Something's Wrong with Markiplier | Creepypasta

I've been a longtime subscriber of Markiplier, a content creator on YouTube whose channel had grown exponentially over the past few years. He's known on the platform for commentating on video games and short hilarious skits, the former being the reason he's been put on the radar. Particularly horror games, he's known for Five Nights at Freddy's, Amnesia: The Dark Descent, and Slender Man.

I like the horror games commentary the most, they could either be hilarious or creepy as all hell.

But, that's not the issue here. I'm writing this because recently, there's been a concern spreading like wildfire within the Markiplier community: Many fans claimed that Mark's more recent videos doesn't fit well with his usual style, as of 2018 his uploads has been spotty, he'd miss his daily uploads for two or maybe three consecutive days.

Countless theories came from the fandom: Some say he's having the notorious Creator Burnout, a phase wherein a YouTuber is struggling to come up with ideas for their latest videos. Others say that Mark is doing it on purpose because he likes to play with the minds of his viewers by acting all shady and out of character.

I concurred with both speculations.

Until I rewatched his videos.

This happened a few days ago. I got home late in the evening after a long stressful day at work and YouTube was a way of getting my mind off things for a little while. I launched the app on my phone and a slew of videos flooded my homepage.

As I scrolled, I stopped at Markiplier's section and saw that he had recently uploaded two new, roughly twenty-minute long videos of their trip to South Korea. One had a thumbnail of him and his girlfriend Amy standing in front of a large waterfall and the other had him holding a balloon with trees in the background.

The second one caught my attention. Because in the background among the trees, was a figure wearing a suit and tie standing still like a statue, face obscured by the branches.

Realizing that it's the beginning of October, I chuckled thinking it was just another horror gimmick for the season. I decided to tag along and played the video anyway.

The video began normally, Mark greeted the people with the typical, "Hello, everybody!, my name is Markiplier."

Ten minutes passed by and there was nothing odd about the video, not even the whispers Mark would often include when foreshadowing his demented alter-ego Darkiplier. Mark and Amy were having the time of their lives, with the couple taking turns in holding the camera capturing whatever astounding scenery they had encountered.

It was around the sixteen minute mark when the they passed by the small patch of land growing trees in the thumbnail. Mark had a balloon tied to his wrist and asked Amy to take a photo of him.

That was when I saw the figure again, this time much clearer and not blocked by the branches.

I immediately hit pause.

I set video quality at 1080p HD and the brightness was set high so I could get a close look at the stalker, a choice that had the hairs on the back of my neck standing on end. I rubbed my eyes, my mind debating if it was caused by my drowsiness or it was another one of Mark's ploys.

The man had no face, devoid of any expression to be even classified as human.

It was without a doubt Slender Man.

The thin man stood there, observing Mark as if he had eyes. I watched with my mouth agape, my gaze on the figure in the background as Amy's shaky camerawork moved around.

I racked my brain for a plausible answer. There was no way Mark would've gone the extra mile and put him there, and why would he even bother in doing it? The hype for Slender-man has long died down.