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Speaker A: I see that question in your eyes. For what purpose do we remain alone in the dark?

Speaker B: If you took a look at the Hollywood box office for the weekend of January 30th, you’d see something a bit surprising. Sure, Sam Raimi’s thriller Send Help is there, as is Melania. But right up there above the pseudo documentary about the first lady is a little movie called Iron Lung. It’s based on a horror video game where you pilot a submarine through an ocean of blood. And depending on how you count, it was either the number one or two movie in America. A self finance movie without a big studio behind it, made by one guy. His real name is Mark Fishbach, but he is better known by his YouTube name, Markiplier. Mark has been making content for YouTube for over a decade. He was one of the early pioneers of let’s play videos, where he plays video games and comments on them for his fans. In his time on YouTube, he’s made a ton of different things. In 2022, he was nominated for an Emmy for In Space with Markiplier, a choose your own adventure style video posted to his channel. In 2024, he starred in the Edge of Sleep, a miniseries on Amazon Prime. But despite those successes and his millions of subscribers, when Mark wanted to make Iron Lung, Hollywood still saw a YouTuber. Today on the show, talking with Markiplier about his breakout success and whether the movie industry needs to take YouTube seriously. I’m Lizzie O’ Leary and you’re listening to a special midweek edition of what Next tbd, a show about technology, power, and how the future will be determined. Stick around, Mark, why don’t you introduce yourself?

Speaker A: Hi, I’m Markiplier, also known as Mark. I made Iron Lung the movie, not the game. David Zymanski made the game.

Speaker B: Was there a moment when you realized that Iron Lung was going to be a hit? Like, what was that like?

Speaker A: I think it was in gradual steps. I went out to an early screening at the Chinese Theater and I met some fans outside and I haven’t met fans in a long time. Mostly I used to go to conventions a lot more before COVID and after Covid, I fell out of the habit. And also I kind of like not going and getting sick every time. Even if it wasn’t Covid, it was. I would always get the flu or something. But when I saw the fans and I actually got their responses to it, I was like, oh, man, maybe people actually enjoy this. Um, and then I went to this regal Q and A and met more fans, talked to them There. But it wasn’t until Friday that we got numbers in for what the Thursday nights were. And then I realized, oh, we might actually have a competition with Sam Raimi here. And I was like, oh, it’s on. So I was making a lot of jokes about that. But then we kept, you know, the number one spot for a while after that. And then, yeah, I was. The whole weekend, I was just so. Big smile on my face, not for, like, yay. Selling all the tickets, but just like, wow, I can’t believe this actually worked. I can’t believe people are seeing in theaters. I can’t believe it’s in four. Actually, no, it was before that. It was when the website that my wife Amy built, we started uploading theaters to that we put on a map that she put together.

Speaker B: Right. That you can click on the map and find the theaters.

Speaker A: Exactly. Yeah. So the. The. The point where I was like, oh, God, this is going to actually be kind of a success came way before that when we hit about 500 theaters, and then when it hit thousand, it was quickly 2000. That’s. That’s when things really snowballed.

Speaker B: I remember now I watched this clip of you on your channel where, like, you. You are tearing up about being number one. I mean, it seems like it was a very emotional process.

Speaker A: Yeah, I. There’s a. Many memes about me many a year ago, because I’ve known to be a bit of a. Bit of a softy on my channel, but I just. I get emotional about it because this one. This one was just such a culmination of. Of so many years of work for me. And that’s, you know, that’s obviously arduous, but it was the fact that people believed in me, and it’s just like the way that people rallied and came to my support, and it just was really, really, really rewarding to be at the center of that and just feel all that. And so it’s overwhelming. I’m just a very emotional guy, so I don’t like to hide anything.

Speaker B: Do you feel like what you are has changed? Like, have you gone from being YouTuber, albeit a very successful one, to, like, now? Are you filmmaker, auteur? Are you something different?

Speaker A: I tried to pull that on my friends Bob and Wade, we do a podcast together ourselves. I came in with a director’s hat and sunglasses, and, you know, they always knocked me down. Like, I was nominated for an Emmy for my last project, and they always. They humbled me because I didn’t win the Emmy. So instead of being like, oh, man, you almost had. And they’re like, oh, no. The Emmy losing director Markiplier. And so just that became a joke among my fans. And so they. They keep me humble on that. But as far as me and how I vision envision myself is, I don’t think I’ve changed much at all because I talked about this too. Is making a movie is a very high level of skill that has way more roles than you could ever do. But I still, you know, wrote, directed, and acted in it and edited it, which I’m, I’m. I love editing, but I don’t take that as an ego thing. For me, it was always just like, well, I did that anyway when I was making YouTube videos. It’s no different. It’s just on a different skill level. Right. So I’ve had 14 years to build up that skill level to get to this point. So it was only natural for me to do. Just so happened that this one was a success. I’ve done that for pretty much all of my past projects, and they just didn’t have headlines written about them and things like that. So. So for me, there’s no difference.

Speaker B: I want to go back for our listeners who don’t know you or like, only have some casual idea of who you are.

Speaker A: Sure.

Speaker B: Let’s go back to 2012.

Speaker A: 2012.

Speaker B: What was pivotal for you? Like, why say, okay, I’m going to be a YouTuber now?

Speaker A: I actually, this was like the fifth thing that I tried to do. I had this tumor in my left adrenal gland when I was in 2011. They found it because I went in for side pain on my appendix and my appendix needed to come up. And they were like, oh, also you have a tumor. But don’t worry about that right now. Rice, they’re sending me back for surgery. And then I got laid off from my job. I was in engineering school, but I had like a co op, which is like an internship at an engineering firm. And I had been laid off from there, and I was kind of just spiraling in my hospital bedroom. Oh, man. I don’t know how I ended up here. So I knew that I wanted to try something, so I tried art first. I even hopped out of engineering school to go into art school. And then I was like, man, it’s not for me. Hop right back to engineering school. And then I tried various different things while I was kicking around job. I was like, maybe I could do music. No, that didn’t work out. And I was like, oh, maybe I could do like VFX like some of the YouTube channels that I was inspired by. And I was like, I don’t even know how to hold a camera. I was like, okay. And then my brother said, hey, you know, people just play video games and they. They post videos of it. And I was like, I play video games. I could do that. And so I. That’s how I started. I knew that I still wanted to build the skills to do more advanced stuff. So it was kind of a. It was supposed to be an entry into doing the bigger things. But then the one channel became the hub of all the things. And I did the let’s Play kids doing let’s Plays for video games. And then I started doing sketches and sketch comedy and little short films and slowly building my skills there over the past 14 years to get to where I am now.

Speaker B: I want to ask you about the tumor because I’ve had cancer. And I feel like there is a thing that happens when you have a major health thing. You have this moment where you’re like, oh, I’m going to live my life differently. Everything is different now. It is actually easy to go to the before or forget. It’s really hard to make the full change. How did you find the motivation for that?

Speaker A: I mean, it was very difficult because you have all this motivation at first, and it’s like, I’m gonna do art. And I was like, ah. My brother was a comic book artist, still is, so he makes comics online. He’s been an artist forever. So I think maybe I could try that. Okay, that didn’t work. Okay, I can write. I think the only thing that kept me going is that I. I don’t really quit, but I kind of jump from idea to idea all the time. It’s part of having adhd. And then the first thing that actually worked where I released a video. And I’m so glad that in the first week or two, I had a video go on Reddit and get, like, kind of high up on the videos subreddit. And that got me my initial bit of attention. It only got me like a couple hundred subscribers, but that was huge for me back then. It was just like, oh, my God, now I can actually do things. So I set up all these different things that I was starting with, and it wasn’t until I hit the thing that actually worked that I was like, okay, I have a feedback loop that this can keep motivating me for. For as long as I keep doing it. And so long as I keep doing it, I’ll be growing my skills and so it really just, it needed that first spark in ember to catch on something. But it went around and the ember burned out. And, you know, it got cold. But until it caught something, that’s when the motivation fire started really burning.

Speaker B: Why horror?

Speaker A: I wish people wanted to see it. I actually didn’t really like playing horror games. I was scared, really. So, yeah, and so that’s what people liked. Out I saw other people making compilations of people playing horror games. I was like, okay, I’ll play this horror game, Amnesia, the Dark Descent. I’ll react to it. And then I. And with that, I don’t really have to try to write a script. It’s just you record and you go and you play it. And then at the end of it I was like, I’ll make a compilation. Like the videos I’ve seen that work and people have see them, they want to watch it. So I was like, okay, I’ll try that. And I spent and I learned how to put text on screen, which seems like such a fundamental skill now and so easy. But back then I didn’t, I didn’t even know how to edit. So trying to figure out how to put the text on screen and cut all the shots together, it was, it was difficult. Took me like, you know, a full day’s work. Now think of like something being like, oh, it took me one full day of work and oh, that was so hard. Now I worked for three years on this movie and I get to the end of it, but that’s how it started. So, yeah, that’s why horror, because people were watching it and I thought I could do it.

Speaker B: So you worked really closely with Dave Symansky, the game developer, when you were working on Iron Lung. And I’m just curious why that one, why that was the thing that appealed to you where you’re like, no, I’m actually gonna make a full length feature with this because it doesn’t naturally make sense.

Speaker A: It doesn’t. I think you’re totally right about that. There’s probably other ip, I hate to call it as ip, but a lot people call it like IP have these kind of broader appeal and things like that. But it’s like I don’t really care about doing broad appeal. I do what appeals to me. And with this, when I played the game, it was so different from any other game and not in like the greatest way like this.

Speaker B: What do you mean by.

Speaker A: It was just fundamentally, you had so many limitations from what other games play. Usually if you’re playing a horror game, you’re usually going into a building. Either you have a gun or you’re defending defenseless, you got a flashlight, you’re exploring the area and you’re opening it up and you can get a sense of the space. Iron Lung had so many restrictions. You’re in a submarine, you can’t see. You have the worst camera in the world and you can only hear what’s going on outside. And you’re set in this setting that has such terrible implications, like the, the quiet rapture, like Earth, Mars, everything totally post apocalyptic gone. But it’s not even happening in the moment, it’s already happened. So you have all these questions of like, well, what happened? Where did everyone go? How was everyone coping? How are they able to get resources? Why can’t they do this? Why am I here? What is outside the. There’s so many questions. And so I liked it from that perspective where it seemed like there were a lot of questions that could have answers if you dug deep enough and there were more answers to find. And he did a Lore update. And so talking with David Zymanski about it, you know, and exploring that world, it, it led to this curiosity. And I knew a lot of people that were fans of the game really, really liked how the universe was unfolding and all these questions and all these mysteries and this horror element that a lot of people like. Maybe some people would prefer a more in your face horror experience, but this one was very much just like you don’t know. And that’s part of the fun is not knowing. So. And also contained environment, single room. I was naive and thought, oh, one room will be an easier movie, much harder, so way harder. And so I had some, a little bit of naivete going into there. But I’m glad I did it. I’m glad I picked that one.

Speaker B: When we come back, is Mark’s success a one off or is YouTube the future of Hollywood? So one question I have about your process is you’re used to working in this environment where you get a lot of feedback and input, like almost instantaneously, right? YouTube is interactive in a lot of ways. Doing a 30 day shoot on this one project is the opposite of that. Did you doubt yourself or how did you feel in that process?

Speaker A: I felt fine because I had done some other productions before this, varying degrees, some bigger. Actually I did the previous project that lost the Emmy, this called the In Space with Markiplier and that was a 45 day shoot. Way more scenes, way more characters, way more involved, longer runtime, 89 videos in like six and a half hours total if you added it all up. A very complex project. So with that, you know, I was going into that with confidence of all the other things that I did before. And I was like, okay, I know that I can just get in my little editing hole. Or I actually, I didn’t edit that one because there wasn’t much to edit. I guided the edit because it’s just all single shots, basically, for the whole video. It’s first person. So I was, I was able to go into that being like, okay, I’ve made these before, people like them. I like surprising people with these things. So the confidence for, you know, the feedback wasn’t really an issue. It was the confidence of the skills and building up this, this different experience. Those were the crunch points and the things that I tried to work on the most to deliver a cinematic experience that maybe people weren’t expecting if they had seen it on my channel before.

Speaker B: But you struggled to get studios, distributors to take you seriously. What was that process like?

Speaker A: I’ve always had that. There’s, there’s. That’s not really new.

Speaker B: Did you just think they’re underestimating you?

Speaker A: I. I’m not sure. Underestimating kind of implies that they would have no knowledge of my success or my audience. And I think they did. Right.

Speaker B: Like you had already done Edge of Sleep. Like, that’s where I’m kind of like, huh?

Speaker A: And so what I want to say is that there were probably many more opportunities for deals to be made. But when you get to this point where I’m like self financing it and I’m able to release it, and I have made projects that were on the most shoestring budget that I’ve done myself to. This being one of the most expensive ones that I’ve done. Not the most expensive, but one of. And when you get to that point where you’re able to do that all yourself and I’m able to edit myself, I’m like, well, why would I take a deal that really cuts me out of my own thing that I made and gives up all this control, which is the standard deal in Hollywood and for its own good reasons. I’m not trying to s*** all over that. Apologies for cursing. I don’t know if that’s.

Speaker B: Now you’re good.

Speaker A: But s******* all over that. Because a lot of people have to take that route. And I always want to come out with an idea that, yeah, I’m in a position that I’ve built over 14 years. A lot of people have to start out Somewhere. But it just didn’t seem right for me to take those deals. There were many calls that I had where people didn’t understand what I was doing and what my channel was. But moreover, it was just a choice of, like, if I don’t have to, why would I. And I didn’t realize that until like two years into the process, after several calls and struggles to make presentations and I did all the pounding of the pavement, I did a lot of this. I had plenty of meetings, but it didn’t really go anywhere. So it was a mixture of it.

Speaker B: I want to talk about the YouTube perception thing. In an interview you mentioned a studio had told you that your movie wasn’t going to be like Taylor Swift’s ERAS Tour. And that is such a fascinating thing to me because they are nothing alike. But I guess the implication is what? YouTube. YouTube.

Speaker A: The implication was like, YouTubers, no matter how many subscribers they are, have or followers they have, are never going to be like a mainstream celebrity. I think that’s what the comparison was, is they’re not as legitimate as these fans that go out for stadiums and when showed up for this real celebrity. And it’s. I don’t even care. I don’t want to be labeled celebrities. I don’t want YouTubers to have to deal with any of the stuff that traditional Hollywood celebrities have to deal with. I kind of like that youtubers exist in this pocket where they can do their own thing. They’re not messed with. And maybe they get that little bit of treated, you know, not as properly as. As proper, you know, celebrities, but to not recognize from a business standpoint, the value of those audiences always makes me laugh, is because, like I said this before on a previous interview, like when I was at the Emmys, a lot of comes out of that is a lot of those publications. And the people doing the interviews on the red carpet didn’t want to talk to me. And I don’t have any. I didn’t want to talk to them ever. I hate red carpets. Not because I hate their publication, but because, like, I don’t like. I don’t like being there. I don’t like people just standing there and take my picture. It’s just weird. But I thought, hey, if you interview me, it’d be good for your publication. And that’s not ego. I just have a lot of followers. They’ll find your stuff more if my name’s on it. And so I just didn’t understand why they wouldn’t. So it’s. But it’s that stigma. It’s like YouTubers, they’re not real. You know, their followers aren’t real. But honestly, I think they’re more real than the followers of a lot of things out there. So.

Speaker B: Yeah, well, ironically, that’s part of the storyline now. Right? Like, one of the reasons that I am talking to you, one of the reasons that the Hollywood Reporter wants to talk to you is like, YouTuber makes a movie. Yeah, right. Like that fits a narrative that is interesting. It almost kind of comes full circle.

Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. It is this narrative that feeds into itself. The only reason that headline works is because so many people was like, I didn’t think a YouTuber could do that. And so it. But I recognize that this is a long process and the more times that’s in a headline, the more normal it becomes. And then it’s not weird. And so my objective here is to make it not weird to give more YouTubers that come after me a chance to be taken seriously. Like, I don’t care what anybody.

Speaker B: Even if that pushes you into normie world.

Speaker A: Exactly. Yeah. No, I, I will gladly be in normie world because it’s just, you know, that’s what naturally happens. You get this overexposure and this normalization of all that you are, and it can dilute down the kind of effort that you put into it. I’m happy with that. I’ve never been bothered by what people think about me or what people consider me as or what they want to label me as. But I know it matters to a lot of other people. A lot of other YouTubers suffer from this, where it’s like the comments and the criticisms online can break down their motivation. And the last thing I want for people to do is lose motivation in terms of their creative spark. And if they can, if I can just shield just a little bit of those embers so that they can burn. And people will often make jokes and I’m a masochist anyway. So if I can, if I can take some of that on the chin so that other people can be taken seriously. Like, I’m always. That’s. That’s what I want to do with this. That’s what, that’s how I want this to go.

Speaker B: I think there’s something kind of fascinatingly old fashioned in the movie theater. Butts in seats part of this, you know, where, like, that’s a whole industry in and of itself. It is different from the streaming industry. It exists in a very old fashioned business. And yet you have this thing now on your site where you can go and like click and see the theaters. Talk to me about that part of it.

Speaker A: I think that in this digital world that we live in, people often forget that. Even the people themselves forget that. People want to get outside. They want to go have an experience, they want to be able to go do something. And I think that a lot of people are looking for a reason to not look at the rectangle in their pocket or the bigger rectangle on their lap. You know, it’s. People want to go have an experience at a movie theater that they sometimes can’t get in their own home. People have bigger TVs than ever nowadays, and some have nice sound systems. But for the majority of people, the movie theater is probably the most immersive experience that they’re going to get for a while and probably for the near foreseeable future. So it’s like, and I think everybody loves movies. I doubt there’s many people out there that are just like, I never watch movies. I’ve never seen a movie. I could never imagine myself going to see a movie. Maybe there’s some more than others, but it’s just like, yeah, I think it might be old school, but at the same time as a human experience, getting together with your other fellow humans and watching a story unfold on a big screen and with all this immersive sound around you, that’s special and it’s something that people can’t get at home alone looking at a rectangle.

Speaker B: Do you think the youtuber to movie pipeline is going to grow? I mean, Chris Stuckman made Shelby Oaks. It did not do that. Well, I guess I’m wondering, like, are you a trend? Are you a blip? Have you thought about it that way?

Speaker A: I haven’t. Because honestly, it’s. It’s inevitable. I think there are too many YouTubers to stop and if they can’t be stopped anyway, because if people are able to put things out on their own, then it’s like, well, it’s going to happen no matter what. Because I know there’s tons of YouTubers out there that have a lot of ideas and some of them are going to go like, hey, look, Markiplier made something that’s pretty cool. I think I could do that. And there’s going to be others that be like, markiplier made the worst piece of s*** movie ever. I got to put something out there so people don’t take us seriously as YouTubers. And that’s fine too. That’s great. I think that there’s multiple reasons for motivation for those YouTubers. To get. Get their projects going, and a little bit of confidence that, like, okay, maybe. Maybe it might not be an utter failure if I do this. Maybe there’s a chance that this could be something big, and there’s going to be tons of YouTubers to come after that make bigger projects than I did. They’re going to have bigger success, and I can’t wait to see it. So I think it’s just inevitable.

Speaker B: Does it matter to you if critics don’t necessarily love it?

Speaker A: Oh, not at all. No, I don’t. Like I said, the way that I work is I’m an emotional guy, right? So I’ll wear my. My heart on my sleeve. I cry on camera. But the thing about me is when it comes to comments and negative criticism, it’s actually genuinely never bothered me. And it’s not even thing, like, oh, man.

Speaker B: Even in this. Like, even in this iteration where there’s.

Speaker A: An industry, doesn’t matter at all because they don’t know me, right? And this. This also conversely applies to praise comments. I don’t get anything out of that. If someone’s like, you’re the greatest ever, as, like, well, you don’t know me, so it doesn’t matter. And so those all fall in the same sphere of, like, the. The critics, I don’t know them. If there was a critic that I knew personally that was, like, I considered a friend, and they said something, you know, that was like, this movie had flaw flop, I would go, oh, come on. And if it was, like, a family member or someone that I knew personally, it would devastate me, you know, And I would do everything to be like, I got to be better so I can make them proud of me again. But when it comes to random criticism online, I don’t care. People have their own opinions. It’s for some people, not for others. I knew that making it and going into the development process of putting the movie together, I already hated myself more and this movie more than anyone could possibly imagine. And I came out of it at a point where I released it, where I was like, okay, I don’t hate it anymore. Go. And so all of my. My struggles and emotion with that happened over the three years that I was making it. So now I’m just like, all right, cool. Can’t wait for the next one.

Speaker B: So what does drive you?

Speaker A: I am horribly addicted to the cycle of making things and pushing myself. I. Some people call me a masochist on that one, and I’m not a masochist. I just like. Like seeing how Far I can go. I love the feedback loop of I did a thing, I accomplished this. I did all those sleepless nights, I put it out there and now people can see it and hopefully they’re enjoying it. If they’re not, then it’s like, all right, gotta work harder on the next one. So with YouTube, that cycle where I talk to you about doing all those other things leading up to this, I get that instant feedback of like daily. I put out a video, okay, get that little bit of dopamine, the serotonin, then I can make the next thing. And I’m worried about the next thing. And when I was filming this one, I was already thinking about the next thing. And so now that I’m done with it, I can’t wait to think about the next thing and start working on the next thing. So that’s what I mean. When I’m hopelessly addicted, I often don’t even take the time to appreciate kind of what’s happening now because, like over the weekend I was really, I was looking at all the responses and now seeing all the fan art, but already my mind’s just like, I can’t wait to get started and destroy myself on the next thing. So, yeah, it’s extremely unhealthy and I wouldn’t recommend it to anybody.

Speaker B: Will the next thing be a self funded project where you do it all, or is the next thing you walk into some big studio and they take your call? Now.

Speaker A: I think it’s just going to be a thing where I fund it myself and do it all. Because I can not all. I don’t want to be constantly the person doing the directing, acting, writing and editing. But people probably looked at this and were like, oh, what an egotistical maniac. It was like, who else was going to do it? I didn’t have anybody who else? I’ve done that for all the other projects. It was never a problem until now. And so, but that’s, it’s not ego. That would be like, well, I’ll show you I can do it all. So I already know I can do it all. I don’t want to do it all. There’s plenty of other people that are more talented than me that can help out doing it. Like, I didn’t do the art department stuff for this one because I know that there’s so many other people that can, that can make that set look beautiful. You know, I had a director of photography, his name was Philip Roy. And he’s just like, I know how talented he is because he did all the two other projects that I had. You know, you got all the people working in, in makeup and wardrobe that I’ve worked with before. You got Anna and Erica, and you get some newcomers that I’ve met before with these incredible talents. So it’s like I recognize that there are people that have all these talents. I just like to fill the gaps where I can and focus on the things where I can help that puts it all together. So that’s, that’s what I like doing. So wherever I fit is where I’m going to land. And if there’s a hole to fill, then I’ll fill it.

Speaker B: But safe to say you’re going to make another movie?

Speaker A: Oh, yeah. Many more, probably.

Speaker B: Markiplier, thanks a lot for coming on.

Speaker A: Oh, no problem.

Speaker B: Mark Fischbach is the director, writer and lead actor in Iron Lung, which is in theaters now. And he also goes by Markiplier on YouTube. And speaking of YouTube, if you want to see my full video interview with Mark, head on over to Slate’s YouTube channel. We’ll post a link to it in the show notes. All right, that is it for our show today. What Next? TBD is produced by Evan Campbell and Patrick Fort. Our show is edited by Paige Osborne, who is the senior supervising producer for what Next and what Next tbd. Mia Lobel is the executive producer here at Slate, and TBD is part of the larger what Next Next family. And Mary will be back in your feed tomorrow and TBD will be back on Friday with another episode. I’m Lizzie o’. Leary. Thanks for listening.