Markiplier. If you're part of the relatively younger crowd, you may have heard of this name before, and rightfully so: he is perhaps one of the biggest gaming YouTubers this side of... well, anywhere.
NEW YORK, NEW YORK - NOVEMBER 12: YouTuber Mark Edward Fischbach aka Markiplier attends the Build Series to discuss his new game "A Heist with Markiplier" at Build Studio on November 12, 2019 in New York City.
As of this moment, Mark Fischbach's channel boasts an insane 31.4 million subscribers, who have watched his over 5,000 videos 11 billion times. However, he is perhaps one of the more different gaming influencers and YouTubers out there, based on how he approaches his work.
'I Find A Game And I Play It, Not Much To It'
In a piece by the New York Times, Fischbach mentioned that unlike other big-time YouTube gamers who likely plan which game they want to play next, he just picks a game and plays it, saying there's "not much to it."
This likely has been his modus ever since starting his channel in 2012. Back then, he was a biomedical engineering student at the University of Cincinnati. Recording himself playing video games was more of an emotional outlet, because 2012 was a tough year for him.
TODAY -- Pictured: Markiplier on Tuesday, November 19, 2019
Speaking to Forbes, Fischbach revealed that he was going through a bad breakup, was fired from his job, and had a tumor in his adrenal gland. His YouTube channel was apparently a way of him having something under his control for once.
Small Beginnings
When he started, it likely wasn't as smooth sailing as he anticipated. He mentioned that he was in debt during the first few months of his YouTube career, earning "tens of dollars." But two years later, his content started to take off in a big way.
Markiplier started off with compilations of his reactions playing the horror game "Amnesia." To date, the video has racked up 3.1 million views. This is likely what gave him his niche in the YouTube gaming community, as he is now known as a guy who mostly plays horror and indie games:
Evolving Content
His videos would eventually include the normal YouTube gamer fare: walkthroughs of popular games (once again, mostly horror and indie titles). He has also done a few funny skits, several movies funded by YouTube, so-called "try not to laugh challenges" and vlogs, among others.
He has also appeared in a film titled "A Heist With Markiplier:"
With how he has evolved his content, he is now among the highest-paid stars on the streaming platform. According to CelebrityNetworth, Fischbach reportedly earns between $10-$20 million a year from all his online endeavors. He also earned roughly $60 million between 2017 and 2020. Today, Markiplier's net worth is approximately $35 million.
Markiplier doesn't seem to have a "secret recipe" to his success. According to him, all he wants to do is to play a game and try to be as entertaining as possible. He actually calls himself a "professional screamer," likely owing to his tendency to play mostly horror games where his characteristically deep voice provides the necessary entertainment value.
What's Next?
Right now, Fischbach has mostly stuck to what made his channel famous in the first place. However, he did express an interest in branching out to different forms of entertainment, such as music and acting-evident in his signing with the talent agency William Morris Endeavor (WME) back in 2016, as per TubeFilter.
In a WIRED autocomplete interview, he has also revealed that he is very much into board games at the moment-mentioning one called "Nemesis" as his current favorite.
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Written by RJ Pierce
