{"id":30456,"date":"2020-11-04T15:00:00","date_gmt":"2020-11-04T20:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/?p=30456"},"modified":"2020-11-04T11:16:45","modified_gmt":"2020-11-04T16:16:45","slug":"opinion-why-unus-annus-is-the-best-experiment-in-youtube-history","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/entertainment\/2020\/11\/04\/opinion-why-unus-annus-is-the-best-experiment-in-youtube-history\/","title":{"rendered":"Opinion: Why Unus Annus is the Best Experiment in YouTube History"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

U<\/a>nus Annus<\/a> is an experimental YouTube channel centered around the meaning of digital content and the concept of digital death. It currently has over 4 million subscribers. The channel is the brainchild of two incredibly notable YouTubers: Mark \u201cMarkiplier\u201d Edward Fischbach and Ethan \u201cCrankGamePlays\u201d Nestor-Darling.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The purpose of the channel is that it only exists for one year, uploading a video\u00a0each day. Beginning on Nov. 15 2019, \u201cUnus Annus\u201d will die on Nov. 15, 2020. Yet, this isn\u2019t a regular channel ending. Rather the entire channel will be permanently deleted. No videos will remain, making their creation from a YouTube-business standpoint practically worthless.

However, this isn\u2019t about business. It\u2019s amplified by the fact that Fischbach and Nestor-Darling have gone as far, in the age of the internet where everything is permanent, as to ask fans to respect the experiment and not reupload or archive any videos.\u00a0

If Fischbach and Nestor-Darling are taking a financial loss on the potential ad revenue of year\u2019s worth of videos post-deletion, one might ask if this crazy experiment is even worth it? I am here to argue it is.

The creativity from this channel has been spectacular. No idea is too insane or taboo. From their first video, \u201cUnus Annus\u201d presents an incredibly serious tone, one that rocketed to the top of YouTube\u2019s trending. Now, the video has 9.4 million views.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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(Source: Youtube\/Unus Annus)<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

The second video, \u201cCooking With Sex Toys,\u201d also earned the number one trending spot the next day. Then, it was incredibly clear that this channel could be anything and everything. That flexibility is part of the channel\u2019s charm, within videos the switch can happen – one moment, Fischbach and Nestor-Darling are eating the world\u2019s hottest chip. The next, the two candidly discuss their own deaths.

The idea that a mundane video could suddenly become profound is jaw dropping. The variety of content is genuinely entertaining. Alongside the fear of missing out since all videos will be gone forever, it all helps fuel the addictive quality of the channel.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nestor-Darling and Fischbach have been friends and creative partners since 2014. They met at a gaming convention, and the young, star struck Nestor-Darling did a backflip, attempting to impress Fischbach.

Fischbach is a YouTube pioneer, having been on the platform professionally since 2012. With his Slenderman let\u2019s play series granting him early success and then his Five Nights At Freddy\u2019s series not only launching the game into the public eye itself but also making Fischbach even more famous as well. Not a stranger to ambitious projects before, it\u2019s quiet fitting that the duo created this.

Even though no experiment to this scale has ever been attempted on the platform. The origin story of \u201cUnus Annus\u201d is quite simple however, when talking about the project both insist that it\u2019s just a crazy idea they had and wanted to try. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The theme of death is celebrated through the channel, encouraging viewers to enjoy their lives as it is the only one they have. The Latin \u201cMemento Mori\u201d (remember death) is a popular slogan of the channel. The duo often play into the cryptic spooky side of the channel, even going as far as to have their solid suit characters Unus for Nestor-Darling and Annus for Fischbach.

In fact there is an entire underlying mystery, a hidden overarching narrative. It has inspired an entirely fan operated Discord server \u201cUnus Annus Lore Hunters\u201d of 7,745 members to attempt to solve it. I\u2019m personally involved in the server as I love cryptic messages and decoding. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

To me, and millions of other fans this shared experience of this outright ridiculous experiment has been worth it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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(Source: Youtube\/Unus Annus)<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

LeAnne McPherson<\/strong>
Multimedia Director & Reporter<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Unus Annus is an experimental YouTube channel centered around the meaning of digital content and the concept of digital death. It currently has over 4 million subscribers. The channel is the brainchild of two incredibly notable YouTubers: Mark \u201cMarkiplier\u201d Edward Fischbach and Ethan \u201cCrankGamePlays\u201d Nestor-Darling. The purpose of the channel is that it only exists […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10416,"featured_media":30457,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[2104,2616,3935,2109],"tags":[4560,3560,4559,1384,4558,363],"class_list":["post-30456","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-entertainment","category-featured","category-media","category-opinion","tag-crankgameplays","tag-leanne-mcpherson","tag-markiplier","tag-opinion","tag-unus-annus","tag-youtube"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"cc_featured_image_caption":{"caption_text":false,"source_text":false,"source_url":false},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/unnis-annis.png","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5s3vR-7Ve","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30456","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10416"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30456"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30456\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":30460,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30456\/revisions\/30460"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30457"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30456"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30456"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30456"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}