Most FSU students know the Student Life Center (SLC) for its movie theater and the almost daily film experiences from the building on Learning Way.
However, the SLC is also home to multiple entertainment committees that plan events for the student body. In my opinion, some of the best SLC experiences are the ones most unique to a theater on a college campus, and my hours spent at last week’s Markiplier Midnight were some of the most fun I’ve ever had on campus.
The Markiplier Midnight event, hosted by the SLC Game Committee, was kicked off with a pre-show competition for a Markiplier blanket, with the ultimate fans selected to perform impressions of the YouTuber’s most famous quotes. The choose-your-own narrative of the three installments in the Adventures with Markiplier Saga was perfect for a crowd of super-fan college students (and their less knowledgeable friends like me).
We started the night with On a Date with Markiplier, under the directive of raising our hands for the choices. We reached one of the endings rather quickly, with the die-hard fans that made up most of the crowd almost unanimously leading us to the alien abduction ending.
I didn’t really know what I was walking into at first, but after the first movie, I started to get an understanding of the Adventures with Markiplier installments. The next part of the saga we got to play through was A Heist with Markiplier, which we managed to make last longer than the previous one.
After the titular heist, the crowd chose the zombie apocalypse track, and we returned the mysterious artifact that started the entire heist. This movie took us from a comedy adventure to a plot twist ending. I was later informed that there was an alternate ending with a musical number, and it was crazy to me that a theater full of college students didn’t decide to go in that direction!
We wrapped up our heist and moved on to both parts of In Space with Markiplier, which is significantly longer and less linear than its predecessors but with the same amount of humor. I’ll admit that I was often lost during the abrupt plotline changes.
However, the audience participation made the entire experience all the more fun, even when I didn’t understand what was happening. We ended up with a good ending, which took us on a ride complete with the surprise Mark villain twist and consequent redemption after the destruction of the mysterious machine.
One of the best parts of watching movies at SLC is the community you get to experience the films with, and the participatory nature of these Markiplier staples made them excellent choices for the student theater. The crowd felt almost like a team, and the shared humor between everybody in the theater was incredible.
While I didn’t get any of the inside jokes or Markiplier-lore references, fans all around me explained the significance of each easter egg and cheered when their favorite characters showed up. The sense of community and togetherness fostered at these unique SLC events makes them valuable and entertaining for the student body. I can’t wait for more events like Markiplier Midnight!
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