One year! memento mori, Unus Annus

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On November 15, 2019, Mark Fischbach and Ethan Nestor, more commonly known by their YouTube channels, Markiplier and CrankGameplays, published a video on a channel they called “Unus Annus”. In this video, they explained that they would be working together to upload one video, every day, for one year straight. And that once that one year was done they would be deleting the channel.

For one year, Mark and Ethan uploaded videos of them doing activities they wanted to do before their time was up. The two of them dragged on the idea that “the clock” was always ticking and that the time we have is all that we get. The channel gained just over 4.5 million subscribers in one year. The channel did very well in that it created unique content with videos that were completely different. The content of their videos contained everything from making a play-doh Thanksgiving to getting pepper-sprayed. Some videos, however, were for mature audiences.

Many people would say they enjoyed the videos Mark and Ethan would post. Nevertheless, on November 13, 2020, Mark, Ethan and Amy, Mark’s girlfriend, started a 12-hour live stream to celebrate the end of the channel. The live stream went through all of what Mark and Ethan had done the past year, covering videos they enjoyed making and posts on social media that people created about Unus Annus. Throughout the stream, Mark and Ethan contacted different people and organizations they collaborated with on videos as well as calling some of the people that worked behind the scenes on different videos.

During the live stream, Mark and Ethan sat in front of a screen with the clock counting down, referring to the running theme of the channel, that time is limited. Every hour, they would talk about how there was only a small amount of time left, yet everything that happens in that hour will affect what happens next. The entire stream was meant to show how much a few people can achieve in such a short amount of time. The moments they experienced, the people they met and the feelings they spread. They rewatched some of their favorite videos and talked about why they filmed them and what they felt about their experiences. They reflected on the decisions they made and how they affected what the next videos they made would be. The videos they rewatched often had some sort of meaning to them, either about how much time there was or how to just have fun doing simple things.

As the final hour of the stream, and the channel approached, the tension in the stream was high. Everyone came to realize that what they had been watching for the last year was about to end. Mark and Ethan played a song that was made to remember the channel “Unus Annus” and a few minutes after the video, Mark, Ethan and Amy gathered in front of the camera as the clock counted down the seconds. When the clock hit the time 000:00:00:00, they, together, deleted the channel. The stream ended and all the videos that were uploaded had been deleted.