EDIT 2 (February 23rd): For those saying "Matt is back" on his latest video, this is known to be the case. Around the time of Erik and Kayrina's wedding, he was unblocked and possibly invited to the wedding. If he went or not is sheer speculation and, admittedly, not our business. Those are family matters. Regardless though, saying "he's back" as some kind of 'gotcha' moment is lame because Matt is Erik's BROTHER. That should not have happened in the first place to him. Obviously not to his friends either, but especially not literal family. EDIT 1 (February 8th): Reminder to please not harass or bother anyone featured in this video. Both the "victims" and the "suspects" (for lack of better terms) are fed up with hearing about this. Some wounds don't heal with time, you know? This video is just a full summary. Not a hit piece, not clickbaity garbage. Facts and evidence. ---------- I love hearing your guys stories and opinions on this topic and my video in the comments and the Discord. You guys are from all walks of life and I love hearing and discussing with all of you! 🥳 Sorry if I can't reply to all of them! 🥲 But I'll try! ----------
When you mix a virgin or a guy with zero women experience and a controlling manipulative women this is exactly what happens.She cut out everyone in his life so that he solely had to rely on her. Seen this in real life before it’s sad.
I also remember him saying that a few days without her was 'a life without meaning', which pretty much proves it. Dude has no self respect or confidence to stand up for himself, and has convinced himself that life doesn't get any better than this. If I lived a life as someone elses puppet, I'd cut the strings and run far away.
thats a problem for someone who hasnt even talked to a girl. i got that vibe from Eric that he might have been an incel and they tend to get SUPER attached
SheKnives is on YT and Twitch, Mike (MerkRampage) has a YT and I think active twitch? but Omar (OhOmah) is active like Tina on Twitch and YT.@@DivineHybridd
I solely blame Kayrina. Or at least 99% blame her. He wasn't like this till he met her. He wasn't so closed off till he met her. I remember watching him right when he met her and you could feel the change. I've been watching him since middle school, I'm almost 26 now so i been watching him for a very long time, basically since the beginning and pretty consistently too and you could physically feel the change when it happened because of how jarring it was. Kayrina ruined Erik, flat out.
He is solely responsible, if he was less of an idiot douchebag he wouldn't have let her do all that shit, he could've stood up for his friends but they obviously didn't mean that much to him.
I concur on principle, but this seems too one-sided. He's an adult, he didn't have to let her control him, could've grown a spine, be a rational human being, and not propose to someone you met a week ago. *Online.* Didn't have to abandon his friends, people he had known for a long time (longer than Kayrina, anyway), the people that helped make his channel what it was for a girl he barely knew. He had the freedom and ability to make all the good choices regarding that situation and made all of the wrong ones. So yes, Kayrina is extremely shady and seemingly manipulative, but Erik is a simp in every sense of the word. To quote a song: "I ain't saying she a gold-digger..."
This is a valid take and I somewhat agree personally but I just wanna remind everyone that we shouldn't villanize one person for this. It's a bad way to go about things (looking for someone to be at-fault I mean). At the end of the day, Erik still made the decision to do this. We can speculate that he was manipulated and whatnot but he doubled down to the point where it cost him his brand.
Gives me vibes of a dude who never pulled woman or got laid and latched onto the first woman that gave him attention. And of course she’s gonna say yes, dude makes lots of money and has internet clout. He’s a clown
@@alrightsure9941 It's never too late to back out, lmao, there's a reason both divorce and the objectiion to getting married at the altar exist, along with every second of everyday where you can say "I don't want to be married", tf lol.
This video has far more views than Erik’s had in over weeks. This tells me that people still know who Erik is but just aren’t toning into his content anymore. This video explains exactly why and it’s just true.
this hes videos are boring if he went back to making content with his old group or hell never dropped them im pretty sure hed be so much bigger than he is/was
@@barryjohnson8733 for sure i think too, i was an OG i guess and i remember when he announced that video of him getting married it felt very very weird. this vid was spot on
I watched his videos for years, I remember Kayrina but I honestly never realized all the drama that happened with him and the gang. Damn shame, he was my favorite content creator tbh
@@Momentusx3 same bro. Erik has been hiding it from years now, I just found out this year. I talked to Tina the some of the old friends and all of them have no hate against erik but are still disappointed understandably
Ever since Kayrina came into Eric's life, it's been downhill. It amazes me to this day that Merk hasn't said anything about the situation and why he did, what he did?
I mean it's pretty obviosu why he did what he did. He met a woman that had similar interests and prioritized that over everything else. Not defending him at all here, he abandoned his friends. But it's pretty obvious why it happened.
S SOON ASKYRINA CAME IN I STOPPED WATCHING MERK NOT BECAUSE OF HER BEING A WOMAN BUT BECAUSE OF THIS SHIT I knew something happened once kyrina came in and started fucking everything up
@@221Prohunter There is a big difference between prioritizing a relationship over important friendships and burning every bridge he's ever made with anyone.
You can tell it was the first woman to ever show interest in him. So he did everything he could to make sure she never left him, and look what’s happened
I remember him saying in a video revealing their relationship, that he finds her “very cute and sexy.” I know everyone has different taste, but when I saw pic of her, I didn’t find her cute or sexy at all lol.
Lmao I got blocked because I followed eight thoughts on Twitter at the time she legit went thru his followers and blocked every single one, talk about unhinged
This may be a bit much to say, but bro in a way sacrificed his career and friendships over a girl he met online and subsequently married after their first in person interaction 💀💀💀
@@shotgun_daddy-1089 lemme catch my son falling in love over a chicken butt joke and less than a year of dating and decides that's enough to wanna marry someone 💀💀💀
I remember being one of the people who didn't like Kayrina when she showed up and getting all pissy about it because everyone else did. I was definitely just trying to be cool, but in hindsight, I was too old to be acting like that. In any case, I never realized the actual amount of damage she did. I know we can't really say outright that all of this was her doing, but... I mean, come on, let's be real. She shows up and he suddenly cuts everyone off and goes on a Stalin purge of his videos, removing their names and faces. It's pretty obvious what happened. Huge shame.
Similar thing happened to my brother. Met a girl and then out of the blue got married and cut everyone out of his life. The relationship ended poorly and now after 3 years I have my brother back. This happens to people and the negative ramifications it has on not only the person, but their friends and families lives is immense.
same thing happened to me but instead of my sibling being taken away due to a relationship it was me. my ex was a troubled girl and my family hated her, I tried ignoring it and even stopped talking to a few people. long story short, after 4 years we ended our engagement and broke up. I opened back up to my family and luckily they accepted me back.
Same thing with my brother, she’s manipulated him into cutting off our entire family and I haven’t seen him in over two years. I’m an uncle and I’ve never seen my nephew I hope I can get a happy ending like you did
yeah. ppl are so naive and dumb . i have so many friends who act down bad. they meet first girl or second girl and instantly want to get married. like WHY?
Thats happening to my friend now, shes now trapped in a different state than all of her family. Not allowed to work or have friends, if she plays co-op games it starts arguments. I feel bad for her.
video got recommended on a wham and i got filled with a wave of nostalgia. as im 19 now, eric was by far my most watched youtuber from ages 13-17. every joke he said i tried to replicate and i still remember the 8 thoughts drama vividly. so glad i watched this very well put together. earned a subscriber for sure
I watched Erik a lot during my childhood. I vividly remember when Kayrina came into his life and after that even I felt like his content and his personality became hollow. He just felt off is the best way I can describe it. I've always wondered how and why, and this video explains it all and makes so much more sense now. This video is super well done and of high quality, research and thought put into it for a channel this size. You'll go far if you keep putting out content of this quality. Hoping for your blowup my brother!
same here man. i watched merk music all the time in high school and i even ended up showing up in one of his xbox message videos, that was the highlight of my childhood at the time. i too remember exactly when he introduced her to the channel and that’s when everything went to shit.
He feels like an old man that fell in love with a stripper lol i lost respect when he yelled at us for being mean to his girl lol. Like.. bitch, welcome to the internet hahaha😂
I find it awful convenient that the first person from his group to go, within a WEEK of him proposing, was the only woman in the group. And the following ones were the people he was arguably closest to. Very, very convenient
i guess merk is in denial now and maybe has some kind of stockholm syndrome. i think he is scared he wont meet another girl in his life. he got manipulated by her that he wont meet a better girl.
Its hard for me to hate Merk, it really is, i see what he's done and how he's acted, but i cant hate him, I'm biased and blinded by nostalgia, i just wish he could have been with his friends longer, at least ended things in a more positive way. whoever is responsible for what happened is irrelevant, but it needs to be fixed, at least a proper goodbye to some of these people is the minimum he could do.
This is EXACTLY how I felt about this prior to the creation of this video. But after seeing the toll it has taken on these people's lives, I can't help but feel a little more on the side of sourness. But I can never hate Merk for the same reason you do here, but these things definitely need addressing.
yeah i also like merk. he's a cool dude. cool hobbies. remember his videos where he played guitar in the mic.... but damn. his perosnality, identity and life went so downhill bcuz of 1 person
@@ourBrainF00D Now that I think of it, I strongly remember Erik and his brother lived in the same house and just after the proposal to Kayrina, Erik kicked his brother out of the house with no help to set him on his own way whatsoever. It was the most serious toll for my point of wiev. It seemed really cruel to me but I brushed it off as "Westeners don't have strong family ties like other people" but hey, family is family in every culture...
Merkmusic was another RUclips og that I watched a lot as a kid. Really unfortunate how everything went down. Thanks for shedding light into this brainfood
Dude I was actually watching some M3RK videos and saw this in the recommended and decided to watch because I was a viewer at the time of the drama. I didn't even see this video's like count, views, your sub count or anything until the video was finished. The whole time I was watching, I was sitting here thinking this was some high budget deep dive from a dude with a big following. When I saw the video details, I was fucking shocked. To see such good content be overlooked and underappreciated truly is a crying shame. Thank you, thank you for doing what no one else has done by taking an unbiased deep dive into the fall of one of the people who made me so many memories growing up. As much as I wish for these issues to finally come to light, I'm not so naive to depend on such blind faith. I truly wish for your growth and success not just as a creator but as a person. I've been floating around Eric's channel for years, maybe watching one or two videos every now and then, but the soul is gone. I fully agree with everything you said at the end and will stand tall with you. I want this you and your channel to blow up through this video, and maybe in the process, we can get well we all want out of it. To hear Eric finally explain himself. #TellusEric
it was so noticeable the change and when this story first started up, it really just sounded like he was being manipulated by this attractive girl so heavily because she was giving him love he thought was real but really was a money grab/gold digger situation. I would imagine erik didnt have much experience in this capacity which made him so easy to manipulate. She made him make her his life and no one else could be apart of that. Almost ultimatum degree of "it's me and everything I give you or them" he chose her and literally put a ring on it and abandoned them. Probs assumed it was easiest for him to just never speak again instead of explaining his awful excuse which is why he chose the path he did. Realistically he has good enough money to attract this girl in the first place and live off those earnings to where his passion for content and keeping up his channel evaporated and we are where we are. Great vid, subbed, and excited to see what else you come out with.
I remember finding him in early middle school and instantly fell in love with his videos. Especially his GTA videos. His humor was so unique and I thought it was the funniest thing in the world. Eventually Kayrina started showing up and I started to move away from his content for unrelated reason but I checked him like 2 years later. It was heart breaking to that he cut contact with all his friends and even his brother.
Funny enough I was banned from m3rkmus1cs server from discussing this and offering to ask him why he blocked Matt and block sheknives and a few other of my friends were banned too also, It still puzzles me on what happened behind the scenes that m3rkmus1c managed to get Matt back on his videos.
Unfortunately, typical Merk response there. Or lack thereof... That's a good question! I couldn't figure out why Matt got let back into the videos where everyone else did not. It may have to do with him and and Kayrina's wedding but I can't say confidently why.
If I remember correctly, isn't Matt Eric's brother? I swear I remember watching his old day in day of the life video where he was living with Matt and their Dad.
Awesome video! I was a huge fan of Merk's back in his early days and until about the end of BO3 so its nice to finally get somewhat of an answer to what happened, I think you missed a huge opportunity to talk about the impact of not having his crew around in videos anymore and maybe would have also compared it to another group and their success for example a group around the same time that blew up like the Vanoss Crew, they are still huge to this day and a lot of that is due to the fact they are all still playing together where as in Merks videos that element is completely missing and feels like a huge reason we liked his videos was missing which in turn has led us to this video and his channels heavy decline
For sure! I tried to make it a point that him missing the crew kinda lead to his downfall, but I tried to present this factually and not make any absolute takes like "THIS CAUSED MERK'S DOWNFALL". Though it's obvious that it definitely was, there's no solid proof of it and there's no way to get statistics for something like that. I'd much rather you guys make your own deductions! 😁
I'll always feel super torn by what happened with Erik, he was pretty much my all time favorite RUclipsr growing up, from the BO1 gun game days all the way up until he got engaged with Kayrina. The moment I saw he was cutting members of the crew off I knew the glory days were pretty much over, just like that. Such a monumental fall from grace that not enough people talk about, so great video!
The part at the end hits just knowing that Merk helped so many of us through shitty times and being so damn disappointed knowing what’s become of him . Regardless I will always have a special place in my heart for Merk and his content which inspired me to learn guitar. Growing up in a abusive household in certain times of my life I felt so lost but creators like Merk gave me a laugh and smile when it was much needed. On a side note I think that you’re video was very well pieced together and you’re non biased commentary is a refreshment from other creators, I will definitely be leaving a sub, this video just made me wanna write out a long comment which I rarely ever do lol
I'm glad to see that someone made a nearly unbiased video about Merk's channel. The other creators that made videos about Merk I thought we're a little harsh (rightfully so) but only had speculation to back up their evidence instead of having the straight facts about the situation. We don't truly know what happened behind the scenes and I don't think it should be discussed because it's none of our business. Merkmusic was probably one of my favorite youtube channels back then and seeing all of this unfold was devastating. It almost felt like I was betrayed by my best friend even though I didn't know Merk like that. Now I'm trying to start my own youtube channel and he is the one that inspired me to create videos of my own and, although I don't like getting into drama, this Merkmusic situation taught me one thing: if your going to start your own business, just know what you're doing in every step of the way and make the right decisions because one wrong decision can create a catastrophe of problems. Great video!
i honestly really hope erik comes out and properly gives a response to all of this. this dude was my childhood smh its so sad to see him get gutted from the inside out but all i hope is that hes happy and doesn't regret any of it
I was an avid viewer, and i remember the unsubscribe wave when he met his girl. I remember the community trying to help eric, but he is blinded by his "lovable" fiance. We were all worried that she will divorce him and leave him high and dry, and honestly now i am waiting for it. He turned on his friends, he turned on us even, he turned on everyone and honestly when karma catches up to him i hope it's ugly for him.
He even turned on his own brother Matt including his parents who were against them getting married that fast. When Merk bought his first house and Matt joined him he said once that chick moved in she was so controlling it drove Matt insane that he moved out. I do hope she takes more than half of his money
@@oxfordfox9210 THAT That is the biggest stab in the back. Us, fans were one thing. Online friends were another thing also, but to turn on your own family? That is just evil.
At first when I saw his video about meeting Kayrina, I was like, "Great, you got yourself someone", but after a while I saw how unhappy he became, and how obsessive she became to him.
fr and she started to show up in videos a lot and he just always looked like he was forcing himself to be happy cause he built this ideal world in his head
M3rk was probably one of my absolute favorite youtube channels growing up, coming back years later to see even his case opening videos gone cause matt would come on cam and open a case was deleted confused me so much until now, your message to M3rk at the end very much defines how many people feel with this
I saw a brief video from someone about this situation that didn't explain the situation, and I'm glad this showed up on my feed today. Good work brother
One thing I remember vividly from when this whole thing started, was people in his comments were displaying genuine concern for his relationship and how fast things were changing, and in his videos addressing the drama with eighthoughts he would blatantly say these people were essentially attacking him and his fiancé, basically pushing away his fanbase that wanted nothing more than to voice their concerns for what was going on. This made me and many others feel very weird about it, not only was I very young, most of his fanbase was too, and he was telling children who were asking questions about what was happening that they were basically ruining his relationship. I still am young, but looking back on this whole ordeal I am just disturbed at how easily someone destroyed their life, their credibility and their public opinion, but at least hes getting laid. I should add, there were absolutely insane weirdos who were going after his fiancé at the time for little to no reason, and thats absolutely disgusting and he had every right to publicly condemn them, but that wasn't where his attacks ended, and that really confused me as he was my favourite channel at the time, I thought Matt in particular was hilarious so I wanted to know what was happening, I stopped caring a few weeks later, and moved on, its sad to see this still hasn't changed.
Stopped watching him the moment he started dating his girlfriend. Around that time he stopped talking about his friends and removing any ties with them.
yeah same. i just check his video from time to time but nah.... he's done. the moment he just suddenly married a random girl and announced it on his channel is the moment many ppl just has seen through his skechy gf @@REXae86
I vividly remember the advanced warfare clown makeup video where Kayrina gave him clown makeup while playing the game and I commented genuine concern on the video mentioning how she was starting to become very prevelant and weirdly controlling and while some people disagreed it was all respectful and the consensus was genuine concern for the content but then Merk just ended up deleting the video altogether. Kinda sad seeing that he's practically just by himself now in his gaming vids but so long as he's happy I guess that's what matters.
I originally had a segment about this but ended up deleting it because, honestly, I was being rather biased against it so I deleted it to maintain the message of factuality I was going for
Honestly, fair. I can see that being a bit of a reach but it's so unfortunate how much control she gained over his channel in so little time. Alas it's his channel but man is it sad seeing older videos of his with his friends nowadays.
Found your video off of a recommendation of another drama video that was released a week ago, and man, I never knew what all happened with Erik. I watched him all throughout highschool and he made it fun every day. It's sad to see how his content has fallen from the old days. You did an amazing job on this video dude. You've earned your like and subscribe. Please continue your hard work and enjoy making content bro
I don’t normally comment on videos but I really enjoyed it. Opened my eyes to something I do see often especially for a channel being this small. I’m glad that the algorithm place your video in my feed and u earned my respect and follow.
There's over 2,000 comments on this video and none of them really made me stop in my day and kinda just take a second to process. Thank you, man. It was hard to do...but it paid off. Thank you so much for your comment! 🥺👏
Plus you could add that M3RK hasn't been keeping up with the times, he still does the same style content he did 8 years ago lol eventually people will get bored of his daily uploads. Reminds me of Seananners how he literally quit one day because he got tired of doing the same thing.
You could say it's the same but it really does not feel like it, all the short hyper edited and over the top energy is just not really present anymore. And not having that group makes it feel like a different channel
Man im finally glad someone said it. Full respect for keeping that last piece in, you were speaking from a fan & not from someone just hating to hate. Thank you!
I realized that mid video too how wild it is that Matt was mostly around n now he’s MIA😞then again Matt did say he didn’t really be in the RUclips seen
Well said man. The day I unsubscribed from him was when I found out no one from his crew got invited to the wedding. I stopped watching him long before that, because all he would upload was videos with Kayrina and it just got unenjoyable. Those guys really tied the channel together and they all got stabbed in the back for absolutely no reason. The bummer part is I'm sure none of that would have happened if Kayrina didn't have so much influence over him. One day he will realize how he wronged his friends.
I think another thing that should be heavily looked upon when it comes to his content is that he hasn't really evolved in a long time either. No real change in his type of content and trying to do similar things from years ago but without this friend group didn't bode well. I remember watching him in middle school when the friend group was around and started watching him again around when the drama began but never really paid it any mind because I don't feel like we knew enough information on the inside. I don't wanna solely blame Kayrina because I don't know why or what caused this series of events exactly. We may never get a response which sucks but it's nice to know it's still not going unnoticed. Besides that! Great video! I hope this comment reaches you well, there were some moments where it was a little hard to hear you in the beginning because the music or your mic dipping too low away from your mouth but thats something I'm sure you'll improve on with time. I hope I see you in the algorithm more and even moreso hope Merk himself sees this and maybe we can get some kinda response.
Thanks for letting me know on the mic thing! It was hard to find mixing levels I wanted the music at because that particular track was important to the message. Appreciate you stopping by! New videos on the way!
genuinely this is the most thorough video going over the drama/downfall that i have seen its sad he can’t even crack 100k views unless he nostalgia baits
Great video. I kinda forgot how confused I was over the whole situation and your effort reminded me how tragic it was. While I still watch Erik, and sometimes there are some homies appearing here and there, it's mainly him and no one else. Thanks for covering this.
Can we just appreciate the 2000’s computer background you got going on? I miss looking at that and wondering where each line would go. Small but nostalgic thing i noticed (:
I think there were/are two big red flags in their relationship. The first one being how fast Erik proposed, but the other red flag might just be a even bigger red flag, in my opinion, is that Erik mentioned that kayrina was a fan of his videos! I don't want to say anything bad upon her name, however this whole situation could just be a fan meeting their idol and getting a bigger ego, especially after dating said content creator/influencer. And the fact that Tina was the first one to be blocked makes it seem like she was viewed as competition, and it hurts more knowing the chronic health issues that Tina is dealing with.
I’m actually Know Tina she is A Friend of Mine She Was Kinda Upset About this But She hates Speaking About this so Don’t go Out and Ask Her For Information.
i remember when a m3rk upload was an event i enjoyed watching. now it's something i skim through to get the call of duty info i want or put in the background when i want to listen to something. thanks for telling me what's wrong
Hey man. I'd like to thank you for making this video, I firmly believe you've summed up and expressed exactly how we feel about M3RKMUS1C. I also, like you, shared dark times and would always watch Eric's content to free myself from the enshrouding darkness. But it seems that even the ones you look up to can also become ensnared and manipulated by bad actors. How the mighty have fallen. On a positive note, I would like to mention how great this video is not to mention the editing and segments to divide up different areas. You've earned my subscription and I hope to see more content from you, whatever that may be. All the best in the future 👊🏻
I loved his gun game videos. I remember when I used to watch him religiously. He used to be such a fun content creator to watch, I would even try to get into COD games with him. When he first shared Kayrina, I just had a gut feeling something was wrong. I was heartbroken when I finally had to unfollow him on RUclips, he just wasn't the same anymore.
just watched this entire video and i can say i was blocked as well, not cause i knew merk/kayrina in any way, but mainly because they were both blocking fans on twitter for calling them out on what merk did. sad to see one of my childhood youtuber heroes go from one of the most loved creators in the COD community to this :( loved the vid man, keep up the great work
the last message to erik hit me hard, I was constantly watching that channel when I was 16 and I decided to leave my abusive home to move to a boarding school. those videos kept me laughing when all I wanted to do is sulk. amazing video and I'm definitely looking forward for more videos of any kind with your personality in it, which I really liked.
Very well researched and informed video my man. I kinda knew about this whole merk/kayrina thing very loosely but this video definitely helped me see the full picture. I really like merk and have been watching his content for years now and I'm honestly baffled how ended up doing what he did. Now if the girl is the reason behind all of this then this is anything but a healthy relationship and I'm very worried for him. At the same time it was undoubtedly a very irresponsible and honestly f*cked up thing to do regardless what was happening behind the scenes. At the end of the day I'm not really mad at him just disappointed and I hope maybe one day he talks about this situation and maybe apologizes to his former crew. I hope this video gets more attention.
Having watched since 2012-ish, I actually tried to stick around as much as I could after she entered the picture just because I wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt. I saw a lot of myself in him and at the time, I too was in a relationship that was received generally unfavorable by people that I knew. But at some point, I just knew it wasn’t the same and unsubbed. And only then did I see the crew talk about how he blocked them so I knew it was for the best. Sad to see him go down this path. I admittedly still have a soft spot for Merk since he really was such a big part of my life. Much like your ending message to him, I found much of my happiness in his videos during my darkest moments. I’ll still go back to some of them today when I’m in the mood to reminisce. But of course, nothing past that. It genuinely felt like I lost a friend when he decided to remove his own from his life.
For a small creator this video is really good and I can see it getting the attention it deserves!! I started watching merk somewhere near mwII or mwIII and I really enjoy his content and after seeing this video it changed my perspective of him, but don’t get me wrong I will still watch him either way I just will see his channel in a diffrent way and I can see that his wife (or smth o don’t really know) could be the cause of his downfall but who Knows because I definitely don’t. Also another thing going into this video is how the tone went from happy to pretty dark but that means that this is a good video Tl;dr video good, still watch merk either way, have diff perspective from happy to dark, hope he do good in future and reunite with friends hopefully Ps. I didn’t know much about this but expected a twist that they broke up and now has his friends back but I guess it ended bad for him
As of publishing, they're still definitely together. You can still see "@sodapopcandy" in Merk's Twitch moderation chat, which is Kayrina's Twitch name.
What a great video! I started watching M3rk in like 2014-2015 and stopped watching when would talk about and have Kayrina in his CoD WWII videos. I then started watching him again a few years later and noticed the lack of his friends, video titles changed, and even the lack of old videos with his friends. This was all addressed in this video and I loved the editing and style, something that I can't say is true for the M3rk videos edited by Kayrina. I still watch M3rk when he puts out a new video, but they will always feel "off" because of this cloud of control I perceived from Kayrina. Ultimately a sad situation and one that really hits me, as I grew up watching M3rk AND his friends. To end, my favorite M3rk moments were Mike and Jesse, especially when doing CoD Ghosts gamebattle trolling, Jesse was like "there's no weed in here" after jumping into his bong, and someone was like "your bong must be really deep" and Jesse replied "2 stories to be precise" with reverb, so good.
I remember watching his fade out, the last clip I watched was him addressing to his fans that if your gonna come up to him out in public and speak and ask for pictures you must acknowledge Kayrina and want her in the pics also. After that I stopped watching
Remember when this happened too, when be said that I was watching the vid with a friend and this is when we thought she was straining digging him clean, but there’s still together so not sure. Prolly still a simp.
wow what a great video. I still watch his videos to this day but i went back not too long ago to find an old merk video for a nostalgia trip, and realized it was nowhere to be found on his channel (the prank call videos with the whole merk crew). My initial thought was that it had to do with monetization issues but this put all the pieces together. im blown away.
This and iDubbbz show that men with little experience with women will attach themselves to the first girl who offers themselves and they cant let go. Imagine how many women who want a committed BF having that sort of attachment, in the right hands its a thing of beauty, but instead its used for evil and used to manipulate vulnerable guys who are lonely and cant find other options, stay strong brothers, it will get better.
I remember watching him and getting a good laugh then he announced that he was engaged with ole girl, literally the day he met her. it changed the dynamic the channel had. After hearing that situation i just stopped watching him and actually forgot about him. Sad to see this type of video on him
@DavineIulinvega Letting your partner whore themselves out on OF and trying to make a response video trying to rationalize it to people is not "normal".
@@DavineIulinvegaWHAT?! Anisa and Kayrina are like the same person. iDubbz and M3rk have both fallen victim to a woman toxifying their other relationships, business and personal. You consider that being a normal person? I feel sorry for you
@@DavineIulinvega not really, he went from being edgy to a overreacting fun police guy. and it's clear he does whatever his girlfriend tells him to do.
I hate when people block without elaborating. That is so childish + his wife looks to be toxic af. I'm afraid he has to ask her even, if he can go out to touch grass.
Very nice video! You got a sub from me! I used to watch Merk a lot back in the day, I fell off from watching RUclips in general for a while and when I started watching stuff again I noticed the kind of drastic change in the channel as a whole. You made a very well put together video explaining it all and I applaud you for it! 💜
This video is pulling harder then his bro holy shit man good work I’m getting back into video making how long was you production on this video good work agian!
Oh geez. Hmm...If I had to put it on paper, it probably would look like this. Research: 6 hours Scripting: 8 hours Recording: 1.5 hours Editing: 8 hours Those may be more or less but I think that's relatively accurate.
I used to really enjoy Merk's videos. When I rediscovered him recently, I was confused as to why he didn't seem to be pulling the insane numbers he used to. So I'm glad I later found this video to explain everything. Great video dude, and I'm glad you're in a better place now compared to the situation you were in when you were younger.
Thank you for the comprehensive and factual (a lot of opinions too but you made sure to distinct properly between them) video on all this. Honestly, I did not know there was such a "scandal" and "downfall" with him. I have been watching him actively since 2013, and I can almost guarantee that I've seen every video he made from that point onwards. I always thought that his friends disappearing was just people growing apart and life becoming too hectic to spend all that time with friends, which is what he said in a video about 1-2 years ago (if memory serves). And that was fine, the biggest reason why I watched him was because of his personality as a human being, and I have wholeheartedly enjoyed watching his video even without his signature editing style and friends, although it felt a little lonely with just him on his own. He's a very respectful, caring and genuine person who loves spending time with others, as you can still see with him often trying to talk to people on cod, not just for reactions. My (very subjective and biased) opinion on all this is that I speculate that Kayrina has "poisoned" him in a way. I think it would make sense that she has manipulated him and he being such a well-meaning and caring person didn't know to say no. I also do believe Erik hasn't had a lot of romantic experience, as we've never seen any hints of romance before Kayrina and in one of the videos talking about her he did imply something like that, although I can't specifically remember what. When you're lacking in experience and deeply in love, you start losing yourself and catering a lot to the other person, oftentimes choosing to prioritise them over yourself. This is also something that has happened to me and that same girl also "poisoned" some of my views that took a whole year to fully realise had been messed with. We might see a divorce from them in the coming years and hopefully he'd realise what he has done and try to make amends, but all in all, I just hope he's happy and doing all right. From all we know, he might be living in hell every day with emotional manipulation and stuff. There are some videos where I get the impression that a lot is bothering him mentally, be in stress, regret, pressure, Kayrina, whatever.
How did it take me until 23:37 to notice the cod ghosts menu music playing in the background. I wish they would have given us a sequel the campaign was great and left us on a suspenseful cliffhanger.
Wait only 1k views? I thought with this kinda research and editing will be at least a big channel with million of subscribers and views.keep up with this kinda of editing, and most likely i can see this channel going viral
While all of the Kayrina drama and him getting rid of his friends from the channel definitely have taken away a lot of his viewership, Erik’s channel is based solely on COD content, and all across the board, COD channels are getting super low views because nobody cares about COD anymore. His channel is still one of the highest-performing COD channels, which isn’t saying much. I think if he strayed away from COD and played better games, as well as bringing some of his friend group back, his channel would flourish again like years ago.
I remember seeing this all unfold in real time but having no idea about this drama. It was just like Kayrina came in and all of a sudden Eriks videos started to feel empty bc they solely featured him and her. Sad to see the real reason that happened
fuck dude rewatching all these classic clips just instantly sends me back to that time period and my days as a cod kid. Man I miss the old form of Merks content, I kinda knew he fell off but it’s a shame to see everything laid out and all the shady seeming stuff surrounding his friend group. Fantastic video, Fantastic Hat, subbed keep up that content.
I was ready to watch this video and dislike and hate, but i have literally never seen any of this information or even heard of this, thank you for enlightening me
1:20 Simple, I’ve grown up watching his videos. Now I’m long out of high school in a 9-5. Eventually you much like every other channel will have a fan base that will out grow you and move on.
Im at the 1 minute mark and just wanted to say i have not seen one of his videos since 2017 or 2018, so this is all new stuff for me. I hope it's not all to bad
@@gnerus1972 I'm already having name calls for this video. LOL I fully accepted that reality prior to starting facecams on the internet. Best I can do is keep my stuff based in fact and relatively unbiased.
It is depressing to see how he got controlled the way he did and shut off from the social life he had so quickly. Just goes as an example of what not to do with relationships I guess.
Imagine if we said women allow themselves to get abused, I don’t understand this double standards, if merk was a women you idiots would’ve called the police
After seeing some of the other comments I'm glad others agree that merk changed right after Kayrina came into his life. I think it was after he proposed to her is when I really started noticing it. I don't hate merk I simply just cant watch his videos anymore without it feeling he's trying too hard. No idea if it's because I've grown up or what but i think he should try doing what he really feels like making or try and appeal to other people that grew up watching his videos. I love merk and will never forget making faze booce jokes with my friends at recess when I was in 6th grade, Andrew calling the sex hotlines, the call of duty songs.
EDIT 2 (February 23rd): For those saying "Matt is back" on his latest video, this is known to be the case. Around the time of Erik and Kayrina's wedding, he was unblocked and possibly invited to the wedding. If he went or not is sheer speculation and, admittedly, not our business. Those are family matters. Regardless though, saying "he's back" as some kind of 'gotcha' moment is lame because Matt is Erik's BROTHER. That should not have happened in the first place to him. Obviously not to his friends either, but especially not literal family.
EDIT 1 (February 8th): Reminder to please not harass or bother anyone featured in this video. Both the "victims" and the "suspects" (for lack of better terms) are fed up with hearing about this. Some wounds don't heal with time, you know? This video is just a full summary. Not a hit piece, not clickbaity garbage. Facts and evidence.
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I love hearing your guys stories and opinions on this topic and my video in the comments and the Discord. You guys are from all walks of life and I love hearing and discussing with all of you! 🥳 Sorry if I can't reply to all of them! 🥲 But I'll try!
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You can take the man out of the CoD dude-bro brain rot, but you can not take the CoD dude-bro brain rot out of the man.
Nice video brother. I didn’t know about any of this really. It’s a shame.
uh oh you know it's bad if bsoloe is here
@@drrnvevo I didn't realize he was as big as he was til you said something. LOL. Nonetheless, thank y'all for stopping by!
@@ourBrainF00D like you said, everybody's attention span is so short but you had me hooked the whole video. Well put together.
When you mix a virgin or a guy with zero women experience and a controlling manipulative women this is exactly what happens.She cut out everyone in his life so that he solely had to rely on her. Seen this in real life before it’s sad.
I also remember him saying that a few days without her was 'a life without meaning', which pretty much proves it. Dude has no self respect or confidence to stand up for himself, and has convinced himself that life doesn't get any better than this. If I lived a life as someone elses puppet, I'd cut the strings and run far away.
Prime example being iDubbbz and Anisa
Saved my roommate from a girl like this, they’re fr dangerous
She’s hella selfish
yep, happened to me around 5 years ago, absolute misery
He ruined his whole career and friendship for a girl he met one day then decided to marry her in the same week he met her like wtf..
what an idubbbz moment
@@DanYami😂
man i remember that, everyone said he was dumb for that, and they were right
What madpuss does to a CoD dude-bro MF. Very sad life lesson-like story.
I think it wasn’t even 24 hours since he met her in person
even at 15 years old, I thought to myself "damn you really up and proposed when you first saw her? and she was a fan? oooof"
lmao me too bro
think i was like 12 or 13 and even i said the same lol
i was about 13-14 and i even was like wtf thats really fast to just up and propose
thats a problem for someone who hasnt even talked to a girl. i got that vibe from Eric that he might have been an incel and they tend to get SUPER attached
i was 20 or 21 i think and i knew he fumbled the bag
Just a reminder that SheKnives Omar and Mike are still making content and that you should watch them!
Really? I knew sheknives did buy i didn't know Omar and Mike did. Can I get their channel names?
@@DivineHybridddog just look them up
SheKnives is on YT and Twitch, Mike (MerkRampage) has a YT and I think active twitch? but Omar (OhOmah) is active like Tina on Twitch and YT.@@DivineHybridd
what are their channels?
@@Ntro_ I found them. There on Sheknives's page at the bottom.
I solely blame Kayrina. Or at least 99% blame her. He wasn't like this till he met her. He wasn't so closed off till he met her. I remember watching him right when he met her and you could feel the change. I've been watching him since middle school, I'm almost 26 now so i been watching him for a very long time, basically since the beginning and pretty consistently too and you could physically feel the change when it happened because of how jarring it was.
Kayrina ruined Erik, flat out.
He is solely responsible, if he was less of an idiot douchebag he wouldn't have let her do all that shit, he could've stood up for his friends but they obviously didn't mean that much to him.
I concur on principle, but this seems too one-sided. He's an adult, he didn't have to let her control him, could've grown a spine, be a rational human being, and not propose to someone you met a week ago. *Online.* Didn't have to abandon his friends, people he had known for a long time (longer than Kayrina, anyway), the people that helped make his channel what it was for a girl he barely knew. He had the freedom and ability to make all the good choices regarding that situation and made all of the wrong ones.
So yes, Kayrina is extremely shady and seemingly manipulative, but Erik is a simp in every sense of the word. To quote a song:
"I ain't saying she a gold-digger..."
fw that reference 😂 This is all sad but it’s true
FACTS
This is a valid take and I somewhat agree personally but I just wanna remind everyone that we shouldn't villanize one person for this. It's a bad way to go about things (looking for someone to be at-fault I mean).
At the end of the day, Erik still made the decision to do this. We can speculate that he was manipulated and whatnot but he doubled down to the point where it cost him his brand.
Its very telling on his girlfriend that Tina was first on the chopping block despite being the most lovely and reserved person in their group
Catching up on merc I immediately raised an eyeborw at that bruh
If Tina was the first to go its almost 100% his new girl controlling shit bruh
Sounds like his wife is toxic (isolated him and blocking Tina first, a girl maybe from jealousy) and weird (sought out his private snap).
She changed the titles of the videos with Tina to say "It" or "Thing" instead of Tina or SheKnives
@@flameguy3416 Ah, damn! I meant to put that in there too!
@@flameguy3416 wtf thats just so weird
Would not call talking to someone on Snap weird lol
aint no pussy that fye, dudes got low self esteem, it happens.
proposing at the first meeting is so insane 😭
The perfect example of a rushed relationship.
Gives me vibes of a dude who never pulled woman or got laid and latched onto the first woman that gave him attention. And of course she’s gonna say yes, dude makes lots of money and has internet clout. He’s a clown
Virgin behavior
@@wizardgaming6759 now he is in too deep to back out, so he just has to accept his fate
@@alrightsure9941 It's never too late to back out, lmao, there's a reason both divorce and the objectiion to getting married at the altar exist, along with every second of everyday where you can say "I don't want to be married", tf lol.
This video has far more views than Erik’s had in over weeks. This tells me that people still know who Erik is but just aren’t toning into his content anymore. This video explains exactly why and it’s just true.
this hes videos are boring if he went back to making content with his old group or hell never dropped them im pretty sure hed be so much bigger than he is/was
@@barryjohnson8733 for sure i think too, i was an OG i guess and i remember when he announced that video of him getting married it felt very very weird. this vid was spot on
I watched his videos for years, I remember Kayrina but I honestly never realized all the drama that happened with him and the gang. Damn shame, he was my favorite content creator tbh
@@Momentusx3 same bro. Erik has been hiding it from years now, I just found out this year. I talked to Tina the some of the old friends and all of them have no hate against erik but are still disappointed understandably
Ever since Kayrina came into Eric's life, it's been downhill. It amazes me to this day that Merk hasn't said anything about the situation and why he did, what he did?
I mean it's pretty obviosu why he did what he did. He met a woman that had similar interests and prioritized that over everything else. Not defending him at all here, he abandoned his friends. But it's pretty obvious why it happened.
He a simp
S SOON ASKYRINA CAME IN I STOPPED WATCHING MERK NOT BECAUSE OF HER BEING A WOMAN BUT BECAUSE OF THIS SHIT I knew something happened once kyrina came in and started fucking everything up
@@221Prohunter There is a big difference between prioritizing a relationship over important friendships and burning every bridge he's ever made with anyone.
@@221ProhunterOf course, but it’s pathetic to do something like that to your own friends who helped propel your channel.
You can tell it was the first woman to ever show interest in him. So he did everything he could to make sure she never left him, and look what’s happened
was gonna say the same thing, this is ultimate simp behavior
Given his personality, he could've landed pretty much any other woman he wanted. What a shame.
@@_MaZTeR_ he was def insecure if he chose the first women he ever spoke to as a wife
I remember him saying in a video revealing their relationship, that he finds her “very cute and sexy.” I know everyone has different taste, but when I saw pic of her, I didn’t find her cute or sexy at all lol.
@@wizardgaming6759 Looks palletable, but not stunning.
Thank you so much for this video, was always curious. Great work and editing!
Pav tf you doing here? Lmaoo
@@YunoDiegoI’m asking the same question 😭
M3RKMUS1C be like:
"guess what"
"what"
"chicken butt"
"holy fuck i wanna marry you"
please ruin my friendships built over the decade!!!!
Pretty much sums it up.
To be fair, my current relationship of 5-6 years started with asking her if she was emo because she was wearing all black.
@@ourBrainF00Dill use that next time
If a girl added me out of nowhere on Snapchat and said that to me I’d probably not want to talk to her from then on.
@@Markm8 Same
Bro I went to twitter to see merk and his gf and apparently IM BLOCKED BY HER?? What did I even do 😭
Existed.
you breathed in the presence of his girlfriend
You were impure
Lmao I got blocked because I followed eight thoughts on Twitter at the time she legit went thru his followers and blocked every single one, talk about unhinged
@@marcosbravo43 💀💀💀💀
This may be a bit much to say, but bro in a way sacrificed his career and friendships over a girl he met online and subsequently married after their first in person interaction 💀💀💀
Marrying a girl u just met is crazy
@@shotgun_daddy-1089 lemme catch my son falling in love over a chicken butt joke and less than a year of dating and decides that's enough to wanna marry someone 💀💀💀
@@suna9555 lmao on god, he got the worst case of blue balls I’ve ever seen
@@shotgun_daddy-1089thats why its been 7 years
I remember being one of the people who didn't like Kayrina when she showed up and getting all pissy about it because everyone else did. I was definitely just trying to be cool, but in hindsight, I was too old to be acting like that. In any case, I never realized the actual amount of damage she did. I know we can't really say outright that all of this was her doing, but... I mean, come on, let's be real. She shows up and he suddenly cuts everyone off and goes on a Stalin purge of his videos, removing their names and faces. It's pretty obvious what happened. Huge shame.
Well said! Thanks for commenting
@@ourBrainF00D No problem man, good video!
Similar thing happened to my brother. Met a girl and then out of the blue got married and cut everyone out of his life. The relationship ended poorly and now after 3 years I have my brother back. This happens to people and the negative ramifications it has on not only the person, but their friends and families lives is immense.
same thing happened to me but instead of my sibling being taken away due to a relationship it was me. my ex was a troubled girl and my family hated her, I tried ignoring it and even stopped talking to a few people. long story short, after 4 years we ended our engagement and broke up. I opened back up to my family and luckily they accepted me back.
Same thing with my brother, she’s manipulated him into cutting off our entire family and I haven’t seen him in over two years. I’m an uncle and I’ve never seen my nephew I hope I can get a happy ending like you did
yeah. ppl are so naive and dumb . i have so many friends who act down bad. they meet first girl or second girl and instantly want to get married. like WHY?
Thats happening to my friend now, shes now trapped in a different state than all of her family. Not allowed to work or have friends, if she plays co-op games it starts arguments. I feel bad for her.
@@newaccountwhodis5611 if you have any communication with her try your best to convince her to leave before its too late i hope it works out for her
video got recommended on a wham and i got filled with a wave of nostalgia. as im 19 now, eric was by far my most watched youtuber from ages 13-17. every joke he said i tried to replicate and i still remember the 8 thoughts drama vividly. so glad i watched this very well put together. earned a subscriber for sure
Thank you!!
Yeah I’m 20 now, watched this guy for years, did not expect all this
It's crazy that this is still being covered. Great video man!
I watched Erik a lot during my childhood. I vividly remember when Kayrina came into his life and after that even I felt like his content and his personality became hollow. He just felt off is the best way I can describe it. I've always wondered how and why, and this video explains it all and makes so much more sense now. This video is super well done and of high quality, research and thought put into it for a channel this size. You'll go far if you keep putting out content of this quality. Hoping for your blowup my brother!
same here man. i watched merk music all the time in high school and i even ended up showing up in one of his xbox message videos, that was the highlight of my childhood at the time. i too remember exactly when he introduced her to the channel and that’s when everything went to shit.
He feels like an old man that fell in love with a stripper lol i lost respect when he yelled at us for being mean to his girl lol. Like.. bitch, welcome to the internet hahaha😂
I find it awful convenient that the first person from his group to go, within a WEEK of him proposing, was the only woman in the group. And the following ones were the people he was arguably closest to. Very, very convenient
Absolutely convenient and coincidental. LOL
It amazes me that him and Kayrina are still together despite isolating him from his friends and Changing his personality
What pussy does to mf
i couldnt handle being with someone like that..i'd run
i guess merk is in denial now and maybe has some kind of stockholm syndrome. i think he is scared he wont meet another girl in his life. he got manipulated by her that he wont meet a better girl.
dudes a simp tbh.
@@Azorthy hey insurgency sinjar a meme profile pic! I love that meme!
Its hard for me to hate Merk, it really is, i see what he's done and how he's acted, but i cant hate him, I'm biased and blinded by nostalgia, i just wish he could have been with his friends longer, at least ended things in a more positive way. whoever is responsible for what happened is irrelevant, but it needs to be fixed, at least a proper goodbye to some of these people is the minimum he could do.
This is EXACTLY how I felt about this prior to the creation of this video. But after seeing the toll it has taken on these people's lives, I can't help but feel a little more on the side of sourness. But I can never hate Merk for the same reason you do here, but these things definitely need addressing.
Amazing video deserves WAY more then 11k views.
@@ourBrainF00DI never knew he did this, just 2 weeks ago I was bingeing his content. Crazy stuff
yeah i also like merk. he's a cool dude. cool hobbies. remember his videos where he played guitar in the mic.... but damn. his perosnality, identity and life went so downhill bcuz of 1 person
@@ourBrainF00D Now that I think of it, I strongly remember Erik and his brother lived in the same house and just after the proposal to Kayrina, Erik kicked his brother out of the house with no help to set him on his own way whatsoever. It was the most serious toll for my point of wiev. It seemed really cruel to me but I brushed it off as "Westeners don't have strong family ties like other people" but hey, family is family in every culture...
Merkmusic was another RUclips og that I watched a lot as a kid. Really unfortunate how everything went down. Thanks for shedding light into this brainfood
My pleasure! And I thought it fit pretty well too!
Dude I was actually watching some M3RK videos and saw this in the recommended and decided to watch because I was a viewer at the time of the drama. I didn't even see this video's like count, views, your sub count or anything until the video was finished. The whole time I was watching, I was sitting here thinking this was some high budget deep dive from a dude with a big following. When I saw the video details, I was fucking shocked. To see such good content be overlooked and underappreciated truly is a crying shame. Thank you, thank you for doing what no one else has done by taking an unbiased deep dive into the fall of one of the people who made me so many memories growing up. As much as I wish for these issues to finally come to light, I'm not so naive to depend on such blind faith. I truly wish for your growth and success not just as a creator but as a person. I've been floating around Eric's channel for years, maybe watching one or two videos every now and then, but the soul is gone. I fully agree with everything you said at the end and will stand tall with you.
I want this you and your channel to blow up through this video, and maybe in the process, we can get well we all want out of it. To hear Eric finally explain himself.
#TellusEric
Wow! Thank you so the kind words, man. 🥺🫡 It truly means a lot. I'm not stopping anytime soon!
@@ourBrainF00D Subscriber number 937, here and waiting for your next banger 👍
Also discord link not working :(@ourBrainF00D
Thank you for letting me know! New videos every month at the latest.
Here's a good link: discord.com/invite/fz8yyp4HEp
it was so noticeable the change and when this story first started up, it really just sounded like he was being manipulated by this attractive girl so heavily because she was giving him love he thought was real but really was a money grab/gold digger situation. I would imagine erik didnt have much experience in this capacity which made him so easy to manipulate. She made him make her his life and no one else could be apart of that. Almost ultimatum degree of "it's me and everything I give you or them" he chose her and literally put a ring on it and abandoned them. Probs assumed it was easiest for him to just never speak again instead of explaining his awful excuse which is why he chose the path he did. Realistically he has good enough money to attract this girl in the first place and live off those earnings to where his passion for content and keeping up his channel evaporated and we are where we are.
Great vid, subbed, and excited to see what else you come out with.
Thanks for the comment! Glad you enjoyed it! 🦆🫡
I remember finding him in early middle school and instantly fell in love with his videos. Especially his GTA videos. His humor was so unique and I thought it was the funniest thing in the world. Eventually Kayrina started showing up and I started to move away from his content for unrelated reason but I checked him like 2 years later. It was heart breaking to that he cut contact with all his friends and even his brother.
Funny enough I was banned from m3rkmus1cs server from discussing this and offering to ask him why he blocked Matt and block sheknives and a few other of my friends were banned too
also, It still puzzles me on what happened behind the scenes that m3rkmus1c managed to get Matt back on his videos.
Unfortunately, typical Merk response there. Or lack thereof...
That's a good question! I couldn't figure out why Matt got let back into the videos where everyone else did not. It may have to do with him and and Kayrina's wedding but I can't say confidently why.
@@ourBrainF00D I agree about the wedding thing.
If I remember correctly, isn't Matt Eric's brother? I swear I remember watching his old day in day of the life video where he was living with Matt and their Dad.
@@bigpoppa7061 Yeah, but he originally shut him out the same as the others for a short period.
@@bigpoppa7061 What?! He shut out his own brother. Sure it was temporary but the fact that he did is sad
Awesome video! I was a huge fan of Merk's back in his early days and until about the end of BO3 so its nice to finally get somewhat of an answer to what happened, I think you missed a huge opportunity to talk about the impact of not having his crew around in videos anymore and maybe would have also compared it to another group and their success for example a group around the same time that blew up like the Vanoss Crew, they are still huge to this day and a lot of that is due to the fact they are all still playing together where as in Merks videos that element is completely missing and feels like a huge reason we liked his videos was missing which in turn has led us to this video and his channels heavy decline
For sure! I tried to make it a point that him missing the crew kinda lead to his downfall, but I tried to present this factually and not make any absolute takes like "THIS CAUSED MERK'S DOWNFALL".
Though it's obvious that it definitely was, there's no solid proof of it and there's no way to get statistics for something like that. I'd much rather you guys make your own deductions! 😁
I'll always feel super torn by what happened with Erik, he was pretty much my all time favorite RUclipsr growing up, from the BO1 gun game days all the way up until he got engaged with Kayrina.
The moment I saw he was cutting members of the crew off I knew the glory days were pretty much over, just like that. Such a monumental fall from grace that not enough people talk about, so great video!
The part at the end hits just knowing that Merk helped so many of us through shitty times and being so damn disappointed knowing what’s become of him . Regardless I will always have a special place in my heart for Merk and his content which inspired me to learn guitar. Growing up in a abusive household in certain times of my life I felt so lost but creators like Merk gave me a laugh and smile when it was much needed.
On a side note I think that you’re video was very well pieced together and you’re non biased commentary is a refreshment from other creators, I will definitely be leaving a sub, this video just made me wanna write out a long comment which I rarely ever do lol
I'm glad to see that someone made a nearly unbiased video about Merk's channel. The other creators that made videos about Merk I thought we're a little harsh (rightfully so) but only had speculation to back up their evidence instead of having the straight facts about the situation. We don't truly know what happened behind the scenes and I don't think it should be discussed because it's none of our business. Merkmusic was probably one of my favorite youtube channels back then and seeing all of this unfold was devastating. It almost felt like I was betrayed by my best friend even though I didn't know Merk like that. Now I'm trying to start my own youtube channel and he is the one that inspired me to create videos of my own and, although I don't like getting into drama, this Merkmusic situation taught me one thing: if your going to start your own business, just know what you're doing in every step of the way and make the right decisions because one wrong decision can create a catastrophe of problems. Great video!
i honestly really hope erik comes out and properly gives a response to all of this. this dude was my childhood smh its so sad to see him get gutted from the inside out but all i hope is that hes happy and doesn't regret any of it
The COD Ghosts music makes me nostalgic asf good video
I was an avid viewer, and i remember the unsubscribe wave when he met his girl. I remember the community trying to help eric, but he is blinded by his "lovable" fiance.
We were all worried that she will divorce him and leave him high and dry, and honestly now i am waiting for it. He turned on his friends, he turned on us even, he turned on everyone and honestly when karma catches up to him i hope it's ugly for him.
He even turned on his own brother Matt including his parents who were against them getting married that fast. When Merk bought his first house and Matt joined him he said once that chick moved in she was so controlling it drove Matt insane that he moved out. I do hope she takes more than half of his money
@@oxfordfox9210 THAT
That is the biggest stab in the back. Us, fans were one thing. Online friends were another thing also, but to turn on your own family? That is just evil.
It’s bad taste to wish bad on any one, even if you disagree, God bless !
@@Laneysmokesyou’re gay 🥱
At first when I saw his video about meeting Kayrina, I was like, "Great, you got yourself someone", but after a while I saw how unhappy he became, and how obsessive she became to him.
fr and she started to show up in videos a lot and he just always looked like he was forcing himself to be happy cause he built this ideal world in his head
I'm actually friends with Ben now and hearing it from his perspective really makes me not like Merk even more. Horrible way to treat your friends.
Wow! Do you mind sending this to him and make sure I got everything correct? I couldn't reach any of them
@@ourBrainF00D I’ll try too, I know he doesn’t like to talk about it anymore
cap lol
@@notahoagie8470 (I was trying to give him the benefit of the doubt but I figured it was cap)
Was a horrible friend around BO1 as well.
M3rk was probably one of my absolute favorite youtube channels growing up, coming back years later to see even his case opening videos gone cause matt would come on cam and open a case was deleted confused me so much until now, your message to M3rk at the end very much defines how many people feel with this
18:16
Hey come on man I was like 14 when I made that 😭
DAMN! I'M SORRY. LOL
They don’t wanna see greatness😭😭😭
the return of the king
Stop the cap bruh smh
@@Oscylot88 You’re right, I was actually 16 😔
I saw a brief video from someone about this situation that didn't explain the situation, and I'm glad this showed up on my feed today.
Good work brother
One thing I remember vividly from when this whole thing started, was people in his comments were displaying genuine concern for his relationship and how fast things were changing, and in his videos addressing the drama with eighthoughts he would blatantly say these people were essentially attacking him and his fiancé, basically pushing away his fanbase that wanted nothing more than to voice their concerns for what was going on. This made me and many others feel very weird about it, not only was I very young, most of his fanbase was too, and he was telling children who were asking questions about what was happening that they were basically ruining his relationship. I still am young, but looking back on this whole ordeal I am just disturbed at how easily someone destroyed their life, their credibility and their public opinion, but at least hes getting laid.
I should add, there were absolutely insane weirdos who were going after his fiancé at the time for little to no reason, and thats absolutely disgusting and he had every right to publicly condemn them, but that wasn't where his attacks ended, and that really confused me as he was my favourite channel at the time, I thought Matt in particular was hilarious so I wanted to know what was happening, I stopped caring a few weeks later, and moved on, its sad to see this still hasn't changed.
Yea I went thru the same thing. Everyone noticed the quality decline, it was all over the comments. I gave up and unsubbed and moved on
I stopped watching him like a year ago and never knew much about the drama. This explains alot. Good vid btw
Stopped watching him the moment he started dating his girlfriend. Around that time he stopped talking about his friends and removing any ties with them.
yeah same. i just check his video from time to time but nah.... he's done. the moment he just suddenly married a random girl and announced it on his channel is the moment many ppl just has seen through his skechy gf @@REXae86
I vividly remember the advanced warfare clown makeup video where Kayrina gave him clown makeup while playing the game and I commented genuine concern on the video mentioning how she was starting to become very prevelant and weirdly controlling and while some people disagreed it was all respectful and the consensus was genuine concern for the content but then Merk just ended up deleting the video altogether. Kinda sad seeing that he's practically just by himself now in his gaming vids but so long as he's happy I guess that's what matters.
I originally had a segment about this but ended up deleting it because, honestly, I was being rather biased against it so I deleted it to maintain the message of factuality I was going for
Honestly, fair. I can see that being a bit of a reach but it's so unfortunate how much control she gained over his channel in so little time. Alas it's his channel but man is it sad seeing older videos of his with his friends nowadays.
She always had to input herself in the videos, I saw a WW2 vid where she carried on interfering with the recording like bro leave
Found your video off of a recommendation of another drama video that was released a week ago, and man, I never knew what all happened with Erik. I watched him all throughout highschool and he made it fun every day. It's sad to see how his content has fallen from the old days. You did an amazing job on this video dude. You've earned your like and subscribe. Please continue your hard work and enjoy making content bro
Thanks, man! Not stopping!
I don’t normally comment on videos but I really enjoyed it. Opened my eyes to something I do see often especially for a channel being this small. I’m glad that the algorithm place your video in my feed and u earned my respect and follow.
I totally agree with you
Thank you so much
great video dude! and hooly.. that ending caught me off guard.. wish you the best of luck man.
I don't think a lot of people made it that far (past the bloopers) and I applaud you for staying! Glad you enjoyed it!
you are strong as hell for making this video, proud of ya man
There's over 2,000 comments on this video and none of them really made me stop in my day and kinda just take a second to process.
Thank you, man. It was hard to do...but it paid off. Thank you so much for your comment! 🥺👏
Plus you could add that M3RK hasn't been keeping up with the times, he still does the same style content he did 8 years ago lol eventually people will get bored of his daily uploads. Reminds me of Seananners how he literally quit one day because he got tired of doing the same thing.
You could say it's the same but it really does not feel like it, all the short hyper edited and over the top energy is just not really present anymore. And not having that group makes it feel like a different channel
His editing definetly decreased after meeting Kayrina, OG M3rk editing is long gone
Man im finally glad someone said it.
Full respect for keeping that last piece in, you were speaking from a fan & not from someone just hating to hate. Thank you!
Glad you enjoyed it! It was hard to keep in honestly
@@ourBrainF00D full respect man honestly 👏
@@Aannto thanks man!
to think that he had cut ties with matt, his own brother, is crazy to me
Actually? Like bound by blood brother? And he just cut him off for some chick?
@@AverageXennpai yes! his name MMhd1080p stands for “mini merk” so sad:(
I realized that mid video too how wild it is that Matt was mostly around n now he’s MIA😞then again Matt did say he didn’t really be in the RUclips seen
Well said man. The day I unsubscribed from him was when I found out no one from his crew got invited to the wedding. I stopped watching him long before that, because all he would upload was videos with Kayrina and it just got unenjoyable. Those guys really tied the channel together and they all got stabbed in the back for absolutely no reason. The bummer part is I'm sure none of that would have happened if Kayrina didn't have so much influence over him. One day he will realize how he wronged his friends.
I think another thing that should be heavily looked upon when it comes to his content is that he hasn't really evolved in a long time either. No real change in his type of content and trying to do similar things from years ago but without this friend group didn't bode well.
I remember watching him in middle school when the friend group was around and started watching him again around when the drama began but never really paid it any mind because I don't feel like we knew enough information on the inside. I don't wanna solely blame Kayrina because I don't know why or what caused this series of events exactly. We may never get a response which sucks but it's nice to know it's still not going unnoticed.
Besides that! Great video! I hope this comment reaches you well, there were some moments where it was a little hard to hear you in the beginning because the music or your mic dipping too low away from your mouth but thats something I'm sure you'll improve on with time. I hope I see you in the algorithm more and even moreso hope Merk himself sees this and maybe we can get some kinda response.
Thanks for letting me know on the mic thing! It was hard to find mixing levels I wanted the music at because that particular track was important to the message.
Appreciate you stopping by! New videos on the way!
i cant believe you only have 6k subs dude this was a really well put together vid, clearly took a lot of time and effort
genuinely this is the most thorough video going over the drama/downfall that i have seen its sad he can’t even crack 100k views unless he nostalgia baits
Great video. I kinda forgot how confused I was over the whole situation and your effort reminded me how tragic it was. While I still watch Erik, and sometimes there are some homies appearing here and there, it's mainly him and no one else. Thanks for covering this.
Can we just appreciate the 2000’s computer background you got going on? I miss looking at that and wondering where each line would go. Small but nostalgic thing i noticed (:
I think there were/are two big red flags in their relationship. The first one being how fast Erik proposed, but the other red flag might just be a even bigger red flag, in my opinion, is that Erik mentioned that kayrina was a fan of his videos! I don't want to say anything bad upon her name, however this whole situation could just be a fan meeting their idol and getting a bigger ego, especially after dating said content creator/influencer. And the fact that Tina was the first one to be blocked makes it seem like she was viewed as competition, and it hurts more knowing the chronic health issues that Tina is dealing with.
I’m actually Know Tina she is A Friend of Mine She Was Kinda Upset About this But She hates Speaking About this so Don’t go Out and Ask Her For Information.
@@faustcalhoun1695 she's already talked about on twitter, so I have no plan on asking her.
Chronic health issues? I didn't know about that! What happened?
Which sucks because Tina isn’t even interested in merk romantically or most men from what I undertsand
i remember when a m3rk upload was an event i enjoyed watching. now it's something i skim through to get the call of duty info i want or put in the background when i want to listen to something. thanks for telling me what's wrong
Hey man. I'd like to thank you for making this video, I firmly believe you've summed up and expressed exactly how we feel about M3RKMUS1C. I also, like you, shared dark times and would always watch Eric's content to free myself from the enshrouding darkness. But it seems that even the ones you look up to can also become ensnared and manipulated by bad actors. How the mighty have fallen.
On a positive note, I would like to mention how great this video is not to mention the editing and segments to divide up different areas. You've earned my subscription and I hope to see more content from you, whatever that may be.
All the best in the future 👊🏻
Thanks for your story and comment! More on the way! And actually, a new video just dropped
I loved his gun game videos. I remember when I used to watch him religiously. He used to be such a fun content creator to watch, I would even try to get into COD games with him. When he first shared Kayrina, I just had a gut feeling something was wrong. I was heartbroken when I finally had to unfollow him on RUclips, he just wasn't the same anymore.
just watched this entire video and i can say i was blocked as well, not cause i knew merk/kayrina in any way, but mainly because they were both blocking fans on twitter for calling them out on what merk did. sad to see one of my childhood youtuber heroes go from one of the most loved creators in the COD community to this :( loved the vid man, keep up the great work
the last message to erik hit me hard, I was constantly watching that channel when I was 16 and I decided to leave my abusive home to move to a boarding school.
those videos kept me laughing when all I wanted to do is sulk.
amazing video and I'm definitely looking forward for more videos of any kind with your personality in it, which I really liked.
Thank you so much! 🥺
Welp when she's drained him dry and done, he doesn't float into an extremely dark place. Good friends are worth more than gold.
Very well researched and informed video my man. I kinda knew about this whole merk/kayrina thing very loosely but this video definitely helped me see the full picture. I really like merk and have been watching his content for years now and I'm honestly baffled how ended up doing what he did. Now if the girl is the reason behind all of this then this is anything but a healthy relationship and I'm very worried for him. At the same time it was undoubtedly a very irresponsible and honestly f*cked up thing to do regardless what was happening behind the scenes. At the end of the day I'm not really mad at him just disappointed and I hope maybe one day he talks about this situation and maybe apologizes to his former crew. I hope this video gets more attention.
Well said! I hope it reaches more folks too!
Having watched since 2012-ish, I actually tried to stick around as much as I could after she entered the picture just because I wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt. I saw a lot of myself in him and at the time, I too was in a relationship that was received generally unfavorable by people that I knew. But at some point, I just knew it wasn’t the same and unsubbed. And only then did I see the crew talk about how he blocked them so I knew it was for the best. Sad to see him go down this path.
I admittedly still have a soft spot for Merk since he really was such a big part of my life. Much like your ending message to him, I found much of my happiness in his videos during my darkest moments. I’ll still go back to some of them today when I’m in the mood to reminisce. But of course, nothing past that. It genuinely felt like I lost a friend when he decided to remove his own from his life.
For a small creator this video is really good and I can see it getting the attention it deserves!! I started watching merk somewhere near mwII or mwIII and I really enjoy his content and after seeing this video it changed my perspective of him, but don’t get me wrong I will still watch him either way I just will see his channel in a diffrent way and I can see that his wife (or smth o don’t really know) could be the cause of his downfall but who Knows because I definitely don’t. Also another thing going into this video is how the tone went from happy to pretty dark but that means that this is a good video
Tl;dr video good, still watch merk either way, have diff perspective from happy to dark, hope he do good in future and reunite with friends hopefully
Ps. I didn’t know much about this but expected a twist that they broke up and now has his friends back but I guess it ended bad for him
As of publishing, they're still definitely together. You can still see "@sodapopcandy" in Merk's Twitch moderation chat, which is Kayrina's Twitch name.
What a great video! I started watching M3rk in like 2014-2015 and stopped watching when would talk about and have Kayrina in his CoD WWII videos. I then started watching him again a few years later and noticed the lack of his friends, video titles changed, and even the lack of old videos with his friends. This was all addressed in this video and I loved the editing and style, something that I can't say is true for the M3rk videos edited by Kayrina. I still watch M3rk when he puts out a new video, but they will always feel "off" because of this cloud of control I perceived from Kayrina. Ultimately a sad situation and one that really hits me, as I grew up watching M3rk AND his friends.
To end, my favorite M3rk moments were Mike and Jesse, especially when doing CoD Ghosts gamebattle trolling, Jesse was like "there's no weed in here" after jumping into his bong, and someone was like "your bong must be really deep" and Jesse replied "2 stories to be precise" with reverb, so good.
I remember watching his fade out, the last clip I watched was him addressing to his fans that if your gonna come up to him out in public and speak and ask for pictures you must acknowledge Kayrina and want her in the pics also. After that I stopped watching
Whoa. Didn't know that part if it was true. That's wild
@@ourBrainF00D not sure if the video is still up I’m almost sure it is, it was a pretty wild claim to make and he got some hate for it
Remember when this happened too, when be said that I was watching the vid with a friend and this is when we thought she was straining digging him clean, but there’s still together so not sure. Prolly still a simp.
wow what a great video. I still watch his videos to this day but i went back not too long ago to find an old merk video for a nostalgia trip, and realized it was nowhere to be found on his channel (the prank call videos with the whole merk crew). My initial thought was that it had to do with monetization issues but this put all the pieces together. im blown away.
This and iDubbbz show that men with little experience with women will attach themselves to the first girl who offers themselves and they cant let go.
Imagine how many women who want a committed BF having that sort of attachment, in the right hands its a thing of beauty, but instead its used for evil and used to manipulate vulnerable guys who are lonely and cant find other options, stay strong brothers, it will get better.
The only thing I know about iDubbbz relationship is that his wives a prostitute, and he took her last name.
I remember watching him and getting a good laugh then he announced that he was engaged with ole girl, literally the day he met her. it changed the dynamic the channel had. After hearing that situation i just stopped watching him and actually forgot about him. Sad to see this type of video on him
Damn, he's like the second person that's been whipped by a succubus disguised as a woman, first one being simpdubbz
iDubbbz was honestly a trailblazer
idubbz just became a normal socially adjusted person albeit not as funny nothing like this
@DavineIulinvega Letting your partner whore themselves out on OF and trying to make a response video trying to rationalize it to people is not "normal".
@@DavineIulinvegaWHAT?! Anisa and Kayrina are like the same person. iDubbz and M3rk have both fallen victim to a woman toxifying their other relationships, business and personal. You consider that being a normal person? I feel sorry for you
@@DavineIulinvega not really, he went from being edgy to a overreacting fun police guy. and it's clear he does whatever his girlfriend tells him to do.
I remember when he announced they were getting married after the first meet up. One of the craziest things I've ever seen lol
I hate when people block without elaborating. That is so childish + his wife looks to be toxic af. I'm afraid he has to ask her even, if he can go out to touch grass.
Very nice video! You got a sub from me! I used to watch Merk a lot back in the day, I fell off from watching RUclips in general for a while and when I started watching stuff again I noticed the kind of drastic change in the channel as a whole. You made a very well put together video explaining it all and I applaud you for it! 💜
Thank you so much, chief!
This video is pulling harder then his bro holy shit man good work I’m getting back into video making how long was you production on this video good work agian!
Oh geez. Hmm...If I had to put it on paper, it probably would look like this.
Research: 6 hours
Scripting: 8 hours
Recording: 1.5 hours
Editing: 8 hours
Those may be more or less but I think that's relatively accurate.
@@ourBrainF00D the goat
man he was so amazing, i remember as a kid crying of laughter over his xbox message reactions
I used to really enjoy Merk's videos. When I rediscovered him recently, I was confused as to why he didn't seem to be pulling the insane numbers he used to. So I'm glad I later found this video to explain everything. Great video dude, and I'm glad you're in a better place now compared to the situation you were in when you were younger.
Thank you for the comprehensive and factual (a lot of opinions too but you made sure to distinct properly between them) video on all this. Honestly, I did not know there was such a "scandal" and "downfall" with him. I have been watching him actively since 2013, and I can almost guarantee that I've seen every video he made from that point onwards. I always thought that his friends disappearing was just people growing apart and life becoming too hectic to spend all that time with friends, which is what he said in a video about 1-2 years ago (if memory serves). And that was fine, the biggest reason why I watched him was because of his personality as a human being, and I have wholeheartedly enjoyed watching his video even without his signature editing style and friends, although it felt a little lonely with just him on his own. He's a very respectful, caring and genuine person who loves spending time with others, as you can still see with him often trying to talk to people on cod, not just for reactions. My (very subjective and biased) opinion on all this is that I speculate that Kayrina has "poisoned" him in a way. I think it would make sense that she has manipulated him and he being such a well-meaning and caring person didn't know to say no. I also do believe Erik hasn't had a lot of romantic experience, as we've never seen any hints of romance before Kayrina and in one of the videos talking about her he did imply something like that, although I can't specifically remember what. When you're lacking in experience and deeply in love, you start losing yourself and catering a lot to the other person, oftentimes choosing to prioritise them over yourself. This is also something that has happened to me and that same girl also "poisoned" some of my views that took a whole year to fully realise had been messed with. We might see a divorce from them in the coming years and hopefully he'd realise what he has done and try to make amends, but all in all, I just hope he's happy and doing all right. From all we know, he might be living in hell every day with emotional manipulation and stuff. There are some videos where I get the impression that a lot is bothering him mentally, be in stress, regret, pressure, Kayrina, whatever.
Beautifully spoken
How did it take me until 23:37 to notice the cod ghosts menu music playing in the background. I wish they would have given us a sequel the campaign was great and left us on a suspenseful cliffhanger.
This hurts to watch man... because he's honesty one of my favorite RUclipsrs to watch and it sad how things turning out...
Wait only 1k views? I thought with this kinda research and editing will be at least a big channel with million of subscribers and views.keep up with this kinda of editing, and most likely i can see this channel going viral
While all of the Kayrina drama and him getting rid of his friends from the channel definitely have taken away a lot of his viewership, Erik’s channel is based solely on COD content, and all across the board, COD channels are getting super low views because nobody cares about COD anymore. His channel is still one of the highest-performing COD channels, which isn’t saying much. I think if he strayed away from COD and played better games, as well as bringing some of his friend group back, his channel would flourish again like years ago.
I remember seeing this all unfold in real time but having no idea about this drama. It was just like Kayrina came in and all of a sudden Eriks videos started to feel empty bc they solely featured him and her. Sad to see the real reason that happened
fuck dude rewatching all these classic clips just instantly sends me back to that time period and my days as a cod kid. Man I miss the old form of Merks content, I kinda knew he fell off but it’s a shame to see everything laid out and all the shady seeming stuff surrounding his friend group. Fantastic video, Fantastic Hat, subbed keep up that content.
Will do! New video just needs editing and we're set. Thanks for watching!
I never knew all this was happening
I was ready to watch this video and dislike and hate, but i have literally never seen any of this information or even heard of this, thank you for enlightening me
Thanks for keeping an open mind! 🫡
I hope the algorithm recognizes your talent
1:20 Simple, I’ve grown up watching his videos. Now I’m long out of high school in a 9-5. Eventually you much like every other channel will have a fan base that will out grow you and move on.
Im at the 1 minute mark and just wanted to say i have not seen one of his videos since 2017 or 2018, so this is all new stuff for me. I hope it's not all to bad
Damn I didn’t know anything about this situation. Sad to see another golden age RUclipsr go the way of Idubbz
I'm very tempted to do a video on him next. I'm kinda going back and forth with myself on it.
@@ourBrainF00D whatever you say about that, you'll definitely face a bunch of idiots name-calling you.
@@gnerus1972 I'm already having name calls for this video. LOL
I fully accepted that reality prior to starting facecams on the internet. Best I can do is keep my stuff based in fact and relatively unbiased.
@@ourBrainF00DGo through with the idubbz vid brotha, this one was great
It is depressing to see how he got controlled the way he did and shut off from the social life he had so quickly. Just goes as an example of what not to do with relationships I guess.
This is a good format for you man, you are very talented and skilled at making this sort of content and imo you orta keep at it man.
I remember MERKMUSIC is so immature now days it’s corny. I think he’s a sellout to activision.
To be fair, which major COD RUclipsr isn't?
@@ourBrainF00D BT
I'm not familiar with him personally. But I also haven't watched a COD RUclipsr in years
@@ourBrainF00D HIS OLD VIDEOS WERE WAY DIFF
effort n thought into this vid should be more recognized
ok the subscribe button glowing when you said the word was pretty sick, great video btw.
Magic!
i feel so fucking bad for mike man, he seems genuinely hurt that he lost his friend and that shit hurts me so bad.
Right? Me too...
Bro created the biggest "I told you so" in history by allowing himself to get abused by some girl.
💀💀💀💀
LITERALLY
abuse?
Imagine if we said women allow themselves to get abused, I don’t understand this double standards, if merk was a women you idiots would’ve called the police
After seeing some of the other comments I'm glad others agree that merk changed right after Kayrina came into his life. I think it was after he proposed to her is when I really started noticing it. I don't hate merk I simply just cant watch his videos anymore without it feeling he's trying too hard. No idea if it's because I've grown up or what but i think he should try doing what he really feels like making or try and appeal to other people that grew up watching his videos. I love merk and will never forget making faze booce jokes with my friends at recess when I was in 6th grade, Andrew calling the sex hotlines, the call of duty songs.