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ourievamp · 6 years ago

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OK I NEED TO TALK THIS OUT

Some of you may have heard of a YouTuber named Markiplier. He has been posting videos on the web site for over five years now and has accumulated over 20 million followers. His videos are mainly devoted to LetsPlays of horror games, but through the years he has branched out into sketch comedy and improvisation. He has used his internet fame to help others by holding charity live streams and donating massive amounts to various well deserving causes. He is very talented and has even produced a few films like Who Killed Markiplier https://youtu.be/YoSrocwNYjA and a choose your own adventure style video called A Date With Markiplier https://youtu.be/yyU_1JD2wuA.

A year ago I had no idea this man existed! My boyfriend and I went over to a friend's house to play video games. I am no means a gamer, but I can play occasionally. That day, though, a hilarious video was playing on one of the many TV screens that were up and running. A deep voiced man was playing a gruesome game called Happy Wheels! I asked who that was. Many of the people there were surprised that I had never heard of Markiplier https://youtu.be/9SUrbImyTMo . While my boyfriend and his friends played their games, I watched Mark hilariously mangle his avatar, such gory deaths was one of the appeals of the game. While everyone else wound down and went to sleep I stayed up and laughed as he raged against a particularly difficult level…or ten. When I got home, I went on YouTube to keep watching…and I never stopped. Whenever I want something on, especially for a laugh I turn to Markiplier. Just something about him…

Another thing happened as I watched. Mark's kindness and message to his fans to always think better of themselves, improve themselves and work toward their goals really resonated with me as I had felt stuck where I was for years. I graduated from college in 2012 with a degree in fashion design. After graduating, though, I felt like a child thrown into the deep end of a pool. No one was there to tell me what to do anymore. I was making my own choices. Well, I knew I needed a job, so I took the first full time job that was offered to me. Thus, I began my career in Aerosteuctures and composites (building aircrafts). I worked a year before moving out to South Carolina to live on my own since I earned enough to do so and continued my job in airplanes. I made the mistake of living just below my means, which left little money for fabric, or time for developing the skills I had learned in school. I also felt like my schooling was inadequate to properly prepare me for the fashion world. Sure, I had learned a lot: I now knew in great detail how to make and present a garment or an idea, but no clue how to make that into a living. I didn't know how to sell a design, or source materials, or manufacture products for people to buy! I felt like I would die doing a job I didn't want, never realizing my dream of being a designer.

I really want to be able to see something in a store window, or a costume in a film and be able to stay ‘I made that!’ Instead, I sat in large buildings, sticking carbon fiber sheets onto molds that would become a plane. Some may say that a full time job creating airplane parts is a pretty cool job, but honestly it is repetitive and can be quite boring. I would rather be in front of a sewing machine, seeing a garment put together piece by piece into a garment that will be worn during some event in someone’s life!

Theater was also a love of mine, but my choices had led me from that path as well. I had moved far from Broadway and the theater where I had moved was lacking. Even my attempts to costume some shows were thwarted by my being placed on night shift. As Mark went on tour and created characters that could make his fans, including me, laugh or cry, I wrote my ideas in notebooks…and nothing else. Something about Mark and his content showed me just how much a person can accomplish with just themselves, a camera and ideas! It was not difficult to acquire a camera and a space to use it regularly to tell a story of some kind. I'm still waiting to see if I can gain an audience as well, but time will tell. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC130iG2OBxdGgxDfB8ObsyQ

Despite this attempt, I still felt bound by my ill conceived choices and the life they led to.

Then CLOAK happened. Markiplier and Jacksepticeye (a friend of his and fellow YouTuber) announced that they had been developing a line of clothes that would soon be released for purchase. Another one of my aspirations had been accomplished by a man only a year older than me! I had to look back and think of what I had done with my time and the answer was…nothing. I went to work, came home, slept and did the same thing again the next day, and the next and the next. I felt both trapped and helpless like there was no time in the day to do anything of worth towards reaching my dreams. Mark had worked for where he was. He experimented, collaborated, and put effort into every video and it showed! Trust me, I began by watching his older stuff, attempting to view it all in order, and the amount that Mark had grown through the years is amazing!

I needed to change. I wanted to be like Markiplier, but…no, I want to be better! I want to find my own characters, my own content, watching Mark, learning from his mistakes and gain my own fans to push me further and keep me going…but how? Little by little. Bit by bit, every day doing just one more small thing to get further to my goals. I want to lose weight, so I began running every day (lost 13 pounds so far!). I want to read more, so I devoted an hour before bed to read one of the many books I had been meaning to learn from! I want to tell my stories, so every week I post two videos to YouTube, one as a vlog for myself, one as a fictional character to tell the tales that have been locked in my head for years!

I want to be a fashion designer…….. Here is where I lost my way for a moment. When CLOAK was announced it was quite simple: a small assortment of t shirts and hoodies in black and grey colors. It was praised for having a diverse group of models, but I didn't get the appeal until I heard it said that it was a clothing line built for the gaming community. That confused me even more because I assumed a gamer would rather spend $80 on a game than a hoodie, but I was quickly proven wrong as CLOAK sold out of their stock of preorders in the first weekend.

One thing that kept coming up was ‘Would the CLOAK brand ever sell a cloak?’ Both Mark and Jack had been asked this, but I had yet to hear a definitive answer from either. I decided to design my own cloak, drawing heavily on the designs in the brand and doing all I could to further its development to be produced one day…but who would produce it?

If I was designing a cloak for CLOAK shouldn't it be sold by them? How would they go about it? I knew it was very possible that any suggestion made through their means (they ask for input on their web site) would be taken from me with no regard to me or any repayment. I could go through the time and effort to draft a pattern, create a technical sheet and pretty much everything but manufacture it and CLOAK could just take it and there would be nothing I could do! Any sketch, picture, anything is a risk in design because clothes cannot be copywritten, and therefore easily stolen. I knew the value of my design and did not want to give it up for nothing!

Could I sell the design to them? Both Jack and Mark make many appearances at cons and the like, if I could have a discussion with them, perhaps they would be willing to compensate me for the work I had put into the cloak. This ranged from a monetary sum (the amount of which….I had no idea what the work I had done was worth!), to simply gaining a job that would be beneficial to my pursuit of having my own brand one day! For days the possible outcomes of such a discussion went in and out of my head as I contemplated selling my design to the brand in which it ‘belonged'.

No. I will not give up what I have worked on just for someone else's name to be on it! My cloak may have been inspired by the CLOAK brand, but it is still mine! I realized that I was designing this for Mark when I should have been designing it for me! I have found a need that I can fill. People are calling for a functional, modern cloak that can be worn in this day and age. If the CLOAK brand will not oblige its many requests to produce one….I will!

Of course this presented it's own problems. If I utilized the design that was similar to CLOAK brand, would it be called a knock off or imitation? That is not how I want to begin my career, but if I differ from the design, I may lose my target customer, that being a Markiplier or Jacksepticeye fan who would love a CLOAK cloak! It is possible the garment, through fabric or other decisions in production, will evolve and differ from the original concept, moving away from a CLOAK copy and into a design all my own! I plan on finding a manufacturer soon to help me in this process so, I suppose we shall see!

I suppose the point I'm trying to get at is…in the year since I found out about this guy called Markiplier I have done more with my life than the five years since I graduated college. Thank you Mark. I can feel a fire inside of me driving me forward. The flames belong to me….but you are the spark! #markthespark

Stay tuned

@markiplier

#markiplier #markimoo #jacksepticeye #cloakbrand #cloak #dream #drive #jealousy #choices #failure #i hate my life #i hate this #hate my job #hate my body #hate myself #change #hope #fire #markthespark

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