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UK: US Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Helps Twitch Streamer ‘Hbomberguy’ Raise $340,000+ For Transgender Nonprofit

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This past weekend, in a multi-day Twitch stream that drew supporters like U.S. Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and transgender activist Chelsea Manning, gamer hbomberguy played more than 57 hours of Donkey Kong 64 to raise money for U.K.-based transgender organization Mermaids.

hbomberguy (real name Harry Brewis), who has 43,600 followers on Twitch and 337,000 subscribers on YouTube, decided to commit to playing the Nintendo game to 100% completion for two reasons. One was the simple fact that he’d never beaten it. The other is a bit more complicated.

Here’s the story: In December, nonprofit Mermaids, which works with trans people — particularly trans children, teens, and their family members — was awarded £500,000 from the U.K.’s National Lottery. This was not acceptable to Irish comedian Graham Linehan, who took to parents’ forum Mumsnet to urge people to protest “Mermaids being given whatever insane amount it is.” (For the record, £500,000 is roughly 0.03% of the £1.6553 billion total the National Lottery gave out to good causes in 2018.)

Linehan gave Mumsnet users the email address of a National Lottery official and suggested they send her a copy-and-paste letter alleging that Mermaids pushes “an extreme ideological agenda” and that “they are not professionals and they have no qualification to work with children and young people.” His efforts resulted in a still-ongoing review of the decision to grant Mermaids funding.

In a YouTube video announcing his Donkey Kong stream, Brewis denounced Linehan’s actions. “As a person living in Britain, I find the media discussion surrounding this issue in my country, especially in the tabloids, to be woefully misinformed,” he said. (One tabloid called Mermaids a “child sex-change charity.”)

Brewis finished Donkey Kong 64 — yes, to 100% completion — early today. The final fundraising tally: at least $340,000. In a tweet, Brewis said that not only will money donated through the stream be going to Mermaids, but he’ll also donate any Twitch Bits (onsite currency that translates to real money when viewers give them to streamers) and new subscription payments — $4.99 each — he received this weekend. Adding subscription money could rack up to thousands more dollars for the charity, considering Brewis gained nearly 20,000 new Twitch followers this weekend. Read more via tubefilter

It's time. https://www.twitch.tv/hbomberguy/ Mermaids' Website: https://www.mermaidsuk.org.uk/ The channel for archives of live stuff: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCIPqOTYW439-5hUz6r3U1fA/videos My Twitter: https://twitter.com/hbomberguy My Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/Hbomb