Hbomberguy's Donkey Kong 64 Trans Charity Marathon Stream

2019eventclassic

In January 2019, British YouTuber Harry Brewis (Hbomberguy) played Donkey Kong 64 on Twitch for 57 straight hours to fundraise for UK trans youth charity Mermaids, raising over $340,000 out of spite for anti-trans comedy writer Graham Linehan. The stream pulled in surprise guests including Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Chelsea Manning and John Romero, and became a landmark moment for political charity streaming on Twitch.

charity memestwitch streamer memeslgbtq memesbritish memeslivestream memes

Overview

Hbomberguy's Donkey Kong 64 Trans Charity Marathon Stream, also tagged online as the #ThanksGraham Charity Stream, was a 57-hour Twitch broadcast in which British video essayist Harry Brewis attempted a 101% completion run of the 1999 Nintendo 64 title Donkey Kong 64 to fundraise for Mermaids, a UK charity supporting transgender children and their families1. The stream pulled in more than $340,000 and stayed open for donations for days after Brewis finally finished the game3.

What made the marathon spread beyond gaming Twitch was the guest list that dropped in over the weekend. Doom co-creator John Romero, Donkey Kong 64 composer Grant Kirkhope, whistleblower Chelsea Manning, video essayists Lindsay Ellis and Jim Sterling, musician Patricia Taxxon, and then-newly-elected US congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez all called or dropped by to chat while Brewis kept collecting golden bananas3. The AOC appearance in particular was covered as national political news, not just a gaming footnote6.

The stream is still cited as a template for how a small creator can turn a bad-faith culture-war argument into a fundraising surge, and it kicked off a wave of similar directly-political Twitch marathons among left-leaning YouTubers35.

Origin & Background

Platform
Twitch (livestream) / YouTube (announcement)
Creator
Harry Brewis
Date
2019

The idea started as an offhand promise. On August 31st, 2018, Brewis, who runs the Hbomberguy YouTube channel, posted a video about speedrunning culture in which he pledged that he would one day stream himself beating Donkey Kong 64 to 101% completion, no matter how long it took, without setting a date1.

The date got picked in mid-December 2018, when the UK's Big Lottery Fund announced it was reviewing a planned £500,000 grant to Mermaids after a Mumsnet thread titled 'Mumsnetters assemble!' by Father Ted co-writer Graham Linehan urged parents to email the fund's CEO in protest2. On January 14th, 2019, Brewis uploaded a YouTube announcement naming the date of the marathon and citing Linehan's Mumsnet campaign as the reason he was pointing the money at Mermaids specifically, telling viewers he wanted to 'do his bit' against what he called woefully misinformed British tabloid coverage of trans issues5.

How It Spread

The Twitch broadcast went live on January 18th, 2019 and ran across roughly 57 hours of on-and-off play3. Brewis's old childhood save file reportedly showed 59 hours of playtime at just 69% completion, so the 101% run doubled as a personal grudge match against a game he never actually finished as a kid3. By around the 40-hour mark, UK outlet Metro reported the total had already blown past $200,000 (£155,000), driven partly by viewers explicitly donating 'to spite' Linehan5.

Guest cameos snowballed the audience. Grant Kirkhope, who wrote the actual Donkey Kong 64 soundtrack, called in, as did John Romero, Jim Sterling, and Chelsea Manning3. The stand-out moment came when Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez joined the call to declare support for trans rights, explain her proposal for a 70% marginal tax rate on top earners, and help Brewis with a section of DK64 gameplay, a clip that ricocheted through Polygon, Splinter and The Hill within hours6. Coverage also hit Newsweek and Kotaku Australia, moving the story out of the LGBTQ+ blogging beat and into mainstream news1.

The aftershocks kept going for days. Linehan spent January 20th tweeting attacks on Mermaids, including a widely ratio'd joke about 'transabled' people, which mostly funnelled more donations toward the stream1. On January 21st, the Scottish Parliament passed a motion congratulating Brewis on the amount raised for Mermaids and later mailed him a framed copy of it1.

How to Use This Meme

The stream is referenced online less as a template you copy directly and more as shorthand for a specific tactic: pointing charity money at whatever cause a bad-faith online figure is currently attacking, and doing it publicly enough that critics end up boosting the fundraiser. The hashtag #ThanksGraham became the standard way to tag donations back at Linehan during and after the broadcast1. Later left-leaning Twitch fundraisers, including subsequent Hbomberguy streams, still use the same basic shape: pick a long, absurd gaming goal, book political and creative guests to phone in, and let outrage do the audience-building for you3.

Frequently Asked Questions

Hbomberguy's Donkey Kong 64 Trans Charity Marathon Stream

2019eventclassic

In January 2019, British YouTuber Harry Brewis (Hbomberguy) played Donkey Kong 64 on Twitch for 57 straight hours to fundraise for UK trans youth charity Mermaids, raising over $340,000 out of spite for anti-trans comedy writer Graham Linehan. The stream pulled in surprise guests including Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Chelsea Manning and John Romero, and became a landmark moment for political charity streaming on Twitch.

charity memes twitch streamer memes lgbtq memes british memes livestream memes

Overview

Hbomberguy's Donkey Kong 64 Trans Charity Marathon Stream, also tagged online as the #ThanksGraham Charity Stream, was a 57-hour Twitch broadcast in which British video essayist Harry Brewis attempted a 101% completion run of the 1999 Nintendo 64 title Donkey Kong 64 to fundraise for Mermaids, a UK charity supporting transgender children and their families1. The stream pulled in more than $340,000 and stayed open for donations for days after Brewis finally finished the game3.

What made the marathon spread beyond gaming Twitch was the guest list that dropped in over the weekend. Doom co-creator John Romero, Donkey Kong 64 composer Grant Kirkhope, whistleblower Chelsea Manning, video essayists Lindsay Ellis and Jim Sterling, musician Patricia Taxxon, and then-newly-elected US congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez all called or dropped by to chat while Brewis kept collecting golden bananas3. The AOC appearance in particular was covered as national political news, not just a gaming footnote6.

The stream is still cited as a template for how a small creator can turn a bad-faith culture-war argument into a fundraising surge, and it kicked off a wave of similar directly-political Twitch marathons among left-leaning YouTubers35.

Origin & Background

Platform
Twitch (livestream) / YouTube (announcement)
Creator
Harry Brewis
Date
2019

The idea started as an offhand promise. On August 31st, 2018, Brewis, who runs the Hbomberguy YouTube channel, posted a video about speedrunning culture in which he pledged that he would one day stream himself beating Donkey Kong 64 to 101% completion, no matter how long it took, without setting a date1.

The date got picked in mid-December 2018, when the UK's Big Lottery Fund announced it was reviewing a planned £500,000 grant to Mermaids after a Mumsnet thread titled 'Mumsnetters assemble!' by Father Ted co-writer Graham Linehan urged parents to email the fund's CEO in protest2. On January 14th, 2019, Brewis uploaded a YouTube announcement naming the date of the marathon and citing Linehan's Mumsnet campaign as the reason he was pointing the money at Mermaids specifically, telling viewers he wanted to 'do his bit' against what he called woefully misinformed British tabloid coverage of trans issues5.

How It Spread

The Twitch broadcast went live on January 18th, 2019 and ran across roughly 57 hours of on-and-off play3. Brewis's old childhood save file reportedly showed 59 hours of playtime at just 69% completion, so the 101% run doubled as a personal grudge match against a game he never actually finished as a kid3. By around the 40-hour mark, UK outlet Metro reported the total had already blown past $200,000 (£155,000), driven partly by viewers explicitly donating 'to spite' Linehan5.

Guest cameos snowballed the audience. Grant Kirkhope, who wrote the actual Donkey Kong 64 soundtrack, called in, as did John Romero, Jim Sterling, and Chelsea Manning3. The stand-out moment came when Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez joined the call to declare support for trans rights, explain her proposal for a 70% marginal tax rate on top earners, and help Brewis with a section of DK64 gameplay, a clip that ricocheted through Polygon, Splinter and The Hill within hours6. Coverage also hit Newsweek and Kotaku Australia, moving the story out of the LGBTQ+ blogging beat and into mainstream news1.

The aftershocks kept going for days. Linehan spent January 20th tweeting attacks on Mermaids, including a widely ratio'd joke about 'transabled' people, which mostly funnelled more donations toward the stream1. On January 21st, the Scottish Parliament passed a motion congratulating Brewis on the amount raised for Mermaids and later mailed him a framed copy of it1.

How to Use This Meme

The stream is referenced online less as a template you copy directly and more as shorthand for a specific tactic: pointing charity money at whatever cause a bad-faith online figure is currently attacking, and doing it publicly enough that critics end up boosting the fundraiser. The hashtag #ThanksGraham became the standard way to tag donations back at Linehan during and after the broadcast1. Later left-leaning Twitch fundraisers, including subsequent Hbomberguy streams, still use the same basic shape: pick a long, absurd gaming goal, book political and creative guests to phone in, and let outrage do the audience-building for you3.

Frequently Asked Questions