Jacksepticeye
Seán William "Jack" McLoughlin, also known by his online pseudonym jacksepticeye, is an Irish YouTuber whose videos focus on gaming, comedy, and vlogging.
Raised in Cloghan, County Offaly in Ireland, McLoughlin played video games from a young age. He started uploading videos to YouTube in December 2012 and his channel grew rapidly in the following years, reaching a million subscribers in 2014 and 10 million by 2016. Throughout 2017, McLoughlin appeared on Disney XD and Irish national television before touring in Europe and the US in 2017 and 2018 for his How Did We Get Here tour and the Game Grumps
In 2018, McLoughlin began streaming exclusive content on Twitch as part of a multi-year deal with Disney Digital Network. He continued to create YouTube videos and appear in live events, including Summer Game Fest in 2020. In 2021, McLoughlin appeared in the film Free Guy starring Ryan Reynolds. The following year, he released a biographical documentary entitled How Did We Get Here? which featured footage from his tour of the same name. In 2025, he starred in the video game Dispatch in a voice role.
McLoughlin is the founder and owner of the Top of The Mornin' Coffee company. He also co-founded the clothing brand Cloak with fellow YouTuber Markiplier, although he is no longer associated with the brand. He is an active philanthropist, participating in fundraisers that have raised tens of millions for charitable organizations.
Early life and education
Seán William McLoughlin was born on 7 February 1990, the youngest of five children to John and Florrie McLoughlin. He was raised in Cloghan in County Offaly, Ireland and also lived for a time in Banagher. His father worked for the Electricity Supply Board and his mother worked a number of jobs before she became a care-giver for his grandmother. McLoughlin began playing video games at the age of seven and as a child he spent time playing on the Nintendo Game Boy in a neighbourhood treehouse, later describing how he found a sense of belonging in games. As a child, he was often called Jack, a common nickname for Seán in Ireland. He was then given his nickname "Jack Septic Eye" after a childhood accident during a football match in which he injured his eye.When he was 18, McLoughlin and his family moved to a cabin in Ballycumber. McLoughlin studied music technology and production at Limerick Institute of Technology. In the third year of the degree, McLoughlin decided to drop out and return home to Ballycumber. He then moved to an apartment in Athlone, County Westmeath, in 2014 where he studied hotel management at the Athlone Institute of Technology, earning a Bachelor of Arts degree. He lived in Athlone until 2017 when he moved to Brighton, England. Among the reasons for the move were the city's strong LGBTQ and vegan communities, and privacy concerns after fans found his home in Athlone.
Internet career
McLoughlin started uploading videos to YouTube under the name "jacksepticeye" in December 2012, initially focusing on voice impressions before transitioning to gameplay content. In 2013, he was mentioned in a PewDiePie video, causing his channel to go from 2,500 subscribers to 15,000 in four days. Due to the success of his channel, McLoughlin was able to make it his full-time job by May 2014. In August of the same year he hit a million subscribers, and by the end of the year he had reached 1.5 million. By February 2015, the channel had reached one billion views and 3.2 million subscribers. The following year, he gained another six million subscribers. In January 2016, he was one of the initial YouTubers signed under PewDiePie's multi-channel network Revelmode. That year, he co-hosted South by Southwest's annual SXSW Gaming Awards, and appeared in the 2016 YouTube Rewind.McLoughlin co-starred as the antagonist in the second season of the YouTube Red show Scare PewDiePie. Initially planned to premiere on 9 March 2017, the season was cancelled prior to release due to controversy surrounding PewDiePie and the use of anti-semitic imagery on his channel. Following the controversy, it was confirmed that the Revelmode network had been shut down by Disney. Subsequently, McLoughlin was signed under the Disney Digital Network. In June 2017, Polaris, a division of The Walt Disney Company, announced that McLoughlin would be featured in the series Polaris: Player Select on the television channel Disney XD as part of a new programming block for the channel called D XP|D | XP. Later that year, McLoughlin was featured on the RTÉ 2 two-part documentary Ireland's Rich List as one of the "top 30 earners under the age of 30", leading to him receiving a wide coverage in the Irish media and a greater exposure to people in the country who had not seen his YouTube content.
McLoughlin toured throughout September–October 2017, in the US with his How Did We Get Here tour, and later in the UK and Europe with the Game Grumps on their Ready Player 3 tour. The How Did We Get Here show consisted of a biographical retelling of McLoughlin's childhood in Ireland to his rise as a popular YouTuber, alongside segments in which McLoughlin would play games with his fans. In February 2018, McLoughlin released dates for a US and Canada run of the How Did We Get Here tour. That July, he performed the show at the Just for Laughs comedy festival in Montreal. In 2018, it was announced McLoughlin would produce exclusive content for livestreaming platform Twitch as part of a multi-year deal with Disney's Digital Network.
In January 2019, McLoughlin signed with the talent agency WME and later that year signed with the multi-channel network Studio71. McLoughlin was set to appear at the Metarama Gaming + Music Festival in October 2019 alongside acts such as Marshmello, Logic, and Ninja, but the event was cancelled due to a lack of funding. In 2020, McLoughlin participated in Summer Game Fest, an event that ran from May to August following the cancellation of E3 2020. In July 2021, McLoughlin released a short film entitled "15 MONTHS" to his YouTube channel which Polygon described as "a moody and atmospheric exploration of his time during the pandemic". Later that year he signed with the talent agency CAA.
McLoughlin appeared as a cameo in the movie Free Guy starring Ryan Reynolds, which was released in August 2021, and provided the director Shawn Levy advice on how to make the film authentic to video game culture. Previously, Reynolds had appeared in a video of McLoughlin's in which they played the video game Deadpool together. In February 2022, McLoughlin announced that a biographical documentary entitled How Did We Get Here? would premiere on 28 February on Moment House, a platform that allows creators to offer ticketed online events. The documentary covers McLoughlin's life from his childhood to his career as a YouTube personality and includes footage from his tour of the same name.
In a July 2022 episode of the Trash Taste podcast, McLoughlin said that he would likely not continue streaming on Twitch because he wanted to focus more on his edited YouTube content. In 2023, McLoughlin and Chris Redd together co-hosted The Gamer and the Mouth, a show featuring gaming creators and comedians in a mixed gaming and comedy event. In 2025, McLoughlin played the supporting character 'Punch Up' in a voice role for the video game Dispatch, starring Aaron Paul. In addition to acting and voice-acting roles, McLoughlin worked on production and behind-the-scenes roles for a number of projects, including for a cancelled animated show based on the horror game Soma and an independent horror movie called Godmother.
Media lists and income
McLoughlin's influence and income has been included in a number of media lists and rankings. In September 2017, he was included in ForbesIn June 2014, McLoughlin's channel entered the top 100 most-subscribed channels on YouTube and was the most-subscribed Irish channel according to Tubefilter. Since then his channel has been noted as the most subscribed in Ireland by multiple publications, including the Irish Examiner, The Irish Times, The Times, and The Guardian.
YouTube content
McLoughlin's YouTube content consists mainly of Let's Plays, as well as comedy gaming videos and vlogs. According to TheJournal.ie, the games that McLoughlin plays on his channel are "a mixture of both conventional and weird titles". His content also commonly features collaborations with other popular YouTubers, particularly Markiplier and PewDiePie who are both close friends with McLoughlin. As well as YouTubers, McLoughlin's channel has also featured traditional celebrities, including interviews with Tom Holland, Dwayne Johnson, Kevin Hart, Brad Pitt, Chris Hemsworth, and Margot Robbie. Other content that regularly appears on his channel includes comedy sketches, short films, charity livestreams, and Q&A sessions.His videos typically begin with an intro in which he gives a high five to the camera and says "Top of the morning to ya, laddies", although he had decided to use the catchphrase more sparingly by 2023. He chose to use a stereotypical catchphrase for his intro to express his Irish identity to viewers of his videos, wearing a flat cap for the same reason. He has speculated that his Irish identity and accent has contributed to his success, saying that "hen some young lad comes around and he starts screaming in an Irish accent and swearing, it's like people getting their own Irish drug". His videos also typically end with a catchphrase encouraging his audience to "punch the 'like' button in the face, like a boss!" Another theme that is present throughout McLoughlin's content is the colour green which represents his Irish heritage and is present in his YouTube logo "Septic Eye Sam".
McLoughlin's videos are highly edited. They feature commentary in response to the games he plays which is improvised rather than being pre-planned, incorporating humour, funny voices, laughter, and swearing. His commentary has been described as "genuine" and "authentic" by TheJournal.ie, and as composed of "talking-head, stream-of-consciousness comedy" by the Star Tribune. He calls himself the "most energetic video-game commentator on YouTube", and has described his content as an "assault on the senses" that people "either love or hate". In an interview with the Irish Independent, he described the format of his videos as him playing and talking over video games with a lot of swearing. He has cited his use of swearing as a key aspect to his success saying, "There's lots of swearing. The more you swear the better. People react very positively to that apparently." He has also said that his success is due to "an overall package of a lot of things; energy, positivity, honesty, and consistency." McLoughlin has claimed that an inclusive community is an important part of the jacksepticeye channel, stating, "One of the main things I wanted to do on YouTube is to keep people together." McLoughlin has encouraged positivity online with the slogan "positive mental attitude", utilising the phrase in videos, campaigns and merchandising.
Elements of gothic storytelling have been identified in McLoughlin's Let's Plays of horror games and in the character of Antisepticeye, which is played by McLoughlin as an evil presence on the channel. The character originated in response to a similar character called Darkiplier from Markiplier's fanbase. Its presentation utilises fan participation via direct addresses to the audience and interaction between the character and audience members on social media websites such as Twitter. McLoughlin's audience also engages with his content in the form of creating fan fiction. In addition to his YouTube content, McLoughlin also produces short-form videos for TikTok, which tend to focus on more personal content compared to his YouTube channel.