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Top gamer Sean McLoughlin, best known as Jacksepticeye, is set to drop his annual “Thankmas” fundraiser, powered by Tiltify, a crowdfunding platform that works with digital media stars to build interactive campaigns where their audiences can donate to charities, on Dec. 13.
The event will raise money for Red Nose Day — aiming to beat the $660K that Jacksepticeye raised earlier this year during a COVID-19 #HopeFromHome fundraiser — and see the streamer, who boasts nearly 27M subscribers on his YouTube channel, playing games with fellow digital stars.
“We’ve been doing charity streams for a while, and we’ve been trying to do a big one at the end of every year for Christmas to round out the year with a bang,” Jacksepticeye told The Hollywood Reporter on the phone from the U.K. For this Thankmas event, Red Nose Day has committed to matching up to $1.5M raised.
He said that the term “Thankmas” was coined for these particular streams that occur around Christmas time, when everybody is in a “helping” and giving mood. While they usually feature a festive set, Jacksepticeye said that this year brought a “great opportunity” to brainstorm new ideas for the stream and get more people involved.
As far as the games, he teases that Among Us will definitely make an appearance. “It’s the biggest game of the year and also works really well for collaborative efforts,” says Jacksepticeye, whose YouTube channel has featured the social deduction multiplayer game several times over the last few weeks, along with Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales.
In terms of Red Nose Day specifically, the streamer notes that the charity had an initiative for food shortages during the COVID-19 pandemic and this struck a particular chord.
“I felt like that was something that was kind of overlooked in the news side of things — there’s a lot of important stuff going around about COVID relief and the vaccines and everything involved with it, but I felt like food shortages was something that was news to me and surprising to me, to see how long people could go potentially without food at the end of the year,” he says. “It’s crazy to think that food is something we take for granted a lot of the time; you just open up your fridge and there’s some food or I can order whatever I want, but so many people at the end of the year just don’t have that luxury.”
Jacksepticeye went on to say that he has maintained regular interactions with his audience over the pandemic, feeling an increased need to be there and offer a source of entertainment. He notes that anyone can sign up to be a part of Thankmas, which runs from Dec. 12-20 — even those who are not content creators, but simply audience members who feel inclined to get up their own little fundraisers.
“Without a doubt December will be our biggest month this year,” says Tiltify CEO Michael Wasserman. “There are so many amazing and unique community driven events launching across multiple platforms including YouTube, Twitch and TikTok.”
Among the other big dates on the calendar, Wasserman references the cast of The Goonies reuniting for No Kid Hungry on December 5th. “This is only a small sample of the thousands of events that will take place for the holidays,” he says.
Wasserman also shares that Tiltify just launched a “Tilty Santa Program” that includes many of the biggest fundraising creators including Jacksepticeye, DrLupo, LittleSiha, AlanahPearce, CouRage and BigCheeseKit, who will be surprising over 100 unsuspecting fundraisers with donations to help them reach their goals.
Jacksepticeye implores digital media creators with any influence or audience to start similar events or even simply share links to already established or scheduled streams during the holiday season: “It’s all going to help at the end of the day.”
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