Video: YouTuber Mark “Markiplier” Fischbach reflects on his video history

Video directed by Morgan Crossley, edited by Dylan Blau & Louville Moore. Transcript will be available in the next hour or so (it's still processing).

We're going to try something a little different this afternoon. Some of Ars' highest-performing YouTube videos have focused on gaming topics-like how designers created Dead Space's grab-tentacle or how Amnesia: The Dark Descent tricks players into terrifying themselves (though we've also done well with non-gaming topics, like exploring the phenomenon of flat earthers and even interviewing famous NASA people).

Which leads us to Mark "Markiplier" Fischbach. He runs one of the most popular gaming channels on YouTube, with (currently) just a hair under 25 million subscribers.

The Condi(C) mothership informed us late last month that they had gotten some time with Markiplier and wanted to know if we were interested in filming something with him-and we took the plunge. Markiplier has a loud personality and is best known for his mugging at the camera while doing "Let's Play" videos on jump-scare games, but we wanted to see if we could capture a calmer, more introspective Markiplier than most folks might be used to seeing, looking over the past several years of the YouTube content creator landscape and discussing his successes-and his not-so-successes. It's an interesting glimpse into a world that a lot of regular Ars readers (myself included) might not be that familiar with-an alternate reality of content creation, where YouTube comments actually matter and trying to figure out how to maintain engagement is critical to success.

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