Mark Edward Fischbach (born June 28, 1989), known professionally as Markiplier, is an American YouTuber, filmmaker, and actor. He is one of the most popular creators on YouTube, where he is famous for making "Let's Play" videos of indie horror games. In 2022, Forbes listed him as the third-highest-paid content creator on the platform. He has won four Streamy Awards and a Golden Joystick Award. His success on YouTube led to a career in acting and filmmaking.

Fischbach joined YouTube in 2012 and gained popularity with "Let's Play" videos of the games Amnesia: The Dark Descent and Five Nights at Freddy's. As of February 25, 2026, his YouTube channel has over 38 million subscribers. In 2016, he signed with the talent agency William Morris Endeavor. While working with the agency, he launched a clothing line, wrote and directed the YouTube Original series A Heist with Markiplier (2019) and In Space with Markiplier (2022), and hosted or co-hosted two podcasts that reached No. 1 on Spotify.

In 2023, Fischbach signed with United Talent Agency and was nominated for a Children's and Family Emmy Award. He appeared in the series The Edge of Sleep (2024) and made his theatrical debut by directing, producing, writing, and starring in the horror film Iron Lung (2026).

Early life and education

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 working in South Korea. Mark’s maternal grandfather was a person who left North Korea. His mother’s family story is included in the 2022 documentary film Markiplier from North Korea.

After Mark was born, his family moved to Cincinnati, Ohio. His parents divorced when he was young. Mark graduated from Milford High School in 2007 and began studying biomedical engineering at the University of Cincinnati. His father passed away in 2008 when Mark was 18 years old. Mark met Wade Barnes during sixth grade and shared a room with Bob Muyskens during his first year of college. Both men became his long-term friends and partners in projects.

In 2012, Mark faced many problems: he ended a relationship, lost his job, moved to an apartment after his mother asked him to leave her home, had his appendix removed, and went into debt. After being hospitalized for a tumor on his adrenal gland, he decided he wanted to pursue a different path in life.

Career

Fischbach created his first YouTube channel on March 6, 2012. He planned to post comedy sketches and action videos. He named the channel "Markiplier," which combines the words "Mark" and "multiplier" because he would act in all the videos. Fischbach later said the name was not very smart. However, he also loved video games and decided to make gaming videos as the trend grew. His first series was a Let's Play of Amnesia: The Dark Descent (2010), and the channel gained over 94,000 subscribers in one year.

At the time, YouTubers with more than 1,000 subscribers could earn money through YouTube's AdSense program. However, Fischbach faced issues with his AdSense account, which stopped him from earning money. He then moved to a new channel, originally named "markiplierGAME," now called "Markiplier." In the same year, he left college to focus on his online career, only two semesters away from graduating. In early 2014, he moved to Los Angeles to explore business opportunities.

Fischbach and Janet Varney co-hosted the 2015 South by Southwest Gaming Awards, and he appeared in YouTube Rewind. He was ranked sixth in a list of the 20 most influential celebrities among teenagers in the United States. Fischbach and fellow YouTuber Jenna Mae appeared on Jimmy Kimmel Live! in September 2015 after Kimmel faced criticism for jokes about YouTube and Let's Play videos.

Fischbach lived with YouTubers Daniel Kyre and Ryan Magee, who ran the channel Cyndago. In September 2015, Kyre was found in critical condition after attempting suicide. He was hospitalized but later taken off life support. Cyndago ended, and Fischbach took a one-month break from YouTube before returning on October 5. His channel reached 10 million subscribers on October 14.

In November 2016, Fischbach signed with talent agency William Morris Endeavor (WME). His first project with WME was the "You're Welcome Tour" in Spring 2017, where Fischbach and four other YouTubers performed 31 shows in the United States and Europe. Fischbach told Variety he wanted to explore traditional entertainment. He planned the tour for five months, including musical, comedy, and improv elements with audience participation. In January 2018, Fischbach began creating exclusive content for Twitch as part of a deal with Disney Digital Network.

His YouTube channel reached 20 million subscribers in March 2020 before he took another break in June to mourn his step-niece Miranda Cracraft, who died in a car accident at age 19. He raised over $79,000 for her funeral through GoFundMe.

In October 2019, an interactive special titled A Heist with Markiplier was released as his first YouTube Original. Produced by Fischbach and Rooster Teeth, the special follows two burglars—the viewer and Fischbach—with 31 possible endings. Fischbach had previously released a similar project called A Date with Markiplier in 2017.

On November 15, 2019, Fischbach launched a new channel with YouTuber Ethan Nestor (formerly known as CrankGameplays) called Unus Annus (Latin for "one year"). The channel aimed to post a video every day for a year before deleting all content. It gained 1 million subscribers in its first five days and 4.56 million in its final moments, with over 11.5 million video views in the first week. After a final 12-hour live stream that reached over 1.5 million viewers, the channel was deleted on November 14, 2020, at 12:00 a.m. PST.

Since 2017, Fischbach has voiced the character 5.0.5 in the Cartoon Network series Villainous. He also starred in and co-produced a podcast drama called The Edge of Sleep, which follows a night watchman who discovers everyone who slept the previous night has died. The podcast debuted in September 2019 and was renewed for a second season in 2023. Fischbach reprised his role in a television remake produced by New Regency, which premiered in 2024 on Amazon Prime Video and appeared in its Top 10 charts.

Fischbach, along with Barnes and Muyskens, hosts the podcast Distractible. Produced by Wood Elf, it reached No. 1 on Spotify and Apple Podcasts' charts when it launched in May 2021. Fischbach and Scheid also created Go! My Favorite Sports Team in February 2022, a comedy podcast where Scheid, a sports enthusiast, and Fischbach, who knows little about sports, discuss the topic.

The two-part In Space with Markiplier (2022), produced by Fischbach and Rooster Teeth, was his second interactive YouTube Original. The viewer plays the captain of a collapsing spaceship, with Fischbach as the head engineer. In Space was nominated for Outstanding Interactive Media at the first Children's and Family Emmys Awards.

In March 2023, Deadline reported that Fischbach signed with United Talent Agency (UTA). A week later, Spotify announced it would exclusively host new video episodes of Distractible and Go! My Favorite Sports Team. Fischbach also mentioned working on an upcoming film. On April 21, Deadline announced Fischbach began production on a film adaptation of the 2022 indie horror game Iron Lung by David Szymanski. Fischbach directed, produced, wrote, and financed the film himself. It stars him and Caroline Rose Kaplan and was released on January 30, 2026. The film earned $13 million in its opening week in the United States. Fischbach attended the 98th Academy Awards.

Other ventures

Fischbach has taken part in several charity live streams and fundraising events. Most of the money he raised was for cancer charities in memory of his father, who passed away from lung cancer in 2008. In 2017, Forbes reported that Fischbach and his fans collected about $3 million for charity through these activities. In March 2018, to celebrate reaching 20 million subscribers, Fischbach said he would give all money from a 48-hour sale of his "Tasteful Nudes" Charity Calendar to the Cancer Research Institute. He raised over $490,000 for the charity and received the 2020 Oliver R. Grace Award.

Fischbach joined the board of Red Giant Entertainment, a comic book publisher, in November 2014. In June 2014 at San Diego Comic-Con, he co-hosted a panel with company members, including CEO Benny R. Powell and writers David Campiti, Mort Castle, David Lawrence, and Brian Augustyn. In 2016, it was announced that Fischbach would appear in his own line of comics.

In October 2018, Fischbach and YouTuber Seán McLoughlin started the clothing line Cloak, which targets the gaming community. In 2020, streamer Imane Anys became a partner and creative director for Cloak.

The success of the "Tasteful Nudes" Calendar inspired Fischbach to create an OnlyFans account. He planned to split the money from the account evenly between Cincinnati Children's Hospital and the World Food Programme. Before launching the page, he set three requirements: First, the Distractible podcast had to become the most popular podcast on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Second, the Go! My Favorite Sports Team podcast, created with Scheid, had to become the most popular sports podcast in the United States and globally. Third, fans had to pay a $12 admission fee for his documentary, Markiplier From North Korea, which is based on his mother’s life story about reconnecting with his family.

The requirements were met faster than expected. On November 2, 2022, Fischbach announced in a YouTube video that he would launch the OnlyFans page by the end of the month after creating a batch of "tasteful nudes" and securing the "Markiplier" handle from an impersonator. The page opened on December 9, 2022, but the large amount of traffic caused the site to crash.

Artistry

Fischbach is best known for creating Let's Plays of indie horror games. He uploaded his first Let's Play of the 2014 survival horror game Five Nights at Freddy's (FNaF) on August 13, 2014. As of February 2026, this video has over 127 million views, making it his most viewed Let's Play. The game was released just five days before Fischbach's video and became very popular quickly after Fischbach and other YouTubers made videos playing it. Viewers were drawn to the very exaggerated reactions in the videos. Fischbach's videos showed his challenges in beating the game's hardest mode and solving the complicated hidden story, which became well-known as part of the franchise. For over a decade, Fischbach has made Let's Plays of every game in the FNaF series. These videos are among his most viewed and rewatched. He is highly involved with the franchise's fan community, which overlaps with his own. Fischbach is sometimes called the "King of FNaF" because of his achievements in the games.

He made a guest appearance in the launch trailer for Five Nights at Freddy's AR: Special Delivery (2019). In 2023, /Film's B. J. Colangelo wrote that Fischbach was the main person responsible for FNaF's rise in popularity. Fischbach confirmed he was asked to appear in the 2023 film adaptation of the game but could not due to scheduling conflicts with his work on Iron Lung. In one of MatPat's Film Theory videos, it was confirmed that Fischbach was originally planned to play the night security guard killed by the animatronics in the film's opening scene.

Fischbach has worked with many YouTubers on sketch comedy and gaming videos, including Ethan Nestor, Jacksepticeye, LordMinion777, Muyskerm, PewDiePie, Matthias, Game Grumps, Cyndago, Yamimash, jacksfilms, CaptainSparklez, Egoraptor, and LixianTV, who now works as his editor. He has also collaborated with celebrities such as Jack Black and Jimmy Kimmel.

Personal life

Fischbach states that he is not religious and does not go to church. His older brother, Tom, is a comic artist who created the long-running webcomic Twokinds. On September 20, 2025, Fischbach married his longtime girlfriend, Amy Nelson, after dating for ten years. In December 2025, Fischbach's mother, Sunok Frank, published a book about her family history titled Markiplier From North Korea.