You may have heard something about Mermaids, Hbomberguy, trans rights, charity live streams, and Ocasio Cortez lately. Allow me to provide some context.
It all began with a UK TV writer named Graham Lineham. He’s been vocally against the transgender for a while now and recently convinced the UK lottery to pull funding from the Transgender Rights Charity Mermaids UK via an anti-trans campaign.
Twitch streamer and content creator Harry Brewis, AKA Hbomberguy, didn’t like this. And to fight back, he launched his own charity live stream. In the stream, he would reach 101% completion in the Nintendo 64 game Donkey Kong 64 all in one sitting. Any and all donations made during that time would be donated to Mermaids UK.
Then it went viral.
Various celebrities and internet personalities noticed his efforts and promoted it to their own following. This included folks like Matt Mercer and Cher. As the stream continued to grow, so did the exposure. Eventually, a number of prominent individuals were making appearances on the live stream personally. So many people, in fact, that I made it into a bullet list for easier viewing.
- Mermaids CEO Susie Green
- Gaming critic/personality Jim Sterling
- Developer John Romero
- Guardian journalist Owen Jones
- YouTube Personality Natalie Wynn
- Actress Mara Wilson
- Atari 2600 Space Invaders Champion Rebecca Heineman
- Democratic Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio Cortez
The charity stream blew up at this point, exceeding Brewis’ expectations and then some. Taking a total of 57 hours to complete his goal, Brewis met his completion goal and raised over $340,000 for the charity. It’s worth noting that this is significantly more than what the UK lottery had previously provided.
He’s now most likely resting. But to allow people to continue showing support, the live stream has been left running, broadcasting a heart on a piece of paper.
Mermaids UK is an organization that looks to raise awareness for gender nonconformity and gender dysphoria in youths. The group pushes for improvements in professional services for trans children, having won a number of awards for their contributions. More on them on their website.
It makes me super happy to see such wholesome and generous behavior from the gaming community. It’s easy to become bitter with the hatefulness of certain online communities, it’s great to see that there’s a massive collection of people that aren’t like that.