Erik Phillips, otherwise known as M3RKMUS1C, is a gaming YouTuber who creates first-person shooter  content, as well as occasional vlogs and othersuch miscellaneous videos. His most popular videos involve his readings of random and disturbing Xbox messages, as well as his older 'Gun Game Reactions.' M3RKMUS1C has a few friends, a dog, and a brother and cousin, whom he shows in his videos occasionally. Erik rose to fame through his viral 'Black Ops I Gun Game Reaction' videos, and, due to the removal of force-game chat in modern games, has moved towards annual 'Quad Feed with Every Gun' videos. As the Call of Duty series has slowly declined, Erik has diversified out to a number of more tactical shooters, often featuring Battlefield 1 and Rainbow Six Siege on both his main channel [M3RKMUS1C] and his alternate account, "Nerd Plays."

YouTube
Erik began his Youtube career with guitar videos, covering popular music - including the Modern Warfare 2 victory themes. After his rise to prominence through his first Gun Game videos, however, he decided to shift his main channel towards gaming, relegating his music videos to his "Nerd Plays" account. In his "REACTING TO OLD VIDEOS!", Erik acknowledges the dichotomy between his earlier style (bland, boring and quiet) and the style into which he has grown - that of a loud, irreverent yet charismatic personality - also reminiscing on his pleasure at such a change.
Although Erik is notorious for his raging, he is more than capable of sophisticated and nuanced video-essaying - he reserves his 'mature' personality for extraordinary moments, as he believes that its constant deployment would make his videos less entertaining.

Trivia
M3RK reserves several burlesque personalities, strategically deploying them to 'revitalise' his channel during 'low-content' periods. They include, but are not limited to: Melvin, a young, arrogant yet low-skill 'squeaker;' "FaZe Booce," a satirical character based upon prominent members of the vlogging clan FaZe; "Marntch Manatee", a disturbing and surreal character with a cynical sense of humour and an inappropriate style (often making offensive comments about adult subjects), and Brayden, a squeaker based on Erik's perspective of the average modern Call of Duty player.
He often features MmHD 1080p (Matt), M3RKRAMPAGE (Mike), Kutline (Jesse), Oh Omah (Omar), Foecused (Evan), dankasorususX (Nicole) and She Knives (Tina).