beginning of a legacy
Mark Fischbach, the person behind Markiplier, has mentioned plenty of times in podcasts, interviews, and YouTube videos that he grew up relatively poor and faced many challenges before turning to YouTube. After finding out about a tumor he was suffering from, Mark decided he wanted to take control of his life after countless dead-end jobs. With his brother’s help, in 2012, Markiplier was born.
the start of a creative drive
While Mark knew he had a tumor back in 2012, they couldn’t remove it until 2015. When this happened, Mark experienced a health scare that reminded him life isn’t permanent. This realization led him to want to do more, and in 2017, “A Date with Markiplier” was born. This video is a click-based YouTube adventure where you get to pick between two choices, each one leading to a new video and potentially a new ending, introducing many fun and new characters as well as already-established characters from previous plays.
This project started a series of long-form and large-scale content that Mark strived to do better each time. This creative drive was seen late that same year with “Who Killed Markiplier?” a video series in the first person. But this time, there’s no viewer interaction like in the previous project. Similar projects like “A Heist with Markiplier” and “In Space with Markiplier” returned to the choose your own adventure style content, with “In Space with Markiplier” being nominated for a Streamy award.
In between the two projects was something no one had ever really done before, Unus Annus. Unus Annus was a channel founded by Mark and his friend Ethan Nestor where they posted a video every single day for 365 days. At the end of the 365 days, they deleted the channel forever. The idea was to showcase how nothing lasts forever, and it’s my favorite thing to ever exist on the internet to date. If you missed out on this crazy journey, there’s an archive with all the videos that fans have put together.
Beyond youtube
Having found success in his crazy projects on YouTube, Mark still wanted more. He and his friends made several podcasts like “Distractible” and “Go! My Favorite Sports Team,” branching out into new territory. Another podcast Mark co-created was “The Edge of Sleep,” which was a horror audio drama about a night watchman discovering the whole world seemed to be asleep forever. In 2021, the podcast started working on adapting to become a TV series featured on Amazon Prime. After the long wait, it’s on Amazon Prime for you to watch right now! I’ve already watched it several times. I can’t stress enough how amazing it is, considering it’s a low-budget film with a cast that doesn’t have any crazy industry names.
This isn’t the end of Mark’s acting career, as he is currently waiting to release a new movie based on the indie game “Iron Lung.” According to Mark, the success of his Amazon Prime series and its success directly affects whether “Iron Lung” will be released in theatres. Regardless, I can’t wait for the opportunity to watch it.
If you get to the end of this article, make sure to like and subscribe (to Markiplier of course), and catch up on all his fun projects and YouTube videos! Hopefully, my childhood hyper-fixation can bring you joy as you search for something to watch while eating dinner tonight.
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