The Unus Annus Message

A+screenshot+of+the+first+unus+annus+video

A screenshot of the first unus annus video

On November 14th 1.5 million people watched the deletion of the youtube channel Unus Annus.

Now if you do not know what Unus Annus is, it was a channel made by YouTubers Markipler and Crankgameplays, also known as Mark and Ethan. The whole idea of the channel was that they would be making new content every day for a whole year, but when the year was up they were going to delete the whole channel and all the videos on there as well. Now all of this seems pretty crazy to do because they put all this work into a channel for a whole year just to delete all of it forever. 

Now there is nothing left of the channel’s videos and now it’s just memories, which I find to be a rather unique thing. This channel is possibly one of a kind, with its concept and the experience with the community. On the surface of this channel, it just comes off as these two messing around and doing whatever videos they want like trying on grinch costumes, getting pepper-sprayed, doing escape rooms, or making their own sensory tank. All of these videos are fun, lighthearted, and almost always really funny. But throughout all those videos there was a clock at the start and end that ticked away the second of when the channel would be gone.

This clock was always reminding people how to close the death of Unus Annus was and how it would soon all be gone.

Near the last two weeks of the channel being deleted, a lot of people could not believe that the deletion was going to happen. Some people even started asking for there to be more time or just not delete the channel, but none of the begging could stop the inevitable death of the channel. All of this would lead up to the 12-hour live stream where they deleted their channel live. In the last hour of the channel, they started to delete their Twitter, Instagram, and other social media, with it slowly creeping up on the channel. It was when there was only a minute left both of them gathered around the computer, opened the channel, and hovered over the delete button. Then just when the clock hit zero, the stream turned black and the chat stopped. It was now done. 

That blank screen was stared at by 1.5 million people with terror and acceptance. After the deletion people went to Twitter tweeting out thank you to the channel and how much it affected them. Almost every social media and website was crowded with people talking about Unus Annus and just how much it meant to them and I guess I’m another person adding to that. 

I believe that this channel really helps open people’s eyes a bit about how much time we may have left and how we should use every second of it. Now that time can mean anything to anyone like how much more time you have in life, in school, with your friends, or with your family, the only difference is that you don’t know when these things are going to end, unlike the channel. I feel like the message of the channel is very universal in the sense that you should not take time for granted, which may seem cliche but is very true. You don’t know if that one day will be the last day you really hang out with a friend. You don’t know when the last time you’re going to take your dog on a walk. You don’t know when the last time you fully be with some of your family members. All of that not knowing should be taken into action. This was very evident in the channel especially when COVID hit and they had to change their whole way of making videos for months. 

This is what made the channel so special and will still keep it special even years down the line because they did something no has ever done and put in all this hard work into it to make each video count while putting a message behind it all. So just remember that things have to end and we can’t always hold on to them and instead of trying to hold on or get more time we should use that time, every single second. If anything encapsulates that it is this channel. With that, I’m going to end this with how they ended their videos with just two words that mean to remember death.

Memento Mori.