Background and career
Mark Edward Fischbach ( FISH-bahk; born June 28, 1989), known professionally as Markiplier, is an American YouTuber, filmmaker, and actor. One of the most popular YouTubers on the platform, he is known for his "Let's Play" videos of indie horror games. He was listed by Forbes as the third-highest-paid content creator on the platform in 2022, and has won four Streamy Awards and a Golden Joystick Award. He has spun off his YouTube fame into a notable media career, venturing into acting and filmmaking.
After joining YouTube in 2012, Fischbach became popular on the platform with Let's Plays of Amnesia: The Dark Descent and the Five Nights at Freddy's series; as of August 7th, 2026, his channel has over 38.8 million subscribers. He signed with talent agency William Morris Endeavor in 2016. While with the agency, he released 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, which 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 starred in the series The Edge of Sleep (2024) and made his theatrical debut directing, producing, writing, and starring in the horror film Iron Lung (2026).
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 stationed in South Korea. Fischbach's maternal grandfather was a North Korean defector and his maternal family history is covered in the 2022 documentary film Markiplier from North Korea.
After Fischbach was born, the family moved to Cincinnati, Ohio, but his parents divorced when he was still young. Fischbach graduated from Milford High School in 2007 and enrolled at the University of Cincinnati in a biomedical engineering program. His father died in 2008 when Fischbach was 18 years old. Fischbach met Wade Barnes in sixth grade and roomed with Bob Muyskens in his freshman year of college—they would both become his long-term friends and collaborators.
How Markiplier makes money
His YouTube channel reached 20 million subscribers in March, before going on another hiatus in June to mourn his step-niece Miranda Cracraft, who had been killed in a car accident at the age of nineteen, raising over $79,000 for her funeral through GoFundMe. It grossed $13 million in its opening week at the US box office. In 2017, Forbes reported that Fischbach and his fans raised around $3 million for charity through these events.
Sources
Net-worth figure: Celebrity Net Worth, in USD. Biography and career facts: the person's Wikipedia article and linked reporting. Snapshot date for all StarWorth figures: 28 October 2026.
