Marvel Musings #3: The Internet was Good For Once
(This letter was originally exclusive to Patreon supporters—consider contributing to the AP Marvel Patreon campaign for more content like this in the future.)
For the first time in a good while, I was happy to be on the internet all weekend. As a watcher of the supposed “LeftTube” or “BreadTube” (based off Petyr Kropotkin’s The Conquest of Bread), I frequently follow Hbomberguy’s YouTube channel and subsequent Twitch channel. As many of you know, I am a Marxist, constantly talking about the faults of capitalism and how the stories of the MCU reflect the framework we exist under, and that push to leftist politics came from a video by Hbomberguy.
“Bloodborne is Genius (And Here’s Why)” is an hour and a half long video essay about the intricacies of one of my favorite video games, Bloodborne by FromSoftware. Curiosity got the better of me and I began watching the rest of his videos and I found a whole web of interconnected channels and friends dedicated to discussing socialism, critiquing art with a leftist spin, and debunking alt-right reactionaries on the internet. Now to give context to present day events.
Graham Linehan is the creator of British television shows The IT Crowd and Father Ted…and is also a massive transphobe. Linehan is a Northern Irish “comedian” that loves to shit on trans organizations for the sake of “feminism” and “protecting kids.” After the UK charity lottery awarded the Trans Youth Organization, Mermaids, with £500,000 Linehan went to Mumsnet, a parenting website, and spouted lies and vitriol to get people angry and riled up to petition against the organization. Due to continuous bad journalism and reactionary takes, Mermaids charity funding was almost declined. Throughout this chaos, trans people morale was running low. Combined with continuous bad journalism and the uprising of transphobe after a referendum in October, trans people need something positive.
Hbomberguy planned on 101% beating Donkey Kong 64 after hearing about the difficulty and tediousness. So he decided to coincide the live incredibly difficult run with a charity boost to Mermaids to quote Hbomb, “do this out of spite.” The community predicted this could take all weekend considering Hbomb never beat the game and it has been known to take over a day with studying the mechanics. So everyone buckled down and prepped for the long haul. Hbomb drank coffee and gathered friends to chat with him over Discord to keep him up. His initial donation goal was $500 dollars and at most optimistically end the stream with $5,000. Hbomb was 3 hours in and already raised over $8,000.
People were so in shock and the stream kept going that C, B, and soon A list celebrities were retweeting the stream on Twitter. Early on the CEO of Mermaids joined the conversation and talked about amazing the stream was. People began to realize how important this stream was to not only the trans community watching but to hundreds of thousands out there unaware of what was going on. Trans content creators were brought on to tell their stories, game developers and creators were brought to support trans rights. One of the first high caliber trans people to enter the conversation was Chelsea Manning, an American military vet that leaked military documents and video showing American military strikes killing civilians (the most severe of the leaked information). Chelsea would stay on for a considerable period of time with Scott Benson of Night in the Woods fame to John Romero of Doom fame to even Adam Conover from Adam Ruins Everything appearing on stream. The biggest high caliber individual to join the call was Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the US Representative, where she talked about political issues, trans rights, and why the N64 is the best system. At this point, Hbomb was at $250,000 with no end in sight.
After a total of 58 hours, Hbomberguy beat Donkey Kong 64 trying to hold back tears. The trans community saw that people showed up in solidarity, silenced trans content creators voices were given platforms, and the future was bright for leftist activism. A community came together, rallied behind something important, and spread the word that this is something worth tackling.
Trans Rights are Human Rights.
-Anthony Paone (@thepizzataco)
Originally published at www.patreon.com.
