We are well aware that the biggest YouTube stars make crazy money. One of those people, 29-year-old Mark Fischbach, who goes by Markiplier, made $17.5 million over the past year, making him the 6th highest-paid YouTube star. As of August 2018, his channel has over 10 billion total video views and 22.4 million subscribers and is currently the 37th most subscribed channel on YouTube. He launched his channel in 2012 and found an audience through clips in which he played video games while providing witty running commentary on the game. Today, he has 22.4 million YouTube subscribers and 10 billion views of his videos.
Fischbach was born in Honolulu, Hawaii in 1989 at the Tripler Army Medical Center. His father was in the military. His mother is of Korean descent. After he was born, his family moved to Cincinnati, Ohio. He was a member of the marching band in high school. He enrolled in the University of Cincinnati as a biomedical engineering student. He was in the middle of a rough patch – he broke up with his girlfriend, was laid off from his job, and had surgery to remove a tumor on his adrenal gland – and didn't feel like he had any control over his life. He started recording audio segments as practice for a potential career in voice overs and hit upon the idea for his YouTube channel. Mark dropped out of school and moved to Los Angeles to pursue his career as a YouTube star.
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Markiplier participates in the category known as Let's Play. He plays indie and horror games including Five Nights at Freddy's, Amnesia: The Dark Descent, Minecraft, Slender: The Eight Pages, and a number of others. He is known for his sensationalized commentary on the games he is playing. He uses profanity and often cries. When he subtitles his videos, he doesn't write out the profanity. He uses luck or duck for f*ck and itch for bitch.
This fall, Fischbach co-founded an athleisure line called Cloak with fellow YouTuber Sean McLoughlin, aka "Jacksepticeye." Jacksepticeye came in 8th on this year's list with $16 million.
Basically, Mark Fischbach makes $17.5 million for playing video games.
