YouTuber Markiplier raises $130,000 for LGBT rights
"Today we stand by our LGBTQ+ friends to ensure equality for EVERYONE!"
A YouTube gaming star has raised $130,000 after asking his supporters to donate to help LGBT rights.
Mark Fischbach, known by his alias Markiplier, launched a GoFundMe page on Monday with the intention of raising $100,000 for the Human Rights Campaign.
“Today we stand by our LGBTQ+ friends to ensure equality for EVERYONE!” he wrote on the page. “Please help us raise $100,000 for the Human Rights Campaign to ensure the future stays bright and open for all!”
Fischbach quickly smashed his fundraising goal, raising $128,978 from 6,177 donors (at the time of writing), with $30,000 raised in a single hour during a livestream earlier this week.
Thank you all so much for such an fun stream! We ended up raising about $128,000 for the Human Rights Campaign, you are AMAZING!
— Markiplier (@markiplier) January 23, 2017
“Donald Trump and Mike Pence campaigned against LGBTQ equality and have been assembling an almost universally anti-LGBTQ cabinet,” HRC Spokesman Brandon Lorenz said in a statement to Gay Star News. “Now more than ever, we can use support like this to hold anti-equality politicians accountable, wherever they might be, from Washington, DC to states around the country.”
One of YouTube’s biggest stars, Fischbach has over 16 million subscribers on the video sharing site and over 6.5 billion views. Last year Forbes named him one of the site’s top earners, raking in an estimated $5.5 million in 2016.
His fundraising for HRC isn’t his first foray into charity work, either. He previously raised over $275,000 for the Depression and Bipolar Support Alliance, while his YouTube page states he has raised over $1.1 million for various charities in his four years making videos.
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