[Tape cut]
--lright if Dark smokes in here? ... Yeah, you can go ahead, Dark.
Thank you.
[Tape cut]
Please state your name, pronouns and role on the MarkiplierTV team.
My name is Dark Warfstache, I go by they and them, and I am the production supervisor and legal representative for MarkiplierTV.
Thank you for taking the time out to do this interview. For confidentiality, any questions you wanna skip will be cut from this footage. This is your time.
I... Thank you. I'm... I'm not as natural in front of a camera as our talents, but this interview offer piqued my interest... so here I am.
Here you are!
[Nervous laughter]
Okay, cool. Could you tell us how you identify?
...Oh... You know that's a loaded question, Jim.
[Laughter]
I am... Well, I'm bisexual. Queer. Whatever fits best at... whatever time. I say I'm bi. And I am... non-binary, genderqueer... and I'm Intersex, that's not up in the air. It's... the fewer labels I have to think about, the less complicated it feels. This is still a fairly new vocabulary for me.
When did you realize you felt differently about love than what people expected of you?
I... Wow. Alright.
[Laughter]
Codi wrote these, I'm guessing.
[Laughter] Yeah.
[Tape cut]
Well... I realized that I was different... that I felt differently... much earlier than I revealed to anyone else. I was in the closet for a long. Time. I grew up in France in the first half of the 20th century, and while Americans have this stereotype that the French are more effeminate or pansies or whathaveyou... it was still a fairly suffocating environment. A... binary environment. My parents were very strict... and I had been raised to... I'd been raised to fear taking up too much space. I was practically praised when I was polite and quiet and... didn't make waves.
...But... I knew something was different. The way I felt about... other boys and other girls was... I'm sorry...
Do you need a minute?
No, no, I -- I'm alright... Even... Even early in my adolescence, I had this gnawing paranoia that whatever I was feeling... was not lining up with what I'd been taught. Girls liked boys, and boys liked girls, and that was it. C'est ça, c'est tout -- that's it, that's all.
When I had... for lack of a better phrasing, come into myself, when I had this -- this fairly intense identity awakening, well... I wasn't much of a woman or a man anymore. And, in an oddly poetic way... it helped knock those invisible walls down in my head. The rules of men loving women and women loving men didn't apply to someone who... isn't. Either of those.
It's funny you say that, because the next question is: when did you realize you weren't the gender you were assigned at birth?
Oh, well perfect.
[Laughter]
Well, even before... this, all this... before Dark "happened", I... I had my curiosities. I liked suits, I liked dresses. It never fully clicked for me why things as trivial as pieces of fabric were restricted by one's body-type... and then, well, that anxiety came back. So, I... I essentially didn't allow myself room to think about these things. I treated them like unhelpful thoughts. I lost myself in my jobs, I lost myself in education, I... I didn't leave room for it.
So when... all THIS happened... I rubber-banded. I felt -- I felt like the leash was off. Finally, it... it was off, it was unclasped. I had an intense... INTENSE existential episode shortly after I had these awakenings... because it was all at once. It took me some time to regain my footing with -- with myself. With who I was... with who I wanted to be. I was allowed to figure it out for myself. I had that freedom, I... I had a say.
Who I was were gone. The people I was performing in front of was gone. The environment... The environment I had to fit into was gone. Nothing made sense anymore... and that meant that I could make my own rules. For myself, for who I was. For how other people saw me.
How do you feel about coming out so publicly, through a TV interview?
...I... I don't know, yet, how I feel. It's nice to have a listening ear turned to me... or to feel like I have one, anyhow.
You have ears, Dark. We're listening.
...
...Oh, uh... Jim, go get some tissues, ple--
[Tape cut]
Have you made any special bonds with other LGBTQIA+ members of the production team?
Oh, most certainly. Many of the team is queer, much to my surprise. I have a feeling that many queer people -- especially from my time and earlier -- have that moment of epiphany at least once or twice. That realization of, "Wow, there are so many of us"... It's a nice feeling. I've felt that many a time. There's you, and your siblings, there's Mr. Host and young Yandere-chan, and of course my dearest Wilford...
It's... It's really lovely to witness.
Is there anything you'd like to say to any LGBTQIA+ viewers watching this?
...I would like to say... Well, I'm not much for motivational speaking, but I would like to thank you for listening. And I... I'd like to say that... it isn't always going to be as scary as it may feel right now. The more space to allow yourself to figure out who you are -- not who your family or colleagues want you to be -- the sooner you will figure it out... and the more comfortable you will be, and the... better you will understand what you need to feel complete.
...That's really sweet, Dark.
I'm not cut out for it.
You did great! Any closing thoughts?
I need another cigarette.
[Laughter] That's it, then! Thank you for your time. Happy Pride Month!
And to you.
[Tape cut]
