Unus Annus

"Memento Mori. Unus Annus."

- Channel motto

Unus Annus was a joint YouTube channel created and run by Mark Fischbach and Ethan Nestor-Darling. The two did a variety of activities on the channel, uploading one episode per day, while steering clear of normal gaming videos they are known for. Ethan represented the "Unus," while Mark represented the "Annus" persona.

The channel was created on November 13, 2019 as a way of giving their viewers a once in a life time experience, free of, what they considered as, restrictive guidelines, with the end-goal being to remove all of its content from YouTube after a one year run without any intent of preserving it, as well as discontinuing Unus Annus' merchandise, hence the channel's name, which translates to "one year" in Latin. This method aligned with Mark's idea of not everything being immortalized on the internet and that the most treasured experiences lie within those unique, fleeting moments, tying into Unus Annus' symbolic imagery of frailty and death, and their commonly used term "memento mori" (Latin expression for "remember that you have to die").

In addition, Mark also stated that they would be issuing copyright takedowns to any re-uploads of the channel's deleted content without their permission, albeit they would allow images and short, transformative excerpts to remain. On November 14, 2020, after a twelve-hour broadcast, Mark, Ethan, and Amy made all of Unus Annus' social accounts private and finished off the livestream by terminating the channel.

Descriptions
Channel description= "What would you do if you only had a year left to live? Would you squander the time you were given? Or would you make every second count?

Welcome to Unus Annus. In exactly 365 days this channel will be deleted along with all of the daily uploads accumulated since then. Nothing will be saved. Nothing will be reuploaded.

This is your one chance to join us at the onset of our adventure. To be there from the beginning. To make every second count. Subscribe now and relish what little time we have left or have the choice made for you as we disappear from existence forever. But remember... everything has an end. Even you.

Memento mori.

Unus annus."

"This channel, along with every video that has or will ever be uploaded on this channel, will be deleted after our year has ended. This is inevitable. Inescapable. Irreversible.
 * -|Video disclaimer=

Do not archive or re-upload anything. This is our last wish. Our parting gift. Stay true to the purpose of our final year or we shall lay down wrath upon those that attempt to escape the end.

Memento Mori.

Unus Annus."

Introduction
On November 14, 2019, Mark and Ethan replaced their social accounts' profile pictures and banners with solid white and solid black images, respectively. The following day, both of them posted a channel specific version of "This Will End in One Year" video, addressing their audience in a monotone voice about the then-upcoming Unus Annus project. The two were dressed in suits; Mark in white portraying "Annus" and Ethan in black portraying "Unus," with each representing the aforementioned colors.

Both videos linked to Unus Annus' channel introductory video of the same name, in which Mark and Ethan described their plans to upload one episode per day onto the channel for a full year, before eventually removing all of its content from YouTube with no intention of preserving it, hence the channel's name, meaning "one year" in Latin. The only exceptions to the 'one episode per day' rule were Unus versus Annus challenge where they uploaded two videos side by side in a single day, and the Omegle video that was taken down by a third party via privacy claim. In addition, Mark also stated that they would be issuing copyright takedowns to all of Unus Annus' reuploaded material without their permission, albeit they would allow images and short, transformative excerpts to remain.

Layout
Unus Annus' theme is centered around life and death, with its primary colors consisting of solid white and black, as a tie-in to the aforementioned symbolism. Its primary imagery featured an hourglass with a skull inside each cylinder, representing the incessant passage of time, as well as them etching towards the series' deletion date. The channel's slogan was "memento mori," a Latin phrase meaning "remember that you are going to die."

Each video's intro would start off with a slow rise of Mark and Ethan's distorted voices, chanting the channel's name in unison. Alongside its introduction and closing credits was a timer, overlaid across a black screen that counted down from 365 days and 12 hours, with each subsequent upload subtracting 24 hours off the clock to indicate the remaining lifespan of the channel. This same process would be applied to all of Unus Annus' future episodes, until their final upload and eventual deletion of the channel.

A number of videos would abruptly end, similarly to that of a suspense horror movie, with an exaggerated scene centered around the episode's theme, usually implying either Mark's or Ethan's demise. With the exception of a few videos, almost all of Unus Annus' thumbnails featured an Archimedean spiral pattern, either across its background or as part of the featured visual element.

The song "Turncoat" by Michael Rothery was often used during their announcements and acts as the channel's unofficial theme. On occasion, Peter Sandberg's "Remove the Complexities" song was used to evoke a sense of sadness throughout various videos. The track also played at the end of Unus Annus' finale livestream when Mark, Ethan, and Amy were preparing to delete the channel.

Content
The project, initially sharing multiple placeholder titles (such as "This many days left," "365," and "Annus Singulos"), had been in works for several months prior to its announcement. According to Mark and Ethan, Unus Annus was created with the intention of diverging from their mainstream content, as both of them felt burned out from making almost exclusively gaming-related videos for several years. In one video's post-credit scene, Mark and Ethan described Unus Annus as an opportunity to push themselves out of their comfort zones and experiment with more creative and unconventional content, something they would not normally be able to get away with on their main channels, due to YouTube's strict, advertiser-friendly guidelines, monetization issues and age restrictions. Despite the two placing numerous Easter eggs across various episodes and their audience's enthusiasm for hidden secrets and plotlines, most of the channel's ideas were made up on the spot without an end goal in mind.

Although some viewed it as an absurd celebration of death, Mark commented that the actual purpose behind Unus Annus' theme was about learning and accepting the inevitability of one's own demise and making the most out of their limited time, as his general principle is that a person needs to give their life some kind of meaning in order to truly appreciate it. This also tied in with Mark's views on the frailty of digital media, as he stated that people have a false idea of everything being immortalized on the internet. Despite enjoying their time together, Mark expressed relief to be done with the project, noting that it ate up too much of their time, requiring at least three days per week to do, as well expressing issues with fatigue.

Between March and early June 2020, as a result of the COVID-19 outbreak, Mark and Ethan put their ongoing projects on hold in order to abide by California's mandatory lockdown and social distancing policies. Over the past few weeks, the two kept producing small-scale videos separately from one another, only interacting through voice chat and video calls. Nearly three months later, after confirming that all crewmembers tested negative for the virus, the Unus Annus team resumed their work around mid June, 2020, while making sure to follow the safety protocols by limiting their set to as little people as possible. Although the channel managed to recuperate and continue with their work, the production was notably downsized and several ideas were scrapped due to the ongoing epidemic at the time. Despite the setback, the two had no interest in prolonging the channel's lifecycle as they felt that it would diminish the meaning behind its initial creation. Nearing the end of summer, the two held a nine-day mini-series called "Camp Unus Annus," which was themed around exaggerated camp-based activities. Their thumbnails often featured a distinct Camp Unus Annus logo.

Following the plot behind "The Truth of Unus Annus" episode, Mark and Ethan were supposedly taken over by their Unus and Annus personas, as they prepared for their final two weeks. The remaining twelve days were spent commemorating the channel's one year run with various side activities and send offs. In addition, Ethan and Mark updated their social media profiles to that of Unus and Annus respectively, swapping out their regular user names and icons with those of their alter-egos and stylizing their accounts' banners to the characters' respective colors; black for Ethan and white for Mark.

In "Accepting the Truth," Mark and Ethan announced a twelve-hour long livestream starting on Friday, November 13, 2020, at 12pm PT, which would serve as the channel's finale. During the broadcast, Ethan, Mark, and Amy Nelson would replay and review their videos, interact and share various works with their fans, as well as interview their crewmembers and collaborators. Following the twelve-hour mark, the trio made all of Unus Annus' social accounts private and wished their viewers one final goodbye before terminating the channel. According to Mark, the two planned for the series to end exactly on Friday the 13th, as the date itself is often associated with misfortune and various superstitious beliefs.

Characters
Although the characters of Unus and Annus, portrayed by Ethan and Mark respectively, existed as their alter-egos from the channel's inception to its deletion, not much was done to establish the two as standalone figures and their presence has had little to no impact on most of the series' episodes, only being used as a catalyst for single segment plotlines. Their most notable features are the hand-tailored monochrome suits, black for Unus and white for Annus, aligning with the channel's dualistic symbolism of life and death.

In "We Made Every YouTuber Battle in the Hunger Games," Mark and Ethan jokingly stated that the two figures of Unus and Annus are separate entities from themselves.

During Camp Unus Annus, while Mark sarcastically teaches Ethan how to start a fire, Ethan's Unus persona walks up to the front of the house and presses himself against the front window, as Mark begins to act maniacally, lunging himself at Ethan with a knife, before the scene cuts to another shot of them peacefully roasting marshmallows over the fireplace as if nothing had happened, implying that Unus' presence somehow caused the aforementioned event.

In "The Truth of Unus Annus," after finishing a shoot for another video, Mark and Ethan start to hear their own voices addressing each other over walkie-talkies, noting that their one year is almost at an end, asking them to accept the reality behind it. The scene then cuts to a shot of an Unus Annus-themed coffin, with Ethan and Mark approaching it from each side of the screen. Looking inside, a flash of light envelopes the two as Unus and Annus take their place and approach the screen, exclaiming "It's time to say goodbye," before the video cuts to black.

Aftermath
Following the channel's deletion, Mark and Ethan made commemorative YouTube vlogs to reflect on their one year run. In their subsequent videos, whenever the two would allude to or directly mention any content associated with Unus Annus, the video's editors would jokingly apply censorship to the scene or leave out the channel's material altogether.

On November 14, 2021, around midnight Pacific Standard Time, Mark and Ethan uploaded a separate video on their main channels titled "Memento Mori" in which they pay respects to the now defunct Unus Annus channel on its deathday, as well as reflect on their one year journey since the series' conclusion.

In 2021, Mark and Ethan won the Best Collaboration award at the 11th Annual Streamy Awards for their work on Unus Annus.

Crew

 * Mark Fischbach - Host, producer
 * Ethan Nestor-Darling - Host, producer
 * Amy Nelson - Camera operator, editor
 * Evan - Camera operator
 * Luís Costa / Lixian - Editor (worked on a total of 33 videos)
 * Vicente "Vincent" Branco / Diceroll - Editor
 * Marcus / Nerd Fiction - Editor
 * Rachel / rad_R - Editor

Guests
TBA

Running gags

 * Del Monte Whole Kernel Corn - While attempting to make thick water from common household ingredients, Mark used Del Monte's canned corn as a substitute, which later became a running joke in Mark's community as his preferred beverage sponsor. As of "Del Monte is Dead to Me," Mark appears to no longer be interested in their products.
 * Disclaimer song - While fastening a homemade bungee cord, Mark urged their audience to not replicate their stunt. Ethan then began to sing Mark's words back to him in a form of a short song, which was accompanied by a number of musical excerpts and minor visual edits, added in post-production by Lixian. Whenever the two would engage in any kind of dangerous activity, either Mark or Ethan would reference the aforementioned song, with slight alterations to its melody and lyrics.
 * Eef - In several early episodes, Mark would use exaggerated abbreviations of his and Ethan's names, however, the joke itself became a running gag during the Hooked on Phonics episode, where Ethan—pretending to not know how to read for a skit—jokingly misspelled his name as "Eef."
 * Mark's masochism - Throughout Unus Annus' run, Mark is seen forcing himself into unconventional situations, often to test his own limits, which later gave rise to the idea within their fanbase that Mark is a masochist. Mark has denied these claims on numerous occasions, noting that the reasons why he prefers to avoid comfort is due to his belief that a person stagnates over time if they fail to push themselves out of their comfort zone.
 * Melon Man - In the final shot of "Crushing Watermelons Betwixt Our Mighty Thighs," Ethan is seen devouring his watermelon in a bestial manner. This behavior gave rise to the nickname "Melon Man" within their fanbase, who later build up the figure as a parody of conventional creepypasta characters.
 * SCP-11325 - Late into Unus Annus' lifecycle, Mark and Ethan built an SCP mockup doll of one their early characters, which itself is a fictionalized version of Amy Nelson. The prop jokingly served as Amy's temporary stand-in while she was away, with Mark and Ethan addressing the puppet as if it was a real person.

Challenges
Throughout Unus Annus' run, Mark and Ethan issued various challenges to each other or to their viewers to participate alongside them. Whether the challenge succeed or not often depended on the channel's audience. Pending on the outcome, the two would either award their viewers or punish each other with an elaborate ritual of their choosing.

List of external videos

 * Note: The following list contains videos from Mark's main channel that are themed around Unus Annus.

Merchandise
Following the debut of the channel's first video on November 15, 2019, Mark and Ethan launched the Unus Annus online store that sold a variety of clothing items and accessories, often featuring a limited release of products that were stylized around the channel's monthly theme. During its twelfth and final month, the store held a "Resurrection Sale," allowing customers to purchase items from previously limited merchandise drops. Following the channel's deletion, the online store ceased all operations, with the website's main page changed to reflect its offline status. Unus Annus' merchandise was designed, manufactured, and shipped by Second City Prints. Additional merchandising included vinyl figures by Youtooz.

On December 26, 2020, CLOAK launched "Afterlife" (Korean: 사후 세계), a limited line of clothing dedicated to Unus Annus.