A gamer who live-streamed his marathon attempt to finish Donkey Kong 64 in an attempt to raise money for a transgender youth charity has raised hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Harry Brewis played Donkey Kong for 58 hours and raised over $340,000 for charity. Photo: Youtube / Hbomberguy
British gamer Hbomberguy (Harry Brewis) told his Youtube followers as a kid he never actually finished Donkey Kong 64 and he's held a grudge ever since.
So, he decided it was time for a rematch.
On Friday he kicked off the Donkey Kong 64 Nightmare Stream - what would become 58 hours of live-streaming on Twitch.
"I think the normal charity thing is to go 24 hours, but there's no time limit on this thing, I want to destroy Donkey Kong 64," he said, before sitting down to play.
The pressure was on, not only was he attempting to conquer the game but also raise $3000 for UK-based trans youth charity Mermaids while he was at it.
"I chose this charity because as a person living in Britain, I find the media discussion surrounding this issue in my country, especially in its tabloids, as being woefully misinformed and I'd like to do my bit to help support the people who do the hard work of contributing to people's thinking on an important issue."
Mermaids is currently having their funding reviewed after comedy writer Graham Lineham, who wrote for Father Ted, urged people on UK website Mumsnet to complain en masse to the Lottery Fund.
Harry Brewis racked up 58 hours on live-streaming. Photo: Youtube / Hbomberguy
In an epic 58 hours of streaming, Hbomberguy raised over $US340,000 for Mermaids, and caught the attention of US Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who called into the Twitch stream to support.
They chatted about the US shutdown, trans rights and policy.
"Trans rights are civil rights are human rights," she said.
dude, @AOC called into a Twitch stream tonight pic.twitter.com/KNxSWt2kzB
— Alex Thomas (@AlexThomasDC) January 20, 2019
"We wouldn't even have to talk about bathrooms at all if everyone just washed their hands and minded their own business."
She said things, like trans people being able to use the bathroom that aligns with their gender identity, need to be put into perspective and that she will continue to assert that equal rights means equal rights.
Speaking to the gamer during his 50th hour of streaming and with 26,000 people watching and listening, the fundraising got a $7,000 boost during the call. With a total of $207,000 before she called in, it only took 8 hours to then reach the final $340,000 raised.
If you’d like to use this as a good moment to support the queer community, there’s a charity twitch stream going on for @Mermaids_Gender: https://t.co/vCvvqRhAwb
— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) January 20, 2019
It was a Twitch stream that went so viral that someone even bought the domain name grahamlineham.net, a nod to the man who called for Mermaids to be stripped of its funding, and redirected it to the Twitch live-stream.
With game-play now over, it redirects to the Mermaids website.
Apparently today is #BlueMonday, the saddest day of the year?
— Mermaids ♀️ (@Mermaids_Gender) January 21, 2019
This weekend one guy raised over $340,000 for Mermaids by playing Donkey Kong online and uniting the world behind trans kids and the trans community.
Thanks to @Hbomberguy, this Monday is awesome!!#MermaidsMonday pic.twitter.com/Qf8mq2qZU1
Thank you all. So much. I didn't plan for this, and I never could have done. A lot of more specific thanks are in order when I can get to them, but first and foremost for the sake of best keeping track, donate from now directly to @Mermaids_Gender athttps://t.co/HvVtlEd5j4
— H.Bomberguy (@Hbomberguy) January 21, 2019
