Tropes Media Browse Indexes Forums Videos Ask The Tropers Trope Finder Media Finder Trope Launch Pad Tech Wishlist Reviews Tools
Cut List New Edits Edit Reasons Launches Images List Crowner Activity Un-typed Pages Recent Page Type Changes Changelog
Tips
Creating New Redirects Cross Wicking Tips for Editing Text Formatting Rules Glossary Edit Reasons Handling Spoilers Word Cruft Administrivia FAQ
Tropes HQ
About Us Contact Us Advertise DMCA Notice Privacy Policy Report Bug
Go Ad-Free Changelog
  • Show Spoilers
  • Night Vision
  • Sticky Header
  • Highlight Links
 

Follow TV Tropes

Following

Web Video / Unus Annus

Go To

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/unus_annus_vertical_logo_6.jpg
What would you do if you only had a year left to live?
Ethan: We live our lives taking each second for granted...
Mark: But what would you do if you knew how much time you had left?

Unus... Annus... Unus... Annus!

Unus Annusnote  was a unique, time-limited YouTube channel created by Mark Fischbach and Ethan Nestor as a social experiment. It launched on November 15th, 2019, and ended on November 14th, 2020.

The basic premise of the channel was that every day for one year, a new video was uploaded. At the end of the year, the channel and all of its videos were permanently deleted with each video beginning and ending with a countdown timer leading up to its deletion. The videos themselves were quite bizarre in their content, ignoring all of the site's advertiser-friendly monetization guidelines, resulting in videos like trying to cook a meal with sex toys or operating a portable sauna with urine.

Ethan and Mark would occasionally play characters named Unus and Annus, who were respectively dressed in an all-black and all-white suit. The two would frequently remind the viewers that the time on this channel was very limited, as well as repeating "Memento mori" (an old Latin phrase that loosely translates to "Remember that you will die") as a Catchphrase. The Central Theme of these two characters was that We All Die Someday, and that one should use the time they have to make the most of their life.

On November 14th, 2020, Unus Annus ended, true to the words of Mark and Ethan. There was a 12-hour livestream on the day, culminating with the on-stream deletion of their entire social media presence, including deleting the YouTube channel itself when the clock hit zero. Mark and Ethan also gave a last request to their fans to not re-upload any of the content from the channel, letting the videos stay permanently gone.note

Following the project's end, Mark and Ethan created "post-mortem" videos where they talked about their thoughts and feelings on the experience of working on the project (1, 2). A year later, they did them again, each releasing a video called "Memento Mori" (1, 2). A year after that, Mark and Ethan released another pair of retrospective videos, "Memento" and "Mori", which are intended to be watched simultaneously.

Unus Annus contained examples of:

  • 13 Is Unlucky: As revealed in "Goodbye", they timed the launch of the channel so that it would end on Friday, November 13th, 2020.note 
  • Absent Aliens: Mark and Ethan discussed the Fermi Paradox, among other things, in "We Explore the Most MYSTERIOUS Mysteries of our Wildy Mysterious Mystery Moon of Mysteries". Mark opined that aliens would likely follow an Alien Non-Interference Clause, because he suspects that even a benevolent First Contact would likely result in mass hysteria.
  • Accidental Misnaming: In "Acupuncture Is NOT Painful", the acupuncturist accidentally called Ethan Arin.
  • Actually, I Am Him: In "The Deep End of Omegle: Risky Boogaloo", a video chatter thought someone looked like Mark and he replied:
    Mark: That is really funny, I get that all the time. Mostly cause I am.
  • Alternative Character Interpretation: In-Universe all over "We Made Every YouTuber Battle in the Hunger Games". Unus (Ethan) was a psycho who killed four people right off the bat and later stabbed Elon Musk to death, finishing with the highest kill count. Jenny Nicholson was also Ax-Crazy, including killing Annus (Mark), even getting a hatchet (which Mark thinks is a reference to Jack Nicholson in The Shining). Mark was also a remorseless killer who ended up killing four different people, eventually winning the game. Jake Paul was a Master of Disguise. Ethan died of dysentery on the first day.
  • And I Must Scream: Discussed in "Preserving Ourselves in Wax". When Mark's lips were covered in wax, Sean remarked that "this is some, like, horror movie... not letting you scream."
  • Anti-Climax: At the end of the "Internet Scavenger Hunt", Ethan said he was going to show the scariest image he knows, but instead accidentally showed an image of George Bush eating corn and thinking it's a banana.
  • The Anti-Nihilist: The purpose of the channel was to remind viewers that death is inevitable, and that one must squeeze as much living as possible into each moment.
  • Anti-Role Model: The list in "How to NOT be the Perfect Boyfriend" advocates submitting to Domestic Abuse, "Sacrificing Self Identity" and more. Here's the list, if you want to be horrified.
    • The website was later changed to actual ways to be a better boyfriend after the unsurprising outcry that it had terrible advice at being a better boyfriend.
  • Arc Words:
    • Unus Annus... Unus ANNUS! This Ominous Latin Chanting opened every video, complete with a clock that was counting down closer and closer to zero.
    • "Memento Mori." A Latin phrase that translates roughly to "remember that you are mortal" or "remember that you will die". It tied into the Central Theme of the channel that the time we have is limited, so one should make the most of it.
  • The Backwards Я: In one round of Geoguessr in "Where in the World is Unus Annus?", Mark and Ethan figured they were somewhere in either Russia or Ukraine based on the Cyrillic signs. They guessed Ukraine, based on the lack of backward Rs on the sign. It turned out to be Russia after all.
  • Bait-and-Switch:
    • "Nutball Extreme: Taser Edition" initially appeared to be Exactly What It Says on the Tin, but cut out near the beginning into an announcement video for the Fitness Annus contest winners.
    • Only 3 minutes into "The Deep End of Omegle: Risky Boogaloo", the Unus Annus timer came up after they find each other on Omegle, but then it cut back to Mark and Ethan chatting.
  • Bears Are Bad News:
    • Two episodes of the "Camp Unus Annus" series had to do with them being either watched or attacked by a "bear" (Evan, who was holding the camera).
    • In "Three Big Boys Attempt The Royal Fitness Test", Mark dramatizes one of Ethan's performances as a game he lost against a team of "bears and lions". He later shortens this for the remaining exercises, referring to "the bears" once things start to get hard.
      Mark: "The bears, they come in at like, fourteen, and you're like, where did all these bears come from???"
  • Beware the Nice Ones: Ethan destroying The Barrel. Good God.
  • BFS: "Bed knife", the knife Mark keeps by his bed, finally made an appearance in "The Wubble", and it's more than a foot long.
  • Bigfoot, Sasquatch, and Yeti: Parodied with "Hunting HeeHoo." Ethan presented it as a documentary of searching for Mark, like he'd gone fully feral.
  • Blue-and-Orange Morality: In "This Is How We'll Die...", Mark and Ethan ranked various ways to die on how "impressive" they are, rather than on pain or likelihood.
  • Book Ends: Each episode began and ended with a countdown to the end of the channel.
    • The channel's first proper video, "Cooking With Sex Toys", featured Mark and Ethan using sex toys to make themselves breakfast. In one of the channel's final videos, "Everything's Legal If You're Dead", Mark and Ethan did this again, but this time, with more crime.
    • Twofold, in that "Cooking With Sex Toys" was actually the second video filmed, making it fitting that the second to last video before "Goodbye" also involved sex toys.
    • The first and last words spoken on the channel were said by Ethan.
  • Brain Bleach:
    • "Reddit 50/50: Two Player Edition" involved a coin flip of pleasant and terrifying content and both players saw some seriously disturbing stuff. They also expressed sympathy for their editor, as they'd have to see what they saw and censor it for the viewers.
    • In "Wikifeet: A Tale of 2 Tootsies" one of them searched for "Bad Feet" and saw a rather disturbing (but censored) image of feet before cutting to the outro before resuming the video.
  • Bread, Eggs, Milk, Squick: Mark says that he would probably be a cult leader in another universe in "Whom Would Eat Whomst First in a Zombie Apocalypse?", specifically noting that he has a good voice, is naturally good at speaking, and is very egotistical.
  • Breather Episode: "Accepting the Truth", which was uploaded one day after the ominous "The Truth of Unus Annus", and was followed by the last twelve videos of the channel. The video consisted of Mark and Ethan in their suits, bathing their feet in Mark's poolside hot tub. The two sat somberly discussing what they'd learned about the fleeting nature of life and time throughout the channel's life, and invited the audience to their final "Goodbye" live stream which began twelve days later.
    • Also "The Unus Annus Annual Sleepover", in which the duo had a typical, charming sleepover and even made friendship bracelets for each other, on the second-to-last day of the channel. Its description gave a fitting summary of the overall mood of the video.
      "Tomorrow's the big day. Just one more sleepy before we say goodbye..."
  • Brick Joke:
    • In "Mark Reviews The Impossible Burger But There's a Looming Sense of Impending Doom", Mark made Ethan promise to get shot with a very powerful paintball gun when he least expects it. In "Ethan Finally Becomes a MAN", Mark made good on that promise.
    • In "Beer Sauna: Turning a Portable Sauna into a Portable Hell", Evan (one of the camera-people for the episode) suggested that the two do a pee sauna. Three months later, the first video they did out of quarantine is just that.
  • Broken Record: In "Beer Sauna", Mark and Ethan spent a solid twenty seconds repeating "I'm not super worried, are you worried?" to each other.
  • Broke the Rating Scale: In "Wikifeet: A Tale of 2 Tootsies", Mark found out that his feet are rated 5.48 on a five-star scale. They later found that Jacksepticeye has a rating of 5.36 and Arin of Game Grumps has a 5.33.
  • Cannot Spit It Out: In "The Great Meat Mistake", Ethan forgot the word "skillet", much to his own chagrin and Mark's amusement.
    • This was a Running Gag for Ethan. He has ADHD and sometimes has trouble forming coherent sentences. There are supercuts on Youtube of all the times he struggled with words, and even Ethan admits they're Actually Pretty Funny.
  • Cap: In "Wikifeet: A Tale of 2 Tootsies", Ethan and Mark agreed that the most they'll donate for touching their faces is $10,000 due to Ethan lacking the restraint to not touch his face.
  • Carpe Diem: While not their Latin expression of choice, the channel certainly invoked this without saying it, both for the creators (using it as a chance to do things they've always wanted to try) and the viewer (to experience things in the moment rather than live vicariously after the fact).
  • Casual Kink: During a series of quarantine videos, the boys tried to stop themselves from touching their own faces by pledging a charitable donation each time they did it. Ethan was so bad at this that he actually had to strap his arms down... with some bondage restraints that he apparently just happened to have lying around.
  • Celebrity Paradox: in "We Made Every YouTuber Battle in the Hunger Games", Ethan and Mark appeared both as themselves and as Unus and Annus, respectively.
  • Central Theme: Death is inevitable, so live life to the fullest.
  • Character Development: In "Being Brutally Honest With Each Other," Mark and Ethan discussed how filming Unus Annus changed them as people throughout the year. Namely, Mark learned to curb his ego and his competitive streak, while Ethan learned to take initiative and a leadership role.
  • Chariot Pulled by Cats: In "Harnessing Our Dogs' Unlimited Energy", Mark and Ethan tried to get their dogs to pull a sled with them on it. Of course, Chica and Spencer had no interest in doing so whatsoever.
  • Chekhov's Skill: Ethan's gymnastics background gave him an enormous advantage in "We Force James Charles to Run a Military Obstacle Course", allowing him to finish the course in under two minutes and leaving Mark and James in the dust.
  • Colour-Coded for Your Convenience: Unus/Ethan almost always dressed in black, while Annus/Mark almost always dressed in white.
  • Country Matters:
    • This exchange, from "Edible Slime was a Mistake."
      Mark: I don't always know the right way, man. Sometimes you're correct and me trying to correct you is wrong, and I am trying to be better about that.
      Ethan: Well, thank you. I appreciate it.
      Mark: Also, you're a cunt.
    • After dishing out Flowery Insults at each other in "2 Dirty Boys Wash Their Filthy Mouths Out With Soap", Mark got to the last bar and nonchalantly said the word before washing his mouth out.
  • Cloudcuckoolander: Ethan is definitely one. Some examples include:
  • Cringe Comedy: "Turning Mark Into an E-Boy" had Mark and Ethan gleefully embrace every E-boy cliché during the former's "transformation".
    Mark: I look like a Tim Burton character!
  • Cruel and Unusual Death: In "Middle School Science Experiment Teaches Us About Life and Death", while the duo are dissecting owl pellets, Ethan thinks being Eaten Alive as one of the most gruesome ways to die. And this happens every single day in nature, according to Mark.
  • Cryptid Episode:
    • "Bigfoot is Real and It Ate My Friend" and, to a lesser degree, "Don't Go in the Ocean... Ever." discussed various cryptids like Bigfoot and the Loch Ness Monster.
    • "The Cryptic Olympics" had Mark and Ethan competing to see who would make a better cryptid through tasks like sneaking, pouncing, and running on all fours.
  • Cutting the Knot: In "Ethan Kidnapped Mark", one of Mark's tasks was to pick a lock to get the next clue, which was inside a birdcage. After trying to do so for a few seconds, Mark just pulled the clue out from between the bars.
  • Department of Redundancy Department: In "Transforming Mark into the 8th Wonder of the World", Ethan gives Mark praise after being complimented. Unfortunately, the variety of said praise is...lacking.
    Ethan: He's humble, and he has...he's humble, and...hu- hung.
  • Disorganized Outline Speech: Ethan during "DIY Wine" asked Mark a question about what Jesus turned water into, and gave the options as "A, B, 3, and 4".
  • Does This Remind You of Anything?:
    • In "Ethan Will Be Kicked in the Balls", the way that Mark helped Ethan blow up his tube involved Mark on his knees and blowing in a rather suggestive manner.
    • In "The Great Meat Mistake," putting the sausage into the casing produced a very weird (and slightly suggestive) visual. The noises Mark made in confusion didn't help either.
    • The first thing that Mark says when he threatens Ethan with the super-powerful paintball gun mentioned above is "get on your knees".
    • Bear Trapping 101: An Elegant Knot For An Elegant Beast was positively dripping with BDSM-innuendo.
  • Domestic Abuse: In the episode "How to NOT be the Perfect Boyfriend", the article they found to be a better boyfriend advised to put up with their girlfriend isolating them, to "Still love her even if she hates you", put up with her infidelity and hope it gets better... Mark and Ethan both agreed that the article is giving horrible advice for being a good boyfriend or girlfriend.
  • Do Not Go Gentle: Ethan and Mark, in their Unus and Annus personas, quote the original poem in "The Beginning of the End" as they go into the last 110 days. Fitting for an 'anything goes' YouTube channel meant to self-destruct in a year.
  • Don't Touch It, You Idiot!: Due to COVID-19, Mark and Ethan did a challenge in which they tried not to touch their faces. They successfully prevented themselves from touching their faces (and avoid falling for each other's Schmuck Bait) during the course of the challenge. At the end of the video, they told the viewers that until the quarantine is over that they would donate $100 each time either of them touched their faces. In "Mark's 1 Weird Talent Leaves Ethan Absolutely Speechless" we found that Ethan had ended up strapping his arms to his desk to stop touching his face because of his lack of mental restraint.
  • Don't Try This at Home: Many, many videos had this disclaimer whenever Mark and Ethan did something particularly dangerous. Usually delivered via "the Disclaimer Song" (see the Quotes page), which Ethan improvised in "DIY Bungee Jump".
  • Dropped a Bridge on Him: invokedIn "We Made Every YouTuber Battle in the Hunger Games", Mark and Ethan were hoping Unus — Ethan's Ax-Crazy alter-ego — would win, and were disappointed when he inexplicably died in a failed double suicide with Lily Singh.
    Ethan: That's such a bad way for Unus to go!
    Mark: Were they in love? Like, what's the deal?
    Ethan: I don't know!
  • Drunk on Milk: Most of the "eating videos" resulted in this, due to Mark and Ethan consuming a ludicrous amount of food/drink by the end. This was lampshaded in "We Play the Newlywed Game While Consuming That Which Will Kill the Other," when Ethan (who was drinking beer) handled it fine and Mark (who was eating peanut butter) fell completely apart.
    Ethan: Okay, I have a question. I'm drinking alcohol. Why are you the one acting drunk?
    Mark: (in pain) Shut... shut the fuck up.
  • Early-Installment Weirdness:
    • Some early videos, such as "Ethan Will Be Kicked in the Balls", included a title card shortly after the intro clock. Later videos did away with this.
    • Some of the early episodes had the Signing Off Catchphrase, "Memento mori. We'll see you tomorrow. Unus... Annus." This was absent until the last ten or so videos, particularly "The Truth of Unus Annus".
  • Everyone Knew Already: Played for Laughs in "Goodbye". After playing coy about what the video "Hiding Our Sins From Amy's Holy Peepers" was about for the entire year, Mark and Ethan finally admit to Amy that Mark punched a hole in the wall... only for Amy to casually state that she already knew, since she saw the hole when she got home. No one mentions the fact that they posted the aforementioned incident on YouTube.
  • Exact Time to Failure: Every episode began and ended with the clock ticking down. When the clock hit zero during "Goodbye", the stream abruptly Smashed to Black and the YouTube channel was deleted.
  • Exact Words: In "Puberty Simulator", Mark read that in puberty one starts to develop a body odor. After simulating sweat with Febreze (for pets!), they rationalized that "Body Odor" doesn't specify if it meant good or bad.
  • Eye Scream: At one point in "This Video is Completely Unedited", Ethan accidentally yanked a piece of paper in the direction of Mark's face. Mark promptly freaked out at having nearly gotten eye papercuts.
  • Face Death with Dignity: "The Truth of Unus Annus" focuses on Mark and Ethan accepting that the end (of the channel, that is) is inevitable, courtesy of Unus and Annus. Fittingly enough, this episode was released 13 days before the channel's deletion.
    "It's time to say goodbye. Memento mori. Unus Annus."
  • Failed Attempt at Drama: At the beginning of "Fixing Mark's Hole with Ramen but Every Time We Add Glue We Get 5% Closer to God," the door swinging back interrupted Mark's attempt at an ominous intro.
  • Five Stages of Grief: "The Truth of Unus Annus"; taking place after the recording of their previous video ("Ethan Kidnaps Mark") the duo are contacted by Unus and Annus themselves and are told that the end is approaching. Mark and Ethan proceed to bounce back and forth between the first four stages while Unus and Annus tell them that no matter what they do, the end is inevitable. Finally, Mark and Ethan accept what's coming.
  • Funny Background Event: In many videos, the Team Pets (Chica, Henry, and Spencer) could be seen looking at Mark and Ethan with confusion and/or concern while they did whatever activity they were doing that day.
  • The Gadfly: Ethan just loves to derail Mark's train of thought with some random comment. For example, this moment from "Taped and Afraid":
    Mark: Be careful not to wrap too tight, or you'll cut off my circulation.
    Ethan: (innocently) What is 'circulation'?
    Mark: (groans, coughs) ...That question took a year off my life.
  • Gainax Ending: The ending of their "Mark and Ethan Find The Lost City of El Dorado" video had Mark and Ethan (that is, their faces photoshopped onto super muscular and shirtless bodybuilders) literally flying into a plane, hijacking it, and crashing it into Venezuela.
  • Glass-Shattering Sound: Attempted in one episode, in which Mark and Ethan took turns screaming at glass and crystal mugs in an attempt to shatter them. When that failed, Mark smacked them with a knife instead.
  • Grand Finale: "Goodbye.", a twelve-hour livestream that took place on the last day of the channel's activity. It consisted of Ethan and Mark reminiscing about the year making the content for the channel, waxing philosophically about the themes of death and finality (as well as living in the moment), watching the soon-to-be-deleted videos for old time's sake, and deleting the channel's online presence bit by bit over the final hour. The stream closed with Ethan, Mark, and Amy getting in front of Ethan's computer and giving a small goodbye to the audience, Mark and Ethan saying "See you on the other side" in turn, and all three pressing the delete button for the channel as the clock struck zero.
  • Gratuitous Latin: The channel's name, which is Latin for "one year". They also often repeated the phrase "Memento mori", which can be translated as "Remember that you are mortal", "Remember that you will/must die", or "Remember your death".
  • Groin Attack:
    • In "2 Truths and 1 Lie — Waxing Edition", Mark and Ethan both had to get their pubes waxed.
    • One video is called "Ethan Will Be Kicked in the Balls". Guess how it ended?
    • In "Nutball: The Most Dangerous Game", Mark and Ethan took turns sliding a spinning Gatorade bottle toward each other's testicles. The first one to collapse in pain loses.
    • One scenario in "The Ultimate Trolley Problem" invoked this: you can redirect the trolley to save dozens of lives, but it'll run over your dick if you do.
      Ethan: Well, (counting the people) five, ten, fifteen, twenty, twenty-five, thirty, thirty-five fatalities on that day!
  • Helium Speech: The whole point of the Helium Therapy video was Mark and Ethan doing this. The two of them discussed various topics, including Their First Time, but with really high-pitched squeaky voices. It created Vocal Dissonance as a result, which was intentional.
  • High-Five Left Hanging: Mark left Ethan hanging in "We Give Each Other Tattoos Blindfolded". Justified as he was wearing a blindfold at the time.
  • Hope Spot: Eight hours into the final stream, the screen displaying the count-down timer shut down. Ethan and Mark are initially shocked, but Ethan soon re-plugged back the clock. Mark and Ethan then mock the audience for thinking that the clock would stop.
    Ethan: Idiots! All of you, idiots! You think that we would stop the clock for one second? No.
  • Horrible Camping Trip: The "Camp Unus Annus" episodes were them pitching a tent, getting attacked by a "bear", trying to light a fire, and hunting "Heehoo", Mark's caveman alter-ego.
  • Human Popsicle: Mark and Ethan tried cryotherapy in "We Cryogenically Freeze Ourselves".
  • I Am Not Pretty: A Running Gag throughout the channel is Ethan being described as 'horrifically ugly', and he oftentimes mentioned feeling insecure about his body (even directly saying such in "Preserving Ourselves in Wax"). Additionally, he and Mark joked around about his "Santa belly" in "Mark and Ethan Get a Full Body Scan to See What Secrets Lay Hidden Within". This was despite him having a thin physique and being average-looking at his worst. It is worth noting that this is primarily Played for Laughs, however.
  • Iconic Outfit: Unus/Ethan and Annus/Mark's black and white suits, respectively. They mostly wore these suits during some of the more somber videos; the channel's first video "Unus Annus", milestones such as "The Beginning of The End" and "This is Goodbye", the last two weeks of the channel and the final twelve hours during "Goodbye", to name a few.
    • As showcased in the beginning of "Who’s Cutting Onions In Here???", each suit had the wearer's name ("Unus" and "Annus") embroidered on the inside.
  • Implausible Deniability: When Mark and Ethan tried to fill the hole in the wall with Ramen so Amy wouldn't know of the hole's existence, Amy was the one filming the event.
  • Innocently Insensitive: In "Recreating Every Unus Annus Video", Mark tells Siri to call him 'daddy'. Siri mishears him, and replies that there's no father in his contact list.
    Mark: (shocked laughter) Well, about that...note 
  • Intoxication Ensues: In "Fixing Mark's Hole with Ramen but Every Time We Add Glue We Get 5% Closer to God," this resulted from Mark and Ethan failing to properly ventilate themselves while adding heavy amounts of superglue to dense clumps of instant ramen that they'd shoved into a hole in the wall. As the title implied, the video punctuated this by gradually distorting every time they added more glue, and eventually showed them "passed out" before cutting to the winners of the Coldus Annus challenge.
  • It Makes Sense in Context: In "The Deep End of Omegle: Risky Boogaloo", Ethan and Mark met a boy on Omegle, twice in Ethan's case, who recognized them and Squeed out. They chatted a bit with the kid, and at the end, Ethan says "Enjoy your... Car." since the kid was using his webcam in the car for some reason.
    • Also, from the same episode, "If you match with some kid named 'Kale Chip', tell him 'Fish' is looking for him.", which was lampshaded later in the episode.
      Mark: "If you find 'Kale Chip', tell him that 'Fish' is looking for him. I don't know what that means."
  • Know When to Fold 'Em: At the end of their Escape Room experience, Mark realized that they have one minute left and sat on the rocking chair to Navel Contemplate and realized that you can't always win. The two then "died" when the "hounds" were unleashed.
  • Large Ham: Both Mark and Ethan often ham things up for comedy. Mark in particular has a tendency to slip into an exaggerated character Amy compares to Jim Carrey's Grinch.
  • Like You Would Really Do It: Averted; they really did do it. There was a large number of the channel's fans who believed and/or were hoping that Mark and Ethan were bluffing or joking about deleting the channel once the timer hit zero. However, true to their word, they did exactly that in "Goodbye".invoked
  • Living Is More than Surviving: The message of the channel was to pack as much living into your life as you can, because you're gonna die sooner or later anyway. Mark expressed as much during "Goodbye", saying that he's not so much afraid of dying as he is afraid of leaving a life with regrets at having not done enough.
  • LOL, 69:
    • In "Like It or Not... This is What The New Human Looks Like", the two noticed that Ereo Mantryranta's number is 69 and made penis comments due to it.
    • "Only UNUS/ANNUS-es May Watch This Video" note  was released 169 days till the end of the channel. Within the holes of the six and the nine, the words "DUDE!" and "NICE!" were visible at the beginning of the video, and "BRUH!" and "SWEET!" at the end.
    • "We Finally Drank Our DIY Wine" was released 69 days before the end, and similarly said "Nice" at the beginning (though not at the end).
  • Loophole Abuse: In "The Ultimate Paper Airplane Showdown", one of Mark's two planes is just a crumpled ball he names "P". P ends up being the "plane" to fly the furthest of them all, as it doesn't get screwed over by the wind like the other three.
  • Lyrical Dissonance: "How to Safely Bury Your Friend" had Mark and Ethan sing a song about digging a grave... set to the lively melody of "You've Got a Friend in Me".
  • Macho Masochism: A Running Gag was Mark subjecting himself to unnecessary pain, not because he's a masochist, but because he just wanted to see if his body can take it.
    "This is what it means to go even further beyond!"
  • Madness Mantra: In one video, Mark kept repeating to himself, "The grip was loose". For context, Mark and Ethan had done a Grip Strength Test in August, and the loser would be the winner's butler for the day. Ethan supposedly won... but as Mark pointed out, Ethan cheated, because a photo showed that the grip on Ethan's test was loose. The grip was loose. The grip was loose...
  • Malaproper: Both Mark and Ethan often messed up speaking and reading off articles, which were highlighted by captions.
  • Man of a Thousand Voices:
    • Attempted in "1 Man 100 Accents", but Ethan wasn't particularly great at accents.
    • Reprised in "2 Men 200 Accents", where both attempted to improve their ability to do accents. Ethan improved more than Mark, but still wasn't particularly great.
      Seán: "What accent was that supposed to be?"
  • Misspelling Out Loud:
    • In "Making Our Own Gravestones to Prepare For Our Inevitable Demise", Ethan spelled Plinth as "Pleanth"
    • "The Ultimate Paper Airplane Showdown" exaggerates this, as according to Ethan, "Harrumph" is spelled "Tak". This becomes a Running Gag after Ethan then names his plane after it.
    • In "How to Start a Fire (except don't...)", Ethan throws off Mark's intro by spelling Fire "Firt".
  • Mood Whiplash: The ominous countdown at the opening of the videos and the Creepy Monotone outros contrasted heavily with the bizarre and hilarious antics in the videos themselves.
  • Mr. Fanservice: Neither of the boys were shy about taking their shirts off in the post-quarantine videos. Whether it was out of a need for release or Mark was just proud of his new physique is anyone's guess. Jacksepticeye also got a shirtless scene in Preserving Ourselves in Wax, showing his hairy chest.
  • My Country Tis of Thee That I Sting: Mark and Ethan threw a lot of shade at the USA in America-themed videos like "Mark and Ethan Become United States Citizens".
  • Nature Is Not Nice: Discussed in "Middle School Science Experiment Teaches Us About Life and Death" while dissecting owl pellets.
    Mark: This happens every day, millions of times. The majority of times when things die, they are Eaten Alive in nature.
    Ethan: That's horrifying to think about!
    Mark: It really is, isn't it?
    Ethan: Because, to me, that sounds like one of the most gruesome and horrible ways to die.
    Mark: That is biology through-and-through. It's always been about eating.
  • The Needs of the Many: "The Ultimate Trolley Problem" discussed this trope with the "trolley problem" thought experiment.
  • Negative Continuity: Mark and/or Ethan "died" at the end of several videos (some with deliberate Special Effects Failure) but were still alive for the next video.
  • Noodle Incident: In "Professional Fetish Scientists Rank the Best/Worst Fetishes of 2020", a card came up that read "Ethan said the funniest shit but Mark said to cut it. (sorry)".
  • No Indoor Voice: In "Like It or Not... This is What The New Human Looks Like", Mark turned on an inflation device and ended up yelling during most of the video.
  • No-Sell: When learning to be DJs, their tutor tried to startle Mark. Mark did not react and then explained his training in horror games.
  • Not What It Looks Like:
    • In the "Cooking with Sex Toys" video, a random bystander happened to spot Mark and Ethan through their window.... while Mark, whose mouth was opened by a gag, was being fed by Ethan using a paddle. Embarrassment and awkwardness ensued.
    • In "Mark Turns Ethan into a Mummy to Prepare Him for the Great Beyond", Ethan took off his shirt so the salt wouldn't get in it... at the same time that Mark walked into the room.
  • Off the Rails: Happened all the time, but a few were particularly memorable.
    • "Edible Slime Was A Mistake" lampshades this habit by showing a disclaimer stating "THIS VIDEO ONLY GOES DOWNHILL FROM HERE" in its early minutes, with the episode indeed going completely off script from whatever they had planned.
    • "1 Man 100 Accents" started with Ethan (badly) imitating various accents, but before long he got off-track and ended up rambling about Chernobyl. It ended with him singing along to Eminem for some reason.
    • The Jell-O eating video started with Mark and Ethan trying to eat a gallon of Jell-O together, and ended with Mark playing "Amazing Grace" through a beer bong full of Jell-O.
    • Toward the end of "Mark Gives Ethan a HOT (stone) Massage", Mark's mom (on a video call) completely derailed the narrative by calling Amy "sexy legs" and unexpectedly inviting Ethan to visit Korea and meet Korean women. Once the video call ended, Mark, Ethan, and Amy spent the next sixty seconds laughing their asses off before Mark sheepishly declared the episode over.
  • Oh, Crap!:
    • Happened all the time, frequently when Mark and/or Ethan realized what the subject of the day's video is going to be.
    • In the "Cooking With Sex Toys" video, the look on Mark's face when he notices a person outside the window can be summed up as this.
    • The moment in "Beer Sauna" when Evan innocently suggested doing a Pee Sauna video. Ethan had a Freak Out with a Rapid-Fire "No!", while Mark just stared in mute horror for a few seconds before uttering "Evan, what have you done?"
    • During the duo's doghouse construction project for Chica, Mark decided it's the perfect opportunity to get the paintball payback that he had been threatening Ethan with for several episodes. When Mark told an unaware Ethan to get down on his knees, Ethan just about soiled himself.
  • Ominous Latin Chanting: Each video began with the chanting of the channel's name as the countdown timer ticked down.
  • Only Sane Man: Amy "Peebles" Nelson, the Creative Director and main behind-the-scenes person (and Mark's girlfriend), was usually the one who had to rein in the boys before they did something that was either dangerous, stupid, or dangerous and stupid. This later turned out to be subverted as Amy came up with a lot of their more cursed video ideas, and even egged on Mark and Ethan in some of the later videos.
  • Overly Narrow Superlative: In "The Deep End of Omegle: Risky Boogaloo", Mark and Ethan tried to find each other through the randomizing chat website and chose "Dogs, Coffee, and Doomsday Prepping" as their interests. They then found each other within the first few minutes.
  • Paranormal Investigation: Two episodes were dedicated to ghost-hunting: "REAL Ghost Hunting at an Abandoned Zoo" and "Phasmophobia in Real Life".
  • Parental Abuse: During "Mark and Ethan Are Now Fathers", they had to take care of two realistic baby dolls for 24 hours. While Mark acted like a good (albeit unhappy) father to his doll, Ethan was... a lot more carefree with his doll. He did things like having it sleep face down, dropping the baby, carrying it by its arm, shaking it...
  • Peaceful in Death: Tying into the themes of death and 'the end', one part of 'Goodbye' had both Mark and Ethan (and later Amy) lying in the custom Unus Annus coffin while the other read out an eulogy for them. All 3 generally look content when they take their turn inside.
  • Permanently Missable Content:
    • The channel in its entirety was created with this in mind, with the promise that all its content would be deleted after one year, something they kept their promise about on November 14th, 2020.
    • In "You Blink You Lose" and "You Breathe You Die", the winner got to delete a video from the loser's YouTube channel. In the former, Mark won and deleted Ethan's "I Want to Believe"; in the latter, Ethan won and deleted Mark's "Douchebag Workout".
  • Pillow Pistol: Mark keeps a (huge) knife by his bed for self-defense, which he creatively calls "bed knife".
  • Precious Puppy: An entire episode was dedicated to Mark and Ethan fawning over Evan's new puppy, Bodhi. It was creatively titled "Mark and Ethan Look at a Puppy for 10 Minutes".
  • Punch a Wall: In "2 Grown Men Attempt the Presidential Fitness Test", Mark rode a stationary bike and grew frustrated at a combination of Ethan's remarks and how exhausting the ride was. After completing it, he punched the wall and then apologized to Ethan. When the video cut to Mark apologizing, his finger was bandaged up and was seen in a splint for the next few videos.
  • Real Life Writes the Plot: The social distancing requirements of the COVID-19 pandemic, which went into effect in early 2020, meant that videos in the style of the bizarre early ones could no longer be made. Consequently, most videos filmed during the lock-down took the form of Mark and Ethan messing around on the Internet from their own homes.
    Ethan: With the quarantine and everything going on, we have just become a conspiracy channel.
  • Recap Episode: "Recreating Every Single Unus Annus Video", in which Mark and Ethan recreated (almost) every single one of their videos up to that one, albeit in a fast-paced, nonsensical manner. The video even started with the two playfully mocking the audience that they'd never catch up with all of their videos in time.
    • While some of these recreations were brief, accurate summaries of each video's antics, others consisted of short jokes, the duo trying to recall what the episode in question was about, or still laughing at a joke from their previous recreation. At least two videos were skipped entirely.
      Ethan: She spit!
      Mark: She pooped!note 
  • Record Needle Scratch: The ambient music tended to screech to a halt whenever Mark or Ethan (or both) did something to push the video Off the Rails.
  • Refuge in Audacity: Considering its contents and its inevitable deletion, Mark and Ethan largely ignored a lot of YouTube's guidelines for the videos that they uploaded. These included talking about sex, really gross stuff (like a pee sauna), and the constant topic of death.
  • The Reveal: In the last hour of the finale, it was shown what is in the black and white coffin: it's nothing, although the interior's color scheme is as split down the middle as the outside is. Mark and Ethan did take turns getting in it while the other gave a heartfelt eulogy to the one inside, and both later gave one to Amy when she laid in it.
  • Rhymes on a Dime:
    • Mark invoked this in "The Great Meat Mistake" when Ethan started looking for the tongs:
      Mark: Riddle me this, riddle me that! The tongs are neither here, nor in that!
      Ethan: Okay, but where are the tongs?
      Mark: Oh you want the tongs, go search so long. You'll never be right, you'll always be wrong!
    • This came up again in "Mark's Outdoor Escape Room", where Mark "kidnaps" Ethan and gives him hints to escape with riddles.
      • The pseudo-sequel, "Ethan Kidnapped Mark", likewise has Ethan doing the same, although his rhymes ended up being a lot more...out-there...
        Mark: You could really stop the whole rhyming thing anytime you want to.
        Ethan: No! It is fun! I am having a good time! It’s so- Eh- It’s really...good for me when I make a nice rhyme!
        Mark: Well, whatever makes you happy, man.
  • Running Gag:
    • Mark telling Ethan to not touch him.
    • Mark inevitably bringing out a paintball gun to menace Ethan in subtle (and not-so-subtle, even by Markiplier standards) ways post-"Mark Reviews The Impossible Burger...". This stopped when Mark actually shot Ethan with a paintball gun in "Ethan Finally Becomes a MAN".
    • "Don't tell Amy!"
    • Mark's weirdly encyclopedic memory of How the Grinch Stole Christmas (2000), which he frequently referenced (especially in the Christmas-themed episodes).
    • The looming threat of the inevitable "Pee Sauna" video after Evan brought up the idea in an earlier video. This eventually came to a close when the actual "Pee Sauna" came out.
    • The hole in the wall and Mark's resulting injury.
    • Mark being so poor in the past that he couldn't experience some things.
    • Anytime Mark needs to hit something, expect him to act very sexually about it, often saying "You close?" while doing it.
    • Mark denying he's a Masochist.
    • "Let's get ____", followed by its title card.
    • Mark trying to get Del Monte Foods to sponsor him after drinking a can of corn in "We Attempted to Create THICC Water".
    • In "Recreating Every Single Unus Annus Video", several of the recaps had one of the two smothering something with a pillow while saying, "You're gonna be sleeping with the fishes!"
    • The duo realize during "Goodbye" that several videos tended to end with one or both of them dying.
  • Running Time in the Title: "Unus Annus" means "one year", which was the lifetime of the channel.
  • Safe, Sane, and Consensual: The rope-tying techniques in Bear Trapping 101: An Elegant Knot For An Elegant Animal were pretty obviously for BDSM.
  • Schrödinger's Gun: In the video "Only Watch from 2:15 to 6:11 —- DO NOT WATCH ANY OTHER PART OF THIS VIDEO", the timestamps shown in the title were meant to indicate that there are more Annuses than Unuses with Mark gloating and Ethan lamenting his loss. Checking out the other parts of the video showed what would have happened if the opposite was true.
  • Screaming at Squick: In "The Worst Kind of Cupping", Mark watched 2 Girls 1 Cup for the first time. This trope was his reaction.
  • Sensitive Guy and Manly Man: Ethan and Mark respectively often have this dynamic. Notably, Ethan showed far more signs of vulnerability, such as fear or anxiety, during the videos than Mark did.
    • Best illustrated in "Ethan Finally Becomes A MAN" and "2 Absolute Beginners Experience The Dancing Glory That Is Salsa". In the former, Mark's experience as a carpenter allowed him to expertly build a dog bed for Chica, while Ethan clumsily attempted (and failed) to use basic carpentry tools like a saw and a tape measure. In the latter, Ethan's experience as a gymnast allowed him to almost-immediately catch on to the basics of salsa dancing, receiving compliments from the dancing instructor, while Mark stiffly and awkwardly tried his best.
    • Surprisingly inverted in "We Have the Best Bellies on Youtube", where Mark was a much better belly dancer than Ethan.
  • Sensory Abuse: Self-inflicted; after two episodes revolving around sensory deprivation chambers, Mark and Ethan decided to do the other extreme in what they'd dubbed Sensory Overload Chambers. This included slathering their feet and legs in Icy-Hot, soaking the rest of their bodies in freezing water, and eating raw onions and garlic while bright strobe lights flash and loud death-metal music plays.
  • "Shaggy Dog" Story: In "Ethan Will Be Kicked in the Balls", Ethan drove to a bike shop to get his inner tube blown up... only to have to deflate it again because it wouldn't fit in the car.
  • Shoo Out the Clowns: "BLACK LIVES MATTER", an eight-minute and 46-second video with little more than the title and information in the description about could be done for civil progress. Not only did Mark and Ethan not appear, the "Unus Annus" chant didn't play over the clock at the beginning.
  • Shot in the Ass: In "Mark Reviews The Impossible Burger But There's a Looming Sense of Impending Doom", Mark got mad at Ethan for repeatedly shooting him in the spine with paintballs. Ethan obediently picked a different target, resulting in this trope.
    Mark: Don't shoot my ass.
    Ethan: You said not to aim for your spine!
    Mark: So why did you aim for my ass?!
    Ethan: Where else will I go?!
    Mark: Don't direct-hit my spine! It's, like, ten percent of my back!
  • Shout-Out:
  • Significant Wardrobe Shift: At the end of "The Truth of Unus Annus", Ethan and Mark donned their signature black and white suits, and wore the same suits every video afterward for the two remaining weeks of the channel's life, with the exception of "God's Fitness Test" and the penultimate "The Unus Annus Annual Sleepover", though they still kept their ties for the former.
  • Signing-Off Catchphrase: As mentioned under Early-Installment Weirdness, some of the early episodes had "Memento mori. We'll see you tomorrow. Unus... Annus."
  • Simple, yet Awesome: The intro, of all things. It was nothing more than a chant of "Unus... Annus!" and a slow ticking clock, with white numbers indicating exactly how long the channel had until it was deleted.
  • Sincerity Mode: After Mark jokingly recommended the advice of the article in "How to NOT be the Perfect Boyfriend", he and Ethan soon became horrified by what the advice recommends and gave links to domestic abuse assistance websites in the description. To hammer in the point further, they didn't have one of their normal funny endings in the conclusion of the episode.
  • Skeleton Motif: Skulls were a common symbol used in the series, reflecting the Central Theme of inevitable death.
  • Song Parody: In the "Ethan Redefines Male Beauty' episode, Mark and Ethan started randomly singing a parody of "Gaston", turning him into a total badass.
    Mark: "I'm especially good at ejaculating!"
  • Soap Punishment: In "2 Dirty Boys Wash Their Filthy Mouths Out With Soap", they did a "Taste Test" of various soap bars.
  • Spooky Séance: The premise of "Mark and Ethan Summon a Ghost".
  • Spaghetti Kiss: Done with a bar of soap in "2 Dirty Boys Wash Their Filthy Mouths Out With Soap", thanks to Mark accidentally swearing while Ethan was doing his Soap Punishment.
  • Stargazing Scene: "A Serious Conversation Under the Stars" had Mark and Ethan discuss aliens and mortality while watching Comet NEOWISE pass overhead.
  • Static Stun Gun: Tasers feature in a few episodes, most notably "This Is What Being Tased Feels Like".
  • The Stinger: Some videos, like "Pee Sauna", had additional footage after the closing timer.
  • Strange Minds Think Alike: In their "Internet Scavenger Hunt", Mark and Ethan tied several times due to having images of the same thing.
  • Strip Poker: Played in the episode "We Played Strip Poker". Due to COVID-19, they played a version where they each had their own deck and did a Five Card Draw variant where the losing hand removed the number of clothes that are betted on.
  • Stylistic Suck: "This Video is Completely Unedited" really was unedited. The opening/closing clock was filmed off of a laptop, the background music was played over Mark's iPad, and they held up a red color filter over the camera lens whenever Mark or Ethan got "angry" at the other.
  • Sure, Let's Go with That / Misspelling Out Loud: In "The Creepiest Videos on Youtube", they asked viewers to send creepy videos in. They meant to have it be #CreepAnnus, but it accidentally got spelled as #CrepeAnnus.
  • Team Pet: Mark and Ethan's dogs, Chica, Henry, and Spencer, made frequent appearances. Evan's new puppy Bodhi also made appearances in later episodes and was the focus of "Mark and Ethan Look at a Puppy for 10 Minutes".
  • That Came Out Wrong: In the "Poopsie Sparkly Critters" episode, Mark said that, as a kid, he seduced woodland creatures (he meant "kidnapped").
  • That Poor Plant: One video, titled "Can Plants Feel Pain?", had Mark and Ethan torturing a house plant while measuring its response.
  • Their First Time: In the "Helium Therapy" episode, Mark and Ethan took turns describing their first sexual encounters. Mark started off with a rather sad story about the pain and inadequacy he experienced on his first time. Ethan's story was considerably more humorous, involving an interruption by his partner's little brother.
  • There Are Two Kinds of People in the World: Two videos were released on May 28 titled "Only UNUS-es May Watch This Video" that featured Ethan and "Only ANNUS-es May Watch This Video" which featured Mark.
  • Think of the Censors!:
    • In "Reddit 50/50: Two Player Edition" Mark and Ethan expressed sympathy for their editor, as they had to see what the audience was censored from.
    • In "Professional Fetish Scientists Rank the Best/Worst Fetishes of 2020", when looking up Japanese bondage, Mark warned, "You might need to blur this, editor!"
  • This Is Gonna Suck:
    • Said word for word in "We Got Pepper Sprayed," although the clip was a disclaimer that happened after the experience.
    • Played straight in the "Mark Reviews The Impossible Burger..." episode, where this was Ethan's reaction immediately after he agreed to let Mark shoot him with a paintball gun at any time of his choosing rather than taking it head-on.
      Mark: This gonna be a fun year.
      Ethan: (staring into space) Yeah...
    • In "The Deep End of Omegle: Risky Boogaloo", Mark(and later Ethan) saw a picture of a woman with a collar on with the caption "Are you ready to obey?", prompting Mark to say:
      Mark: I don't like where this is going...
  • Time-Traveling Jerkass: In the video "Like It or Not... This is What The New Human Looks Like", Mark discussed (and would relish) being this:
    Ethan: Why do you want to control time?
    Mark: 'Cause you can do whatever you want!
    Ethan: Meddling with time has severe consequences, Mark.
    Mark: Not in multiverse theory! You can do whatever you want! Who's gonna stop you? The Time Police? They don't exist yet; you made sure of that.
  • Together in Death: In a spiritual sense. Mark, Ethan and Amy all hit the 'delete' button on the channel together, marking the end of Unus Annus as a whole.
  • Trademark Favorite Food: Mark loves chicken and dumplings, which was mentioned in a few videos.
  • Translation Train Wreck: "We Played Mad Libs And Ran It Through Google Translate". After playing a regular round, they ran the result through several languages before returning it to English.
  • Trauma Conga Line: "Ethan Will be Kicked in the Balls" was this for Ethan. First, he was unable to inflate his tube due to his asthma and had to drive to a bike shop to get it blown up. Then, he realized that the inflated tube wouldn't fit in the car, so he had to deflate it to get it back to Mark's place. Then, after Mark filled it up for him, he got kicked in the balls by accident when Mark jumped and he didn't.
  • Weaksauce Weakness:
    • Mark and Ethan's sensitivities to alcohol and peanuts, respectively, were used as this for comedy. Mark exaggerated his by claiming that a single drop of alcohol would kill him instantly. Ethan's claims that 1/500th of a peanut would be fatal, however, weren't exaggerated, as discussed in "What Was The Most Painful Thing We've Ever Endured?"note .
    • Mark is a texture eater, which gave him trouble when eating high quantities of onions and peanut butter in "Eating Only Onions for 24 Hours" and "We Play the Newlywed Game While Consuming That Which Will Kill the Other", respectively.
  • We All Die Someday: A line often quoted by Mark and Ethan, sometimes with the Latin phrase "memento mori", which translates as "remember that you will die". Basically, the theme of the channel was "we're gonna delete this anyway, so let's do the craziest stuff we can come up with while it lasts".
  • What the Hell Is That Accent?: In "2 Men 200 Accents", Mark and Ethan practiced an Irish accent and called Jacksepticeye after a little practice. When Ethan asked what part of Ireland he was from with his voice, Jack said "God fucking knows at this point!" Marks invoked this for most of the video, getting stuck between Scottish and French during the call.
  • Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?: In "Chickens Teach Us About Life and Death", Mark pretended that he was afraid of chickens.
  • Wrong Insult Offence: In "Cryptid Olympics", after Amy quipped that Mark was citing cryptid stereotypes, Ethan jokingly called him a racist. Mark corrected him, saying that it's technically speciest.
  • You Can't Fight Fate: Many times over the life of the channel, Mark and Ethan reminded people that it would be deleted. And part of the point of the channel was accepting that. Despite people's objections, it wouldn't exist once the clock ran out.
...tick... tick... tick... tick... tick... tick... tick... tick.

Previous

Index

Next

  • Show Spoilers
  • Night Vision
  • Sticky Header
  • Wide Load

Important Links

Ask The Tropers Trope Finder Media Finder Trope Launch Pad Tech Wishlist Reviews Go Ad Free!
Crucial Browsing
Resources
Top