SomeWorld of Warcraftplayers love thewarrior class, but Twitch streamer DesMesphisto is truly passionate about it. He has reached level 120 on 49 different warrior characters, and has recently set the Guinness World Record for longestWorld of Warcraftplay session at 36 hours. And he’s doing it all for spreading disability awareness.
The streamer was diagnosed with autism as an adult, and he’s been using his passion forWorld of Warcraftto help out others like him. When he and his wife attendedBlizzCon 2018, a senior VP at Blizzard, Mark Adams, reached out to DesMephisto afterward and the streamer gave Adams “profound and highly useful suggestions” for helping make BlizzCon more accessible to disabled people.
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The streamer uses his platform to spread awareness and is active on the subreddit to share his story. When he started streaming in 2019, his platform expanded and so did his outreach. In a recent stream, DesMephisto began “stimming” (short for “self-stimulating”, a repetitive motion or behavior that many autistic people perform when stressed or excited) by hitting himself on-stream. He stepped away to cool down but later returned to the stream and explained what had happened. However, he doesn’t stop at awareness. DesMephisto recently helped raise over $5,000 for the Autistic Self-Advocacy Network.
There’s a reason DesMephisto is so incredibly passionate aboutWorld of Warcraft, enough to pour almost a thousand hours into it: he credits the game with giving him a “social outlet” and helped him learn important life skills during a difficult time in his life. He also says it’s given him increased social skills and “it’s given me a lot of tools to be able to develop friendships that I would have never had to begin with.”
The warrior-leveling marathon, dubbed “World of Warriors”, is something that DesMephisto plans to expand to a campaign called “Warriors for Autism” that would partner with other games' charity events. In a time where even Blizzard itself is publicly acknowledgingsocial issues like racism, there are people like DesMephisto who point out that “there’s a lot of value that comes fromWorld of Warcraftthat often gets ignored because it’s seen as just a game.” It’s great to see people using their passion to spread awareness and positivity in times like these.
