What the Sheet is up with Markiplier

 

What the Sheet is up with Markiplier?

To begin, let’s talk about who Markiplier is, what he does, how he does it and why we even care.

Mark Edward Fischbach, known by his YouTube handle Markiplier, is an American actor, voice actor, comedian, internet personality, video game commentator and philanthropist.

-Wiki

The above quote is a good summary of him and some of the things he has done. From a fan perspective, I can tell you that he is famous for ‘Let’s Play’ videos on Youtube. He films him something playing various video games, often in hilarious ways, and uploads them every single day in chunks to sate the thirst of over six million fans. He began in May 26th of 2012 and has been loyal ever since. He regularly participates in charity live streams in order to give back to the community using his best assets.  In short, he is an awesome guy who loves video games and makes others laugh by throwing himself in often terrifying games.

In Feburary of 2015 Markiplier hit 6,000,000 subscribers. A massive achievement by anyone’s standard. This is even larger than one of his biggest and well known sister channels Game Grumps who also do Let’s Play videos for the amusement of others who currently have 2,171,829 subs.  So naturally, you’d think he would be ecstatic about all of this!

And he was! (Kind of)

In this video dubbed “Pursuit of Happiness” that he released shortly after hitting 6 million. In the video he thanks his fans, tells all of us that we put him there and that it’s been a great journey. However, I couldn’t help but feel a sense of…something behind his eyes. As though they were filled of sadness with a twinge of being overwhelmed. I didn’t think much of it and moved on and sure enough another video came along.

In this one named “Rough Day” he informed us that he wouldn’t be making another video due to having to say goodbye to someone that mean a lot to him. While this is completely understandable, he is only human and everyone has days that they just need to take a break and relax, this is the second video in which he seems defeated by life. Again, this doesn’t seem like too big a deal in the grand scheme of things…Right?

Finally, a video entitled: Markiplier is BACK!! (with plenty of feels) is uploaded and he informs us all that he is lonely, realizes it, the 6 million subs and their love for the show weigh heavily on him and he is struggling to cope with it. Showing once again that he is human. A human is a very rare and exclusive position where he feels obligated on all fronts to continue burning the wick at both ends.

 

So once again we ask ourselves, what the sheet is up with Markiplier? 

I will fully admit that my first reaction to seeing M is back with feels, I legitimately felt for him. I can imagine how rough life must be working every single day, hustling to please so many fans, some of which will rage and spew hate left and right no matter what he does, and see his personal life melt away. He mentioned in that video how he wishes he could have that player 2 by his side that does not have to do the same thing he does but is at least there for him and supports him when he is down. At that level of fame, there must be a sea of gold diggers looking to get their 15 minutes of fame. I’m sure at first it was awesome being the center of attention everywhere he went but I can tell that weighs on some people. Considering all this, I would probably be depressed for a while as well. I’d even stop making videos for a bit just so that my sanity remains intact!

My second reaction as I saw more of his personal videos was one of cynicism. “Could this all be a PR stunt?” I thought to myself as I saw tears flow in most personal videos and saw that he is credited with being an actor and knowing that he has knowledge as to what the people want. I mean, I’m not even mad at all, it worked on me if that is what he is doing. It’s a legitimate strategy. I watch Game Grumps religiously because of their comedic style and every video I am rewarded for my loyalty with more of the same type of content. So it’s perfectly normal to see Markiplier do the same thing with his fans by having humorous videos but also giving them what they want: more about himself as a personal, his thoughts and his feelings. If so, I was glued to my monitor for the duration of those videos, wondering how deep these videos would go or if we were going to see a grown man cry. So this ploy was a success! Because you have to admit, if something was incredibly deep and serious to you as a person, you keep that shit locked up. He had to record it, edit it and then decide to hit the upload button. I would have just deleted the video and made a vague post on all social media platforms. But then again, this may be why he is where he is and I am where I am.

Or! Maybe this is just who the guy is and this is how he lives his life. It’s also possible for him to not be malicious or conniving and just doing his own thing. There are so many people in this world, all of which are different in wonderful ways. Markiplier might just be a guy who loves doing funny lets plays while also throwing in some emotional videos on the side.

 

In conclusion

Markiplier is an awesome guy. He has helped so many people over the years, even if his emotional videos were a ploy and he is an awesome actor that he can cry on demand then it’s cool. The people who have benefited from his charity work and gotten through tough times by laughing at him play Five Nights At Freddys then who cares. Speaking from my heart though, I do hope it’s a ploy. because if he is truly in pain and suffering, that is one of the saddest positions to be in and I hope that he understands that we, the fans, have his best interests at heart and hope he does take some time off to have an actual life.

You can find Markiplier at Youtube, Tumblr, Twitter and Facebook. All images and videos taken from his twitter and youtube channel.