Markiplier chats to Mashable about being a VidCon Hall of Famer

First of all, congratulations

Thank you. I saw you get a little emotional up there, talking about all the people who've been inspired to start their own channels

Yeah, yeah, I do sometimes. I've had many meme phases in my life

One of them was that I cry all the time in videos. And so people have kind of forgotten about that

I get really weepy about it because the award is something, you know, being acknowledged

I don't really mind awards, but I really, really, really care about people making things

and wanting to make things. more importantly than anything. I've said inspiration is the most valuable currency that

people have and some people really, really just need inspiration to be able to go the next step

and make the next thing and see it in themselves that they can make it. And so if I can show that

that makes me really happy. And seeing people behind the stage actually coming up to me

that means so much more than this. And this is meaningful. I swear it's meaningful

but really that personal connection is more me. Well speaking of loving people who make things

congratulations on the success of Iron Law. Thank you very much. I did see it in theaters, I had a great time

Oh thank you. And you know for years people had said YouTube was a stepping stone to Hollywood

Now it looks like creators are kind of forming their own version of Hollywood

Look at you know some of the most successful movies of the last few months. Yeah

What do you think about that? that's like accurate? Absolutely, yeah. I think that what is, it's becoming its own thing

and that allows people to control their destiny a little bit There a lot of I bet filmmakers out there you know who might you might call them legacy filmmakers but people in the traditional sphere who had to make concessions

to get their vision made and that's not a bad thing like we we can't all just do it ourselves

but for the first time ever with youtube you kind of can i didn't make iron lung by myself by the

way huge crew lots of people in post helping out i definitely wasn't alone in in all of that but at

the same time that people on YouTube are making things themselves and they're doing it all by

themselves when they start out at least. And it's beautiful to see this avenue for people to have a

platform to put out their thoughts, their undiluted vision. And the more that we get into this YouTube

thing and the creator whole sphere, the closer we get to translating these vivid imaginations we have

in our head and getting them out in the real world directly with no interference and no

translation buffer you know to get it onto the screen um and i'm not talking about ai or anything

like that i'm just talking literally like the the software the cameras are more accessible

everything more accessible even to the part where i started youtube to now it's like so much more

accessible for someone to get started in making a beautiful thing and that art people are just

going to get better at it and and youtube has become like this big platform alongside the other

social media is true tiktok but youtube obviously my specialty yeah i've seen a lot of people today

talk about how the future of entertainment is vertical. Yeah. And I know you film horizontal

So how do you feel about the vertical video, the rise of vertical video? I think it's perfectly fine

If there content for vertical that it works better for that fine I don imagine there be vertical movie theaters I think just logistically it a strange build You know your neck would hurt but it kind of just fits more

Even IMAX is like more square and people really like IMAX. So it's whatever format makes sense for what you're making

I don't think that it's one thing or another to say like it must be horizontal or it must be vertical

because there's many projects where it makes more sense for one versus the other

Yeah. If a young fan or a fan in general came up to you and they said their dream is to make a feature film like you did, what advice would you give them

Would you tell them that you have to go through certain Hollywood barriers or could you just say like start on YouTube, start on TikTok

I think it's perfectly valid to start on YouTube, start on TikTok. I think it's also perfectly valid to go the traditional path

It's fine. You can go to film school. You can you can pitch your script out there

You can write a book first and maybe sell that. You could make short films with your friends

YouTube is just a good vehicle because you can start building an audience right away. And that's the power of social media is just like you get a leg up because you already have people that like what you make from the get-go

And it's much harder in the traditional sphere to do that because in order to have your first project in front of anybody, it has to go through everybody's thumbs up, right

So I say start on YouTube or TikTok or wherever because it gets you an option and you'll start to get people's feedback

so you learn what and you don't have to mold yourself to exactly what they like but take it

in and then be like okay how can I get better so that you know they they will see what I'm trying

to make and I will improve my skill it yeah that that a great place so finally I know you mentioned it been a while since you been at VidCon The internet has changed a lot in 15 years since we gotten started

In your opinion, what's been the biggest change? I mean, it hasn't really changed that much

Maybe the speed at which people can rise and subsequently fall, that can be hard for a

lot of people. There's plenty of people from my area that have rose really quickly, had a precipitous drop

That happens. I wait when I become irrelevant and fall away. But with the viral cycle of some of these platforms, like TikTok, you'll see someone who will have videos just explode

And then they'll start to incorporate their entire life around that. And then the algorithm will shut them down

YouTube's also, this happens on YouTube as well. But I feel like as it's evolved, more people are doing it

It's faster. The spike is faster. Therefore, the fall is faster. And so that can be really hard on people that want to be creators

But even if that happens, it's not, not everyone's going to go. It's so hard to see the difference when you start

And then you've got this huge, like millions of people are watching. And then it's like, oh no, only thousands of people watching

Hard to get the perspective back that that's thousands of people. Even if it was millions, it's thousands now

And you're building that. Spikes are transient. The arc of growing your art still takes the same amount of time, no matter what

It's going to be a slow process. And you can't expect to be amazing at something right away

Anyway, no one could expect that. So it's like, yeah, it's going to take time even with the Transience Plague

So keep trying. Yeah, amazing. Thank you so much. Thank you for your time, Mark. No, no problem

Appreciate it. Thank you