YouTube star and self-professed ‘most famous man in Sweden’ PewDiePie just posted a video focusing on striking similarities between one of his own billboards and that of fellow content creator Markiplier’s.
Often looked up to as one of the longest-standing YouTube gaming channels, Felix ‘PewDiePie’ Kjellberg has a long history of influence in the world of social media.
Showing that the influence he has can be seen far and wide, his second video posted after a long-discussed move to Japan showed a real-world example of how imitation truly is the greatest form of flattery.
In the video, titled ‘Can’t believe Markiplier did this to me,‘ Felix shows an image of a billboard of his YouTube Red show ‘Scare PewDiePie’ next to an image of the Mark ‘Markiplier’ Fischbach show ‘In Space with Markiplier’.’ The resemblance is immediately noticeable.
The videos for the two YouTube original productions immediately give a strong resemblance.
Looking at the two images next to each other, Felix’s first response is: “They straight-up ripped it off?” Before continuing in a more light-hearted fashion.
Markiplier’s billboard sees the creator using Felix’s exact image except with Mark’s face photoshopped onto the body in the image. Part of a long-running standard of Markiplier co-opting and providing homage to other creators in his advertising material.
As ‘In Space with Markiplier’ focuses on a multiverse narrative through-line, and both series are owned by YouTube through its funding program, it’s unlikely that this was an unknown rip-off.
More than two years after the (now debunked) adult proposition between Markiplier and PewDiePie it’s a boon to see that the creators are able to reference each other’s work in this fashion.
Comments within the Reddit post discussing the similarities were quick to point out the lack of ill-will in Markipliers actions, pointing out: “It’s too painfully obvious to be anything else unless someone is trying to be sued.”
Despite PewDiePie’s statement that “I’ll have to check that out,” there’s no indication there’ll be any major repercussions from the image usage by Markiplier. Should that change we’ll be sure to keep you updated.