There’s a new King of Kong – only this time, the high score is in kindness.
Twitch streamer Hbomberguy has been playing Donkey Kong 64 for over two days straight in order to raise money for Mermaids, a British nonprofit supporting trans kids and teens, taking one break so far for a nap.
Skeleton Crew is subbing in for a bit. What great co hosts pic.twitter.com/vMN6EyBQKO
— Hbomb (@Hbomberguy) January 19, 2019
As of Monday morning, Australian time, he’d just hit the 52 hour mark, and raised over US$260,000.
His ultimate goal is the extremely nice number of US$269,420.
[Update 12:45pm: he’s now hit his goal, but he’s still going, and you can still donate.]
Hbomberguy (real name Harry Brewis) said that he was inspired to fundraise for Mermaids after Graham Linehan, the creator and writer of TV shows like Father Ted and Black Books, pressured the UK’s National Lottery over their allocation of funds to the charity.
Linehan has been an increasingly vocal opponent of trans rights in recent years – he’s compared trans activists to Nazis, and was given a police warning in October last year for harassment after he repeatedly deadnamed and misgendered a trans woman on Twitter.
“So well done Graham, you have a massive audience and the power to choose to fight for progress in all the many forms we need in the world right now, and you used it to make sure some children won’t have access to helpful resources,” Brewis said.
As a result of the stream, his followers are using the hashtag #ThanksGraham to show their appreciation for Mermaids’ raised profile as a result.
It's even better than that. Because the 500k was apparently planned to be given across 5 years.
— edwina whinyterf (@notCursedE) January 20, 2019
So in 35 hours and counting he's managed to replace the first year.
Extremely online Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez even jumped on the stream to chat about trans rights and how Nintendo 64 rules so hard.
Lemons into lemonade ?? https://t.co/fzi4knRPxV
— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) January 20, 2019
You can check out the stream on Hbomberguy’s Twitch channel. At the time of writing, he’s just a few thousand dollars short of his goal.