![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.specialeffect.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/Spotlighted-Streamer-Template-TWFB1.png\")
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
We couldn\u2019t do what we do without the support of our incredible community of streamers, and as part of our Stream Team<\/b><\/a> Spotlighted Streamer interviews we talked to long-time supporter, Octarock!<\/b><\/strong><\/p>\n Hey Octarock, thank you so much for your incredible support over the years! Please, introduce yourself.<\/strong><\/p>\n Hello, my name is Geoffery Bunker, I\u2019m genderfluid and use he\/him\/she\/her pronouns. I\u2019m a New Zealand-based content creator, known as Octarock on Twitch, where I stream every day and have done for over 2,500 days! At the time of this interview, it’s day 2,590, almost seven years of streaming every day.<\/p>\n I have Marfan Syndrome, so I sometimes have muscle spasms, I\u2019m autistic & ADHD and have Scoliosis, so I can experience a lot of pain but find that streaming is a good way to distract myself. It\u2019s been the best painkiller, as well as being good for my mental health.<\/p>\n I make YouTube Shorts from my streams, and sometimes make entire videos based around the Minecraft of a server I play on, Origin Realms, and Wynncraft, alongside other games I\u2019m enjoying. I love playing wholesome games!<\/p>\n I love to stream, getting to meet new people and have just fun with my community. My community is very inclusive and diverse, all I care about is who you are as a person, and everybody is welcome. There are many people with disabilities in my community, who know that if they need some escape for a little while, I\u2019ll be live on Twitch every day. I always tell my community, “Your health comes first\u2026 you come first.” So, my community knows that if they’re having a bad day, they can come to my stream.<\/p>\n Oh, I also foster kittens for NZSPCA, so sometimes we have a kitten cam on stream!<\/p>\n That\u2019s an incredible commitment! So, how long have you been a creator, and how did you get started?\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n I’ve been making online content for over 17 years now. I started in 2008 on UStream. My friends at school were having fun playing games and just doing stuff, so I joined in. I then joined justin.tv around 2010 back when I had a glass flameworking studio.<\/p>\n I used to blow glass in my hometown and stream that, but then in 2015, we had a big flood, and I lost the studio, and then a year later my dad passed away. It put me in a rut, and I was really down. I just didn’t know what to do and friends encouraged me to get back into streaming, so I got back into it.<\/p>\n I decided, “I’m just gonna stream every day.” I was gaming with a friend at the time, and he was also a content creator, so we decided “okay, how about we just stream together?” and he’s been part of my community ever since!<\/p>\n His name is ElectricHawk, he\u2019s often in my streams and moderates my chat alongside finding games for us to play together. Recently we’ve been playing Peak and it’s been a lot of fun!<\/p>\n I think you\u2019re one of the longest running creators we know! What is some of your favourite content to make online, or games to play on stream?<\/strong><\/p>\n I love having fun with my community, so the main thing I do is make builds in Minecraft. I’m a former builder from VoxelBox and\u00a0 Fyre UK back in the early days of Minecraft. I love to create stuff, I love to take what I have in my mind and show that anyone can just make the things they imagine when we’re building in Minecraft.<\/p>\n Other games I\u2019ve been playing recently are:<\/p>\n So, I love finding games that are just fun, wholesome, and includes disability. I love finding games that put the time and effort to put accessibility into their games.<\/p>\n Fantastic choices! How did you hear about SpecialEffect, and why have you chosen to support us?\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n I originally saw Paige<\/span> (now Gaming Community Manager at SpecialEffect), a good friend of mine on Twitter back in the day, streaming games and music, and I saw she was doing charity stuff with SpecialEffect at the time. I was doing stuff for AbleGamers and I really loved seeing what SpecialEffect was doing, and I wanted to do more. So, I noticed she had a thing called GameBlast that was coming up and I thought \u201c…I’ve got free time. Let’s do a whole week of GameBlast and have my community come aboard!\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n We hadn’t done a charity fundraiser in a long time, so we just had a blast that whole week. And then for 2025\u2019s GameBlast, my community said, “Well, if we had a goal it would be for you to wear a Blowup penguin outfit.”<\/em> So, I did. I put on a giant Blowup penguin outfit, and my community just had a blast, and we did that for GameBlast. Wearing a giant big blowup penguin outfit, because a kind person in my community donated a bunch of money.<\/p>\n Goals make fundraising streams so fun! So, what are your top tips for running a charity event?\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n I\u2019ve got a few!<\/p>\n One of the first fundraisers I did was for St. Jude’s Children Hospital, in memory of a lovely lady called Jaz. She had terminal lung cancer and I told her family, “Every year, I’ll raise money in her memory. We call it \u201cPenguins for Jaz\u201d\u201d and this December we\u2019ll have run it for 6 years.\u00a0 I also fundraise every year in memory of my dad, Clayton Bunker<\/p>\n Find a person in your life, for example if you’ve got a friend who is disabled, and you want to do more to help people like them, just start small and do what you can.<\/p>\n That\u2019s beautiful, thank you for sharing that with us. If people would like to check out your channel, where can they find you online? <\/strong><\/p>\n If you’re looking for a fun place to hang out and a great community of unique people from around the world, you\u2019re welcome to come to my channel! To me, at the end of the day, as long as you’re a kind, caring person, and you want a fun, unique place to hang out, you’re more than welcome to. I’m live every day for a minimum of hour. If I’m having a bad day with my disability, we do a minimum of an hour, and some days are better than others.<\/p>\n Do you have any further comments? <\/strong><\/p>\n I\u2019ll be at Cubedcon, the annual Minecraft in-game convention on 3-5 October 2025, raising money for SpecialEffect later this year! I\u2019ll be supporting them, streaming, promoting and everything. If you\u2019d like to attend, you can claim your free ticket at cubedcon.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n I\u2019ll be having a booth in game this year, so come and find me in-game\u00a0and check out my booth where we\u2019ll share information about the SpecialEffect Stream Team, GameBlast26, and about me and my community. We\u2019ll have a very big pink sheep and an ice cream penguin all built by me, so you can\u2019t miss the booth!<\/p>\n
\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.specialeffect.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/octa1.jpg\")
<\/p>\n\n
\n
\n