Mark Edward Fischbach ( ; born June 28, 1989), also known as Markiplier, is an American

YouTuber A YouTuber is an online personality and/or influencer who produces videos on the video-sharing platform YouTube, typically posting to their personal YouTube channel. The term was first used in the English language in 2006. Influence Influe ...

. Originally from

Honolulu, Hawaii Honolulu (; ) is the capital and largest city of the U.S. state of Hawaii, which is in the Pacific Ocean. It is an unincorporated county seat of the consolidated City and County of Honolulu, situated along the southeast coast of the island o ...

, he began his career in

Cincinnati, Ohio Cincinnati ( ) is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Hamilton County. Settled in 1788, the city is located at the northern side of the confluence of the Licking and Ohio rivers, the latter of which marks the state line wi ...

, and is currently based in

Los Angeles, California Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the world' ...

. In addition to uploading videos on his main YouTube channel, he is a co-founder of clothing company Cloak with fellow YouTuber

Jacksepticeye Seán William McLoughlin (born 7 February 1990), better known as Jacksepticeye, is an Irish YouTuber, best known for his vlogs and comedic Let's Play series. , his channel has over 15.7 billion views and 28.9 million subscribers, and is the m ...

and a co-host of the ''Distractible'' podcast alongside LordMinion777 and Muyskerm. He also co-hosted the now defunct Unus Annus channel. , his channel has over 19.2 billion video views and 34 million subscribers. Fischbach specializes in

Let's Play A Let's Play (LP) is a video (or screenshots accompanied by text) documenting the playthrough of a video game, often including commentary and/or a camera view of the gamer's face. A Let's Play differs from a video game walkthrough or strat ...

videos, commonly of

survival horror Survival horror is a subgenre of survival of the players as the game tries to frighten them with either horror graphics or scary ambience. Although combat can be part of the gameplay, the player is made to feel less in control than in typical ac ...

video games.

YouTube career

Channel format

Fischbach has collaborated on sketch comedy and gaming videos with a number of fellow

s, including CrankGameplays,

, LordMinion777, Muyskerm,

PewDiePie Felix Arvid Ulf Kjellberg ( , ; born 24 October 1989), better known as PewDiePie ( ), is a Swedish YouTuber known for his Let's Play videos and comedic formatted videos and shows. Kjellberg's popularity on YouTube and extensive media coverage ...

, Matthias, ''

Game Grumps ''Game Grumps'' is an American Let's Play web series hosted by Arin Hanson and Dan Avidan. Created in 2012 by co-hosts Hanson and Jon Jafari, the series centers around its hosts playing video games. After Jafari left the show in 2013 to focus o ...

'', Cyndago, Yamimash,

jacksfilms John Patrick "Jack" Douglass (born June 30, 1988), better known as jacksfilms, is an American YouTuber. Douglass began his online career in 2006. His YouTube channel initially consisted of infomercial parodies, sketches, and comedic music video ...

, CaptainSparklez, Egoraptor and LixianTV, who currently works as his editor. He has also collaborated with celebrities such as Jack Black and

Jimmy Kimmel James Christian Kimmel (born November 13, 1967) is an American television host, comedian, writer, and producer. He is the host and executive producer of ''Jimmy Kimmel Live!'', a late-night talk show that premiered on ABC on January 26, 2003, ...

. A recurring staple of Fischbach's channel are charity live streams, which features him playing games while campaigning and collecting donations for various charities, including

Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center (CCHMC) is an academic pediatric acute care children's hospital located in the Pill Hill neighborhood of Cincinnati, Ohio. The hospital has 652 pediatric beds and is affiliated with the University ...

, the Depression and Bipolar Support Alliance, and

Best Friends Animal Society Best Friends Animal Society, (BFAS) founded in its present form in 1993, is an American nonprofit 501(c)(3) animal welfare organization. BFAS does outreach nationwide with shelters, rescue groups and members to promote pet adoption, no-kill an ...

History

Early years and growth (2012–2014)

Fischbach first joined YouTube on March 6, 2012, creating a channel under the username "Markiplier", and uploaded his first video on April 4, 2012. Fischbach's original intent for the channel was sketch comedy where he would be portraying all of the characters in the sketches. This led to the creation of the name "Markiplier", a

portmanteau A portmanteau word, or portmanteau (, ) is a blend of wordsPenumbra'' and ''

Dead Space ''Dead Space'' is a science fiction/ horror media franchise created by Glen Schofield and Michael Condrey, developed by Visceral Games, and published and owned by Electronic Arts. The franchise's chronology is not presented in a linear format; ...

'', YouTube banned Fischbach's

AdSense Google AdSense is a program run by Google through which website publishers in the Google Network of content sites serve text, images, video, or interactive media advertisements that are targeted to the site content and audience. These advert ...

account, and he created a new channel on May 26, 2012, markiplierGAME. In 2014, the MarkiplierGAME channel was listed on

NewMediaRockstars ''NewMediaRockstars'' (''NMR'') is an online magazine which was launched in December 2011 and primarily covers YouTube performers, entrepreneurs, and artists with videos and interviews. In 2013, ''NewMediaRockstars'' closed because of lack of fund ...

Top 100 Channels, ranked at number 61. That year, Fischbach announced he was planning to move to Los Angeles, California to be closer to other resources for his channel, such as the YouTube Space and other content creators. In August 2014, Fischbach began his famous ''

Five Nights at Freddy's ''Five Nights at Freddy's'' (''FNaF'') is a media franchise created by Scott Cawthon. The first video game of the same name was released on August 8, 2014, and the resultant series has since gained worldwide popularity. The main series cons ...

'' playthrough, which became his most popular playthrough to date, the first part having over 100 million views as of February 2022. Due to the success of this series, Fischbach played the other games in the FNAF franchise, and also had a cameo in '' Five Nights at Freddy's AR: Special Delivery''. Fischbach and fellow YouTuber Jenna Mae appeared on '' Jimmy Kimmel Live!'' in September 2015 following backlash Kimmel received regarding jokes he made about YouTube and

videos. In 2015, he was rated sixth in a list of the twenty most influential celebrities among teenagers in the United States.

Hiatus and breaking 10 million subscribers (2015)

Markiplier at PAX Prime 2015 (21089673355)

Beginning in 2015, Fischbach lived with fellow YouTubers Daniel Kyre and Ryan Magee, who created and ran the YouTube sketch comedy and music channel Cyndago. Matt Watson from Kids w/ Problems later joined Cyndago after they moved to Los Angeles. Their work was noted for having unexpected endings and dark, often disturbing, humor. Cyndago disbanded following the death of Daniel Kyre. At the time of their disbandment, the group had made forty sketches and fourteen original songs, many of them featuring Fischbach. After the death of Daniel Kyre and disbandment of Cyndago, Fischbach temporarily went on hiatus from September 17, 2015 to October 5, 2015. He returned and reached 10 million subscribers on October 15, 2015.

Continued growth and larger projects (2015–2019)

Fischbach co-hosted the 2015 South by Southwest Gaming Awards with ''

The Legend of Korra ''The Legend of Korra'' (abbreviated as TLOK), also known as ''Avatar: The Legend of Korra'' or simply ''Korra'', is an American Anime-influenced animation, anime-influenced Animated series, animated television series created by Michael Dante ...

'' voice actor

Janet Varney Janet Varney (born February 16, 1976) is an American actress, comedian, writer and producer, known for voicing Korra in the Nickelodeon animated television series ''The Legend of Korra'', co-starring as Sheriff Evie Barret in the television ser ...

, and was featured in

YouTube Rewind ''YouTube Rewind'' (stylized as ''YouTube ЯEWIND'') was an annual video series produced and created by YouTube and Portal A Interactive from 2010 to 2019. The videos were an overview and a recap of each year's viral videos, events, trends, an ...

. Throughout 2016, Fischbach moved some of his focus to comedy sketches, showing his aspiration of

improvisational theatre Improvisational theatre, often called improvisation or improv, is the form of theatre, often comedy, in which most or all of what is performed is unplanned or unscripted: created spontaneously by the performers. In its purest form, the dialogue, a ...

. In 2017, Fischbach posted an interactive ''

Choose Your Own Adventure ''Choose Your Own Adventure'' is a series of children's gamebooks where each story is written from a second-person point of view, with the reader assuming the role of the protagonist and making choices that determine the main character's actio ...

''-style video titled ''A Date with Markiplier'', which was well received by fans. On March 29, 2018, Fischbach announced his YouTube channel had surpassed 20 million subscribers. Markiplier (29479429937)

In October 2019, Fischbach announced a new ''Choose Your Own Adventure''-style story similar to ''A Date With Markiplier'', a ''

YouTube Originals YouTube Premium, formerly known as YouTube Red, is a subscription service that provides advertising-free streaming of all videos hosted by YouTube, offline play and background playback of videos on mobile devices, access to advertising-free mus ...

'' production titled ''

A Heist with Markiplier ''A Heist with Markiplier'' is a 2019 interactive comedy heist television special written and directed by Mark Fischbach, better known by his online pseudonym Markiplier. The film stars Fischbach, as well as Rosanna Pansino, Matthew Patrick, an ...

''. Produced by Fischbach and

Rooster Teeth Rooster Teeth Productions, LLC is an American digital media company headquartered in Austin, Texas. Founded in 2003 by Burnie Burns, Matt Hullum, Geoff Ramsey, Jason Saldaña, Gus Sorola, and Joel Heyman, Rooster Teeth is a subsidiary of W ...

, the series contains 31 possible endings and features other YouTubers such as Rosanna Pansino, Matthew Patrick, and ''Game Grumps''.

Unus Annus (2019–2020)

On November 15, 2019, Fischbach launched a new channel with fellow YouTuber Ethan Nestor (known online as CrankGameplays) called Unus Annus, a channel which planned to upload a video every day for one year, after which the channel would be deleted along with its videos. The channel rose to early success, gaining 1 million subscribers in its first 5 days and 4.56 million in its last few minutes, and over 11.5 million video views in its first week. Following a final 12-hour live stream that peaked at over 1.5 million concurrent viewers, the channel was deleted by Fischbach and Nestor on November 14, 2020, at 12:00 a.m. PST.

Other ventures

Fischbach joined the board of comic book publisher

Red Giant Entertainment Red Giant Entertainment, Inc. is a Florida-headquartered comic book publisher and "transmedia" entertainment company established in 2005. Red Giant was founded by Benny R. Powell, former marketing writer for Priceline.com. Other key players ...

in November 2014. In June of that year at the

San Diego Comic-Con San Diego Comic-Con International is a comic book convention and nonprofit multi-genre entertainment event held annually in San Diego, California since 1970. The name, as given on its website, is Comic-Con International: San Diego; but it is ...

, he co-hosted a panel with figures from the company including CEO

Benny R. Powell Red Giant Entertainment, Inc. is a Florida-headquartered comic book publisher and "transmedia" entertainment company established in 2005. Red Giant was founded by Benny R. Powell, former marketing writer for Priceline.com. Other key players i ...

, and writers

David Campiti David Campiti (born May 9, 1958) is an United States of America, American animation producer, comic book writer, talent agent, and co-founder of Innovation Publishing. As CEO of Glass House Graphics, Campiti oversees an international animation stu ...

, Mort Castle, David Lawrence, and Brian Augustyn. In 2016, it was announced that he would appear in his own line of comics. Fischbach signed with Endeavor in late 2016, having expressed interest in branching out from YouTube content. Since 2017, he has voiced the character 5.0.5 in the Cartoon Network series '' Villainous''.

Podcasting and streaming

Fischbach, along with Wade Barnes (LordMinion777) and Bob Muyskens (Muyskerm) has streamed a podcast on Twitch called ''3 Peens in a Podcast'' from 2018 to 2021, where the trio discussed current events and plays multiplayer games. In 2019, Fischbach co-produced and starred in ''The Edge of Sleep'', an episodic audio drama released on iTunes which follows a night watchman and a group of survivors in a world where those who fell asleep suddenly died one night. In May 2021, Fischbach announced that he, Barnes, and Muyskens would be launching a podcast called ''Distractible''. The podcast is prerecorded and produced by QCode's label Wood Elf, and streams on

Spotify Spotify (; ) is a proprietary Swedish audio streaming and media services provider founded on 23 April 2006 by Daniel Ek and Martin Lorentzon. It is one of the largest music streaming service providers, with over 456 million monthly active us ...

and

Apple Podcasts Apple Podcasts (known as simply Podcasts in Apple operating systems) is an audio streaming service and media player application developed by Apple Inc. for playing podcasts. Apple began supporting podcasts with iTunes 4.9 released in June 200 ...

. Within a week of its debut, its first episode rose to No. 1 on the Spotify and Apple Podcast charts. In February 2022, he launched another podcast co-hosted by Tyler Schield, named ''Go! My Favorite Sports Team'', which also became the No. 1 ranked sports-related podcast on Spotify.

Cloak

In 2018, Markiplier announced the launch of a new fashion brand called Cloak, in a joint venture with

. The brand was envisioned and launched as a gamer-focused

athleisure Athleisure is a hybrid style of athletic clothing typically worn as everyday wear. Athleisure outfits can include yoga pants, tights, sneakers, leggings and shorts that look like athletic wear, characterized as "fashionable, dressed-up sweats a ...

line distinct from their personal merchandise. The brand has released collaborations with

Mojang Studios Mojang Studios is a Swedish video game developer based in Stockholm. The studio is best known for developing the sandbox and survival game ''Minecraft'', the best-selling video game of all time. Mojang Studios was founded by the independen ...

, and The Oregon Trail. In 2020, fellow YouTuber and streamer

Pokimane Imane Anys (; Arabic: إِيمَان أَنِيس, born 14 May 1996), better known as Pokimane ( or ), is a Moroccan-Canadian Twitch streamer and YouTuber. She is best known for her live streams on Twitch, broadcasting video game content, mos ...

joined Cloak as a partner and creative director.

Philanthropy

Fischbach has participated in multiple charity live streams and fundraisers. In 2017, ''Forbes'' reported that Fischbach and his fans raised around $3 million for charity through these events. In March 2018, in celebration of reaching 20 million subscribers, Fischbach announced he would donate all proceeds from a 48-hour sale of his "Tasteful Nudes" Charity Calendar to the

Cancer Research Institute The Cancer Research Institute (CRI) is a US non-profit organization funding cancer research and based in New York City. They were founded in 1953 to develop immunologically-based treatments for cancer, and despite their name are a funding body fo ...

; he raised over $490,000 for the charity and won the 2020 Oliver R. Grace Award.

OnlyFans

The success of the Tasteful Nudes Calendar inspired Fischbach to start an account on

OnlyFans OnlyFans is an internet content subscription service based in London, United Kingdom. The service is used primarily by sex workers who produce pornography, but it also hosts the work of other content creators, such as physical fitness exper ...

, whose proceeds will be split evenly between the

Cincinnati Children's Hospital Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center (CCHMC) is an academic pediatric acute care children's hospital located in the Pill Hill neighborhood of Cincinnati, Ohio. The hospital has 652 pediatric beds and is affiliated with the University o ...

and the

World Food Programme The World Food Programme; it, Programma alimentare mondiale; es, Programa Mundial de Alimentos; ar, برنامج الأغذية العالمي, translit=barnamaj al'aghdhiat alealami; russian: Всемирная продовольствен� ...

. He had a set of conditions that had to be met first before launching the page: The first condition was that his ''Distractible'' podcast had to become the most popular podcast on Apple Podcast and

, the second condition was that a sports podcast he created with a friend had to become the most popular sports podcast in the United States and the rest of the world. The third and final condition was that fans had to pay an admission of $12 for his documentary ''Markiplier From North Korea'', a documentary based on his mother's life story about him getting back in touch with the rest of his family. The conditions were met faster than he was prepared for. On November 2, 2022, he announced in a YouTube video that he was going to create the page at the end of the month, after making an initial batch of "tasteful nudes" and getting the username from someone who was impersonating him. The page was launched on December 9, 2022, and the influx of traffic caused the site to crash.

Personal life

Markiplier Video Screenshot From Youtube May 26 2014

Mark Edward Fischbach was born on June 28, 1989 at the

Tripler Army Medical Center Tripler Army Medical Center (TAMC) is a major United States Department of Defense medical facility administered by the United States Army in the state of Hawaii. It is the tertiary care hospital in the Pacific Rim, serving local active and retire ...

Honolulu Honolulu (; ) is the capital and largest city of the U.S. state of Hawaii, which is in the Pacific Ocean. It is an unincorporated county seat of the consolidated City and County of Honolulu, situated along the southeast coast of the island ...

Hawaii Hawaii ( ; haw, Hawaii or ) is a state in the Western United States, located in the Pacific Ocean about from the U.S. mainland. It is the only U.S. state outside North America, the only state that is an archipelago, and the only state ...

, to Cliffton M. Fischbach (1941–2008), a German American who served in the U.S. Army, and to Sunok Frank (born 1964), a retired Korean nurse. His parents met when his father was stationed in Korea. After he was born, his family moved to

Cincinnati Cincinnati ( ) is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Hamilton County. Settled in 1788, the city is located at the northern side of the confluence of the Licking and Ohio rivers, the latter of which marks the state line wit ...

Ohio Ohio () is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States. Of the fifty U.S. states, it is the 34th-largest by area, and with a population of nearly 11.8 million, is the seventh-most populous and tenth-most densely populated. The sta ...

, where he was raised. He grew up in

Milford, Ohio Milford is a city in Clermont and Hamilton counties founded in 1796, in the U.S. state of Ohio, along the Little Miami River and its East Fork in the southwestern part of the state. It is a part of the Greater Cincinnati metropolitan area. The ...

, and attended Milford High School where he was a member of the school's

marching band A marching band is a group of musical instrument, instrumental musicians who perform while marching, often for entertainment or competition. Instrumentation typically includes brass instrument, brass, woodwind instrument, woodwind, and percus ...

where he played

trumpet The trumpet is a brass instrument commonly used in classical and jazz ensembles. The trumpet group ranges from the piccolo trumpet—with the highest register in the brass family—to the bass trumpet, pitched one octave below the standard ...

. He has an older brother, Jason Thomas "Tom" Fischbach (born 1987), an artist and author of the webcomic ''Twokinds''. While Tom Fischbach is featured in some videos, he mostly stays away from allowing his face to be filmed. Fischbach studied

biomedical engineering Biomedical engineering (BME) or medical engineering is the application of engineering principles and design concepts to medicine and biology for healthcare purposes (e.g., diagnostic or therapeutic). BME is also traditionally logical sciences ...

at the

University of Cincinnati The University of Cincinnati (UC or Cincinnati) is a public research university in Cincinnati, Ohio. Founded in 1819 as Cincinnati College, it is the oldest institution of higher education in Cincinnati and has an annual enrollment of over 44,0 ...

, but dropped out to pursue his YouTube career. On June 19, 2018, Fischbach's step-niece, Miranda Cracraft, was killed in a car accident at the age of 19. On June 26, 2018, Fischbach released a video with her father, thanking his fanbase for their support. Through

GoFundMe GoFundMe is an American for-profit crowdfunding platform that allows people to raise money for events ranging from life events such as celebrations and graduations to challenging circumstances like accidents and illnesses. From 2010 to the be ...

, he raised more than $79,000 for Cracraft's funeral.

Political views

While not endorsing a specific political party, Fischbach described himself as a "

liberal Liberal or liberalism may refer to: Politics * a supporter of liberalism ** Liberalism by country * an adherent of a Liberal Party * Liberalism (international relations) * Sexually liberal feminism * Social liberalism Arts, entertainment and m ...

". He has expressed support for

universal health care Universal health care (also called universal health coverage, universal coverage, or universal care) is a health care system in which all residents of a particular country or region are assured access to health care. It is generally organized ar ...

and stricter gun control following the Stoneman Douglas High School shooting. Fischbach is an ally of the

LGBT rights movement Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) movements are social movements that advocate for LGBT people in society. Some focus on equal rights, such as the ongoing movement for same-sex marriage, while others focus on liberation, as in the ...

, having raised money for the Human Rights Campaign in one of his charity live streams. In 2020, he condemned the

murder of George Floyd On , George Floyd, a 46-year-old black man, was murdered in the U.S. city of Minneapolis by Derek Chauvin, a 44-year-old white police officer. Floyd had been arrested on suspicion of using a counterfeit $20 bill. Chauvin knelt on Floyd's ...

. In 2022, Fischbach opposed the overturning of Roe v. Wade, describing it as "an erosion of women's rights".

Filmography

Film

Television and web series

Video games

Awards and nominations

References

External links

* * * {{Portal bar, Biography, Video games, California 1989 births Living people 20th-century American people 21st-century American male actors 21st-century American people 21st-century philanthropists American people of German descent American people of Korean descent American YouTubers Charity fundraisers (people) English-language YouTube channels Gaming-related YouTube channels Gaming YouTubers Internet memes introduced in 2014 Let's Players OnlyFans creators People from Cincinnati People from Los Angeles People from Honolulu Revelmode people Twitch (service) streamers Video game commentators YouTube channels launched in 2012 YouTube vloggers American male YouTubers