Gamer raises $160,000 for trans charity Mermaids by playing Donkey Kong non-stop

Tens of thousands of pounds has been raised for transgender charity Mermaids, thanks to a Twitch streamer playing Donkey Kong 64 for an entire day.

HBomberGuy (Harry Brewis), a popular UK-based content creator who has more than 300,000 subscribers on YouTube, came up with an unlikely way to raise money for the embattled transgender children’s charity, which recently had part of its lottery funding suspended after a campaign from anti-trans activists.

In a video, Brewis explained that he would be streaming a non-stop play-through of Donkey Kong 64, playing the game until 101% completion—a famously difficult feat in the Nintendo 64 game that can take upwards of 30 hours to achieve.

He explained: “I chose to support [Mermaids] because as a person living in Britain, I find the media discussion around this issue to be 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 issue.”

The YouTuber added: “I chose Mermaids specifically, because when they were designated some funding via the National Lottery, Graham Linehan, a comedy writer who did some work on a good show 20 years ago, a very normal man who is very angry about trans people all day nowadays, went on Mumsnet and told them to email the National Lottery en masse.

“Well done, Graham… now, tons of people know about Mermaids, and support them just to spite you!”

Mermaids thanked HBomberGuy for the gesture

The charity stream began on Twitch on the evening of January 18, and is still going with no end in sight.

So far, generous viewers have donated $160,000 (£125,000) to Mermaids via the stream.

Help pic.twitter.com/UYKjaH48w6

— H.Bomberguy (@Hbomberguy) January 19, 2019

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