Markiplier

Verified Timeline

Lore & Background

Mark Edward Fischbach was born on June 28, 1989, in Honolulu, Hawaii. His father Cliffton Morris Fischbach Jr. was a German American military officer who met his mother, Sunok Frank, while stationed in South Korea. After Fischbach was born, the family moved to Cincinnati, Ohio, but his parents divorced when he was still young. Fischbach graduated from Milford High School in 2007 and enrolled at the University of Cincinnati in a biomedical engineering program. His father died in 2008 when Fischbach was 18 years old. In 2012, Fischbach was beset by many different issues: he went through a breakup, was laid off from 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." He registered his first YouTube channel on March 6, 2012, originally intending 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. 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. He dropped out of college the same year to support his growing online career, only two semesters away from graduating. In early 2014, Fischbach moved to Los Angeles to be closer to potential business opportunities.

Reader's Guide

Markiplier's significance lies in his rise as one of YouTube's most influential creators, particularly through his Let's Play videos of indie horror games, which helped popularize the genre on the platform. He created interactive YouTube Originals (A Heist with Markiplier and In Space with Markiplier), hosted top-charting podcasts (Distractible and Go! My Favorite Sports Team), and signed with talent agencies William Morris Endeavor in 2016 and United Talent Agency in 2023. His legacy includes expanding the possibilities for YouTubers to cross into film, television, and podcasting. He starred in the series The Edge of Sleep (2024) and made his theatrical debut directing, producing, writing, and starring in the horror film Iron Lung (2026).

Did You Know?

• Fischbach's maternal grandfather was a North Korean defector, and his maternal family history is covered in the 2022 documentary film Markiplier from North Korea.
• He met Wade Barnes in sixth grade and roomed with Bob Muyskens in his freshman year of college; they would both become his long-term friends and collaborators.
• In September 2015, Fischbach and fellow YouTuber Jenna Mae appeared on Jimmy Kimmel Live! following backlash Kimmel received regarding jokes he made about YouTube and Let's Play videos.
• Fischbach and Ethan Nestor launched the channel Unus Annus on November 15, 2019, which uploaded a video every day for one year and was then deleted along with its videos on November 14, 2020.
• In August 2026, Fischbach filed a declaration with the Securities Exchange Commission that he bought approximately $9.3 million worth of shares of GoPro, approximately 8.5% of the available shares, making him the largest individual shareholder.