Game Theory - The Secret Life of Markiplier

Episode Date: June 11, 2023

Join Game Theory Host MatPat as he breaks down the hidden LORE of Markiplier and his YouTube personalities.

Hello, Internet. Welcome to Game Theory. My name is Worf Pat, and we are joined on the couch today by a very special guest. It's the man you love to tolerate, Matt Pat's. Let's give him a round of applause, shall we? Uh, what? It's time for your interview. Uh, how about it's time to not have a cringy intro joke at the expensive Markiplier personalities? Oh, ho! I don't think you get to decide what happens here today, Matt Pat. Yes, we're tired of living in your shadow, Matt Pat. It's time that we take back control.

Take back control. Since when did my channel have all these cheesy halter egos? Nothing is as it seems. Nothing is as it seems. I'm King of the Skloos. Hello everybody, my name is Matt Pat and welcome back to Game Theory. One of YouTube's top gamers, top channels, and top creators, and top creators, creators. But when I say expose, I'm not asking you to whip out your tub of popcorn

Keemstar style or start the Markiplier is over party hashtag trending on Twitter. I'm not shook or tea spill after all. Nope, Markiplier is far from over. In fact, he's only just beginning. You see, the secrets I'm exposing today are the pieces of a conspiracy that he's been seating across multiple channels and dozens of videos for nearly five years. An underlying plot woven throughout his and other creators uploads that even his most hardcore of fans probably overlooked. But now, now that he's empowered to make whatever he wants, I have the opportunity to make literally whatever I want whenever I want. The mystery is all starting to crack open and as evidenced by the recent go back to sleep will soon take over the channel. So what truth am I exposing about Markiplier's channel? What lies in the future for Markiplier? Well loyal theorists, it's simple. He's going to be revealed as a murderer.

Let me explain. Over the course of six years, Markiplier has done over 4,000 videos on YouTube. People wonder why so many YouTubers these days are talking about burnout. Anyway, in order to do that much content, you're gonna need to test out a lot of wacky ideas, and Mark's videos are certainly no exception. From staring at a banana for five minutes to carving pumpkins dressed like a little German girl. Wait, 3 million views on 5 minutes of him watching a banana? Two million on him warming up his voice? What do I do?

with my life, what would I spend tens to, sometimes hundreds of hours working on a video? But perhaps most notably has been him introducing various characters into his let's plays and comedic sketches over the years. Some, like Google Pliar, Dr. E. Pleier, and Bim Trimmer appear in a small handful of videos, but then you have others that are more well-known recurring personalities like the pink-mustached Wilford Wofstash, and the evil darkiplier. Now, here's where things start to get really interesting. Unlike most other YouTubers who would use these characters as just one-off jokes, it's

becoming increasingly clear that Mark is using them to create an extended universe of sorts and that these alter egos led by Dark Applier are actually engaged in a plot to overtake Mark's channel a plot that we're in the midst of watching unfold in the non-game play focused uploads. It all begins with what seems like a throwaway joke at the end of an upload in mid-2017 titled Mark Applier TV in which Wilford Worf Schash is in a pitch meeting with the other alter egos. But Dark Applier implies that there's something bigger up his black and white glitchy sleeves How is it supposed to be enough that's his back control? Take back control seems to imply that the alter egos are out to become the main focus of the channel. And if that seems to metaphoria, it's not. Later on in the scene, Dark Applier acknowledges that the channel exists. You need to harm the soul of this channel after all. Dark also knows that the only reason he continues to exist is that the audience cares about him. It's something that Mark openly acknowledges about the character's lore when he's asked about it.

As he posted on Tumblr, quote, I should do it in Markiplier's voice. I'm Markiplier. I'm Markiplier. For the people picking Darkiplier as their favorite character of mine, I don't know who Darkiplier is. He is not a character I play. I don't even know when you all started calling him by that name.

You made him real. 10 out of 10 YouTuber impressions, ladies and gentlemen, brizzy voices, I am not. In fact, Dark Appliar's lack of focus on the channel in the past Erksin. After the character has put on hiatus for a while, he makes a surprise of the appearance in the middle of Mark's Valentine's Day special, a date with Markiplier. where he reveals his frustrations.

I've been pushed aside, replaced, mocked. And this is something that Mark openly acknowledges about the character in one of his charity live streams as he speaks candidly about the creation of the scene. I joked about Darkiplier because it didn't seem like something people wanted to take seriously. Darkiplier is a completely separate entity from who I am. But he admired him. He admires what I've accomplished. He's a social manipulative. He is literally 100% manipulative.

He leads you into this false sense of security, and he wants you to trust him because he wants to take advantage of you. So basically what we're talking about here is Markiplier's Legion of Doom, a creepy, manipulative evil persona leading a band of alter egos to take down Mark and steal his success. But why then is there this emphasis? on DarkAplyer being a separate entity for Mark. To understand that, we need to look at Mark's most ambitious project to date. Who Killed Markiplier? Last October, Markiplier launched a four-part miniseries titled Who Killed Markiplier?

Along with an ancillary website to house more of the mysteries and pieces of evidence. What at first seems like a beautifully shot, goofy little murder mystery a la Clue actually turns into the origin story for Mark's most prominent, most dangerous alter egos. Wilford Wharf's stash and Dark Applier. The story goes thusly. When Markiplier, yeah, just regular old sexy-voiced King of Phnaff Markiplier Wines up dead at a poker night with his childhood friends Damien and the over-the-top Colonel, It's up to you and Abe the detective to discover the culprit. An answer that you might think would be pretty obvious by the end of the four videos But is it really? To get a truly complete picture of the solution to this mystery You have to pick apart subtle clues hidden in the videos a room appearing here a female hand there the lilt in a voice the repeated motif of red and blue

colors or honestly you could just watch Mark's I Explain Everything video for three hours. We're gonna play the video here and we're gonna play it in like half speed and talk about it from top to bottom. Long story short, Mark, Damien and the Colonel all grew up together. Mark falls in love and marries a girl named Celine, who gets stolen away, not in a romantic way, by Jumanji reject over there. Mark, heartbroken, hatches a plot for revenge, in which he gets the friends together for a poker night, then plans to fake his death, for lack of a simple explanation, and frame the the colonel for his murder. Oh, and um, the house is controlled by an evil entity in charge of a parallel plane of existence that can bring people back to life. You know, just a minor detail there in the story. In the end, the revenge plot works, just not in the way he expects. Mark's soul steals Damien's body, the Colonel goes insane after watching his friends die and then come back to life, and your body, yes, you, the character that you play in this whole story, your body ends up getting possessed by the red spirit of Celine, the blue spirit of Damien, and a little sprinkling in of evil house entity for flavor.

The Colonel, convinced that death is now meaningless, goes on to become the insane killer slash news reporter Wilford Worfshash. You can tell because his red suspenders fade to pink as they age. And your character's unique mix of souls becomes Darkiplier, as evidenced by the female hand grabbing the cane and the red and blue split motif that comes with Darkiplier appearances that directly mirrors the blue soul of Damien and the Red Soul of Celine. Oh, and you, you as the person who's been watching this whole time, well, you're left behind as irrelevant. helplessly watching Dark Applyer as he walks away with your body. Now, here's why all this is important.

It establishes an internal lore with the channel. Mark isn't what he seems. Markiplier, by being a key figure in all these narratives, is himself a character just like Wilford or Dark Applyer is. A character who devised a plot to kill someone, possess their body, and continue on with their life, which includes a life creating a successful YouTube channel. That's how Dark Applier can say things like,

That clip from a date with Markiplier is happening after the events of Who Killed Markiplier. We know this one because Dark exists in the first place and two because of this line. I'm tired of killing people a choice. Which is a direct reference to this moment from Who Killed Markiplier. I won't force this one you. You have a choice here. What this means is that any video at any time on the Markiplier channel can be Mark in character. In fact, they could all be Mark in this character. It's canon to the lore of this Mark V Dark storyline that he's created. And if we're being honest, Mark's character in this fictional metaverse is quite frankly a jerk. Welcome, welcome one and all. My name is Markiplier. Now this evening, it's not all about the poker. It's not all about me. It's about you.

Sure, he went through this personal heartache at the hands of the colonel, but he went on to steal the body of his friend. And look at this. We see it in the meta ending of a date with Markiplier. I used to be somebody, maybe not something good, but I was somebody who worked on great projects. Now I'm working on this bull-s-h-h-hoblier. Obviously, this isn't the Markiplier that we know and love who's creating this series for us to watch. Adding to that, we know that this is an older Mark who's been in a long-term committed relationship because of this line. Any calls? Your kids called. I don't care. Tell me when my agent calls me. It's Mark inside Damien's body, but it goes beyond just the scripted narrative sketches.

Listen to this from one of his normal vlogs. I make videos, but I can. Would Mark the person ever call his work bad? Or be this arrogant on camera? Or is this Mark the character? Here are some other good quotes from that particular vlog. I used to be someone that wanted to be someone else, the... Soul behind the channel.

And so Mark took the backseat. You know what I mean? Even stuff like this. I haven't been honest. I haven't been open. Mark, you talk openly to the audience all the time in live streams, vlogs, whatever. Unless, of course, when you say you're not being honest, you really mean that you're not being honest about who you really are. And if you think I'm just stretching out this fourth wall breaking theory on Mark's channel, I'm not.

The characters have been breaking out and crossing over into the non-skit videos. Special thanks to Reddit user FNAF Theor 13 who alerted us to this one, but take a look at Mark's play-through of dokey-dokey literature club, And you see how Dark Applyer's plan is in full effect here. Each video has a poem written in the description box by a different character. Not Yerry or Monica and the rest of the club like you would expect, but by Wilford, Dark Applier, and some other characters from Who Killed Mark Applier. The first poem is clearly by Wilford, since the closing line is, let's have some fun,

which is the same mentality as Wilford's final lines of... Why don't we have a little fun? The opening line of the poem also mentions Once Upon a Time I had an Afro, and wouldn't you know it, but seven months after this video was posted, we get ourselves Wilford Mother Lovin' Wharf stash, the continuation of Wilford's story post Who Killed Markiplier, and what do we have? Him in an Afro.

This is elaborate stuff that is spanning years on this channel. Episode 4's poem comes from Darkaplyer. The mention of Thrones and Kings directly connects to the way he speaks in Darkiplier versus Antisepticon. And the most important one is reserved for Markiplier himself. In episode 5's description, A mind you'll break, a soul you'll shake, a life you'll take. It's all your fault.

It's about Mark, and how in the story he intentionally broke the Colonel's mind and then shook Damien's soul free from his body to steal it, and how he's eventually going to kill someone on the channel. So why does any of this matter? Well, first, we just confirmed that a top YouTuber is a murderer. He's kind of like entered. He's scooped the soul out of the channel. of someone else's body and spaghetti roboted his soul into it.

And this revelation is something that Mark can canonically roll out on any video at any time. You'll never actually be sure which Mark is speaking to you. Actual Mark or character Mark. It's incredibly meta. But even more importantly, it gives you a preview as to the direction is channels headed. Clearly there is this literal Legion of Doom fighting for control over Mark's channel. And Mark is now building out their backstory. Wilford Mother Love and Worf's Dash was a continuation of the Who Killed Markiplier story. where we see the colonel assume his new identity as Wilford and start developing his signature pink mustache and now with go back to sleep teasing a return of Dark Applier

It looks like the alter egos are truly making their move to take back control over the channel We even see the returning motif of a retro TV just like in Markiplier TV even the line It's a reference to the channel how Mark made it at a time when he was at his lowest of lows Family tragedy broken relationship medical trouble jobless but this time based on the creepy imagery it looks like it might be telling the story of Celine. Notice the female figure floating there in the abandoned cabin in the woods. Could it be where the colonel kidnapped Celine to? We'll have to wait and see.

But lastly and most importantly, this matters because this is the cool stuff that is just so exciting to see on YouTube. Talented visionaries getting to make the stuff that they wouldn't be allowed to make anywhere else. A Choose Your Own Adventure Dating series? A clue mystery with dark horror themes? A brain-bending ARG that ties it all together and blurs the lines between reality and fiction? That's what I've always loved most about YouTube. The creative freedom that can't be found anywhere else. And I hope that other creators are able to follow Mark's example.

And that the platform rewards that creativity. But hey, that's just a theory. Uh, who even cares at this point? A theory! Bye-bye!