Harry Brewis, also known as H.Bomberguy amongst the Youtube community, has successfully raised over 340,000 in US dollars for the trans charity Mermaids after over 50 hours of streaming. The stream started on January 18, 2019, and his aim was to finish Donkey Kong 64, which he hasn’t been able to complete since childhood.
The Mermaid charity is a British organization whose aim is to raise the awareness of gender nonconformity in young people and children. The organization supports trans kids and their families and has won multiple prizes for its achievements over the years.
Brewis’s 50-hour stream was probably sparked by a recent movement against Mermaids when the organization was appointed as the National Lottery funding. The campaign was led by publisher Graham Linehan (The IT Crowd, Father Ted) and The Times newspaper. Mermaids was branded as an “aggressive group” with the aim of advocating the sex-change practices. Email campaigns against Mermaids were also conducted by Linehan on Mumsnet, most of which demanded the withdrawn of the National Lottery funding for Mermaids. Most of them have been deleted eventually, however, the campaign successfully took £500,000 funding of Mermaids.
To answer this campaign, H.Bomberguy host the 50-hour stream to counter the misinformed social media discussion around the fund-withdrawing, and to spite his opposite Graham Linehan. The stream viewers were using the #ThanksGraham hashtag for over 50 hours to continuously taunt the publisher and advertise the stream. It seems that despite the hardship the Mermaids can still strive with the help of its supporters.
H.Bomverguy was not a one-man army, however, he was joined by a numerous of streamers via Discord, such as the co-creator of Doom – John Romero, US Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio Cortez, and activist Chelsea Manning, and DK’s voice actor in Donkey Kong 64 – Grant Kirkhope. During the 50-hour stream, several funding targets were achieved, from the first humble mark of $500 to over $340,000 in the third day of the stream. The exact time of the stream was 57 hours 48 minutes and 32 seconds.
Although the stream time was not considered a world record but has left an influence amongst the trans community. The majority of the trans community stated that the stream made them feel recognized and supported. Athena Paradigm, trans viewers stated that the stream was something of a world-changing event which she was happy to be a small part of. Athena also stated that the stream gave the trans people energy, hope, inspiration, and she hopes that this event will become an unstoppable campaign for the trans community.
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