Mark Edward Fischbach (/ˈfɪʃˌbɑːk/ FISH-bahk; born June 28, 1989), known online as Markiplier, is an American YouTuber, comedian, actor, filmmaker, and influencer.

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; as of 2024, his channel had over 37 million subscribers.

[‡ 8]: 0:15 [7] His father Cliffton was a German American military officer who met his Korean mother, Sunok Frank, while stationed in South Korea.

[‡ 9]: 3:14  Fischbach graduated from Milford High School in 2007 and enrolled at the University of Cincinnati, where he took a biomedical engineering program.

[11] 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.

[12] 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.

[9] 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".

[13]Fischbach and Janet Varney co-hosted the 2015 South by Southwest Gaming Awards,[16] and he was featured in YouTube Rewind.

[21] His first project with WME was his "You're Welcome Tour" in Spring 2017, in which Fischbach and four other YouTubers—Muyskerm, Barnes, Tyler Schied, and Ethan Nestor—performed 31 shows across the United States and Europe.

[13] Taking five months to plan, he incorporated musical, comedy, and improv elements and audience participation in the tour.

[14] In January 2018, Fischbach began producing exclusive content for Twitch as part of a deal with Disney Digital Network.

[24] His YouTube channel reached 20 million subscribers in March,[‡ 13] before going on another hiatus in June to mourn his step-niece Miranda Cracraft, who had been killed in a car accident aged nineteen, raising over $79,000 for her funeral through GoFundMe.

[30][31] 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.

The first project from QCode's Wood Elf label,[a] The Edge of Sleep debuted September 2019,[35] and was renewed for a second season set for 2023.

[36] Fischbach reprises his role in a television remake produced by New Regency, in which Lio Tipton and Eve Harlow also star.

[40][43] On April 21, Deadline announced that Fischbach had begun production on a film adaptation of the 2022 indie horror game Iron Lung by David Szymanski.

[54] In October 2018, Fischbach and fellow YouTuber Seán McLoughlin launched the clothing line Cloak, aimed at the gaming community.

[56] The success of the Tasteful Nudes Calendar inspired Fischbach to start an account on OnlyFans, whose proceeds will be split evenly between the Cincinnati Children's Hospital and the World Food Programme.

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 obtaining the "Markiplier" handle from an impersonator.

Fischbach's videos included his struggles to beat the game's hardest mode and decipher the complicated hidden story the resulting franchise is now known for.

[61]: 4:28 Fischbach has collaborated on sketch comedy and gaming videos with a number of fellow YouTubers, including Ethan Nestor, Jacksepticeye, LordMinion777, Muyskerm, PewDiePie, Matthias, Game Grumps, Cyndago, Yamimash, jacksfilms, CaptainSparklez, Egoraptor and LixianTV, the last of whom currently works as his editor.