Markiplier

Mark Edward Fischbach (born June 28, 1989), known online as Markiplier, is an American YouTuber, actor and filmmaker.

He mainly uploads Let's Plays and is known for his videos of indie horror games.

Mark Edward Fischbach was born on June 28, 1989, in Honolulu, Hawaii.

His father Cliffton was a military officer who met his Korean mother Sunok Frank while stationed in South Korea.

Fischbach's maternal family history is explored in the 2022 documentary Markiplier from North Korea.

After Fischbach was born, the family moved to Cincinnati, Ohio, but his parents divorced when he was young.

Fischbach graduated from Milford High School in 2007 and enrolled at the University of Cincinnati, where he took a biomedical engineering program.

His father died in 2008.

Fischbach met Wade Barnes in sixth grade and roomed with Bob Muyskens in his freshman year—they would both become his long-term friends and collaborators.

His first series was a Let's Play of Amnesia: The Dark Descent (2010), and the channel reached over 94,000 subscribers within the year.

YouTubers with over one thousand subscribers were then eligible to earn money under YouTube's AdSense program.

However, Fischbach had problems with his AdSense account which prevented him from monetizing his videos, and he was forced to move to his current channel in April, originally named "markiplierGAME".

He dropped out of university the same year to support his growing online career, only two semesters away from graduating.

He reached 10 million subscribers on the 15th.

After joining YouTube in 2012, Fischbach became popular on the platform with Let's Plays of Amnesia: The Dark Descent (2010) and the Five Nights at Freddy's series.

, his channel has over 35 million subscribers.

In 2012, Fischbach was beset by many different issues: he went through a breakup, was laid off of his job, moved to an apartment after his mother kicked him out of her house, had an emergency appendectomy and went into debt.

After being hospitalized because of an adrenal tumor, he "decided that he wanted to do something else."

Fischbach registered his first YouTube channel on March 6, 2012.

He originally intended to upload comedy sketches and action videos.

He named the channel "Markiplier", a portmanteau of Mark and multiplier, as he would be portraying all the characters in the sketches.

Fischbach later said it was a "really dumb name".

However, Fischbach also had a lifelong interest in video games and decided to do gaming videos while the trend was growing.

In early 2014, Fischbach moved to Los Angeles to be closer to potential business opportunities.

Fischbach and Janet Varney co-hosted the 2015 South by Southwest Gaming Awards, and he was featured in YouTube Rewind.

He was ranked sixth in a list of the twenty most influential celebrities among teenagers in the United States.

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 Let's Play videos.

Fischbach began living with fellow YouTubers Daniel Kyre and Ryan Magee, who ran the YouTube channel Cyndago.

In September 2015, Kyre was found in critical condition after attempting suicide in his room.

He was hospitalized, but was taken off life support two days later.

Cyndago was disbanded and Fischbach went on hiatus from YouTube for a month before returning on October 5.

After expressing an interest in more traditional entertainment, Fischbach signed with talent agency William Morris Endeavor in 2016.

In November 2016, Fischbach signed with talent agency William Morris Endeavor (WME).

In the following years, he went on a live tour, started a clothing line named Cloak, wrote and directed the YouTube Original series A Heist with Markiplier (2019) and In Space with Markiplier (2022), and hosted or co-hosted several podcaststwo of which reached No. 1 on Spotify.

In 2023, Fischbach moved to United Talent Agency.

In April 2023, Fischbach announced he was leading production of the horror film Iron Lung, which will be his theatrical film debut.

Fischbach is one of the most popular gaming YouTubers on the platform.

He was listed by Forbes as the third highest-paid content creator on the platform in 2022, and has won four Streamy Awards and a Golden Joystick Award for "Best Streamer/Broadcaster".

He has also ventured into other forms of media, such as podcasts, web series, and films.

He is set to make his feature film debut in Iron Lung.