Julian Jensen/Howard Thurman Center/Screenshot by CNET

On a day where Aaron Sorkin encouraged newly elected Democrats to "stop acting like young people", Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez had a different plan: She jumped onto a Donkey Kong Twitch livestream and talked about how much she loved the Nintendo 64.

Where do we start with this?

First off some background on the livestream itself.

On Sunday Harry Brewis -- better known as H.Bomberguy, a YouTuber and Twitch streamer -- put together a livestream to raise money for Mermaids, a charity that provides support for gender diverse and transgender children. At time of writing he's raised over $255,000 by playing Donkey Kong 64. (Update: the livestream is now finished and H.Bomberguy raised over #340,000.) Part of the reason for the livestream was in response to Graham Linehan, the creator of Black Books and The IT Crowd. Recently Linehan has become extremely outspoken on transgender issues.

H.Bomberguy chose the Mermaids specifically, he says, because Linehan began a campaign against the charity, after it received a £500,000 (around $643,000) donation from the UK National Lottery.

The charity has raised a huge amount of attention online and a lot of money in the process.

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is the newly elected U.S. Representative for New York's 14th congressional district who's been hitting headlines for her politics and her dancing. At some point today, she caught wind of the livestream and put it out on her Twitter account.

And that tweet in itself came about after Aaron Sorkin openly criticised newly elected democrats for focusing on issues like "transgender bathrooms", an issue which Sorkin called a "a Republican talking point they're trying to distract you with".

But then Ocasio-Cortez took things one step further and called into the livestream.

And then began waxing lyrical about her love of the Nintendo 64 and name checked games like Super Mario 64 and Pokemon Snap.

The online response was instantaneous.

Regardless of where you sit, it's interesting to watch this play out. Ocasio-Cortez has essentially used controversy around her online persona to raise money for children in need. She's literally turned a negative into a positive and helped support an oppressed minority in the process.

Personally, I'm interested in where Ocasio-Cortez stands on the Nintendo GameCube.

Updated Jan. 21 12:56 p.m. PT: Added the final amount raised in the charity livestream.

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