Freshman Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez continues to amaze the collective internet. Most recently, she hopped onto a live Twitch stream to support British YouTuber Harry Brewis (H.bomberguy) in raising money for trans youth while he played Donkey Kong 64 from start to finish.
Sound surreal? A little. But it really happened! Here’s how it went down: To start with, Brewis did a stream in which he played Doney Kong 64 for 57 hours straight. (Nope, he didn’t sleep!) Money raised during his stream is to go to Mermaids, a UK-based charity that supports trans youth.
Why Mermaids? A flurry of transphobic attacks from a parenting forum called Mumsnet on the organization left it worried about being defunded.
Brewis explained his reasoning to his viewers in a video:
"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."
How did Representative Ocasio-Cortez get involved?
First, of course, she tweeted about it:
Then, at around hour 50 of play time, she casually rolled into the stream, sending people into a flurry of excitement. To give you an idea of how big a reach this had, about 17,000 people were viewing the stream at the time.
In regard to the additional barriers faced by the trans community, including housing, Rep. Ocasio-Cortez stated:
“When you have the added layer of discrimination, it makes these issues much more acute in their crises than they usually are on average for other people. It’s important that we do talk about these issues in an economic frame, but not let go of the fact that discrimination is a core reason for the economic hardship.”
How did she find out about this UK-based stream event to begin with? None other than Chelsea Manning, apparently.
Later, even Cher retweeted a message about it:
"Trans rights [are] a no brainer. Trans rights are civil rights are human rights," Rep. Ocasio-Cortez said. "We mean equal rights for all, no asterisks, no fine print, no nothing."
Ultimately, Brewis finished Donkey Kong in 57 hours and raised $340,000 in donations. What makes this move even sweeter for Ocasio-Cortez is that it happened a mere few hours after Aaron Sorkin (yes, the creator of The West Wing) shared his opinion in an interview that freshmen Democrats should “stop acting like young people.”
Unsurprisingly, Rep. Ocasio-Cortez has shown people on both sides of the aisle that it’s time to get creative in how representatives connect with the public.