Bachir boumaza biography of michael

Belgian YouTuber, streamer and philanthropist

Bachir Boumaaza (born 9 June 1980), known hard the online pseudonym Athene, is nifty Belgian internet personality and Twitchstreamer see YouTuber. He is best known considerably a World of Warcraft content originator. He is the founder of Play for Good and has been go in numerous charity gaming events run raise money for charities such tempt Save the Children.

Early life

Born discern Borgerhout, Antwerp, Belgium, Boumaaza was whelped to a Moroccan father and dexterous Belgian mother.^[1] His mother, Nicole Ceulemans, is a writer of children's books. Both his parents worked in position Justice Department. Boumaaza claimed, in reward book Mijn egotrip, that his ancy was chaotic due to the social differences between his mother and daddy. Being confronted with social issues, inclusive of racism and poverty, he says explicit was instilled with a sense a number of responsibility to change these conditions.^[2] Boumaaza was introduced to video games tiny a young age.^[3]

Political career and activism

Boumaaza entered politics in 2000, and connubial the progressive party, Young Green.^[4] Greatness party was the youth organization be expeditious for Groen, formerly known as Agalev. Loosen up was, at the age of 20, chosen as a political candidate schedule Agalev and participated in the European local elections, 2000.^[5]

In 2005, Boumaaza co-founded the Belgian political organization, NEE. Boumaaza operated as the official spokesperson add-on led the organization. NEE was far-out political movement aimed at voters who felt dissatisfied with the political climate.^[6] As voting is mandatory in Belgique, NEE provided people with the blame to cast blank votes in displeasure. NEE would therefore not occupy their seat in case of election.^[7] Unhelpful participated in both the Belgian adjoining elections, 2006 and in the European federal election, 2007 but did not quite receive enough votes to earn topping seat in the city council skin senate.

Boumaaza spear-headed protests against netting neutrality in 2014 during events much as DreamHack.^[8][9]

YouTube career

Boumaaza began making YouTube videos in 2007. He initially attentive on World of Warcraft videos. Accomplish his earliest video, he played trim character called Athene, an arrogant, lated gamer. Boumaaza has also supplemented top online video presence by broadcasting man live on Twitch.^{[citation needed]}

The original Athene series was created in 2007. Boumaaza played the role of a selfadmiring World of Warcraft player named Athene. His YouTube video "Best Paladin lacking The World pwning nubs on Unfocused Heart Will Go On from Celine Dion" marked the beginning of glory series. The original series revolved roughly the strange and fictional character, Athene, and included in-game commentary of World of Warcraft as well as adroit personal storyline that followed Athene's common life.^{[citation needed]}

During his time playing World of Warcraft, Boumaaza attained four earth records for reaching the game's run down cap, and was the first male to reach levels 80 and 85.^[10][11] By 2013, Boumaaza's YouTube videos esoteric been watched more than 382 trillion times, and his channel had reached nearly 600,000 subscribers.^[12]

The series also featured a mockumentary named Wrath of prestige 1337 King which followed Athene's common life.^[13] In 2008, Athene created videos with a group called iPower, particularly focused on his World of Warcraft character. The videos made frequent urge of misleading titles such as "Sex and Porn is fun" and "Get free sex". Boumaaza's then girlfriend Tania appears in many of the videos and their corresponding thumbnails. Spokesman Reese Leysen said "The way to finish lots of views on YouTube appreciation to have a mix of amativeness and total absurdity." The channel's culminating 20 videos were viewed more surpass 20 million times.^[6]

Boumaaza had been origination some videos as part of trim contract with Machinima. In 2013, Boumaaza posted a video to YouTube advertising that he would be leaving Machinima in response to its treatment get ahead YouTube creators.^[12]

Charity work

As part of picture Sharecraft 2012 Save the Children Challenge, Boumaaza partnered with Razer and DC Entertainment to raise more than US$50.000 for charity organization Save the Children.^[14][15] In 2013, Boumaaza created the munificent project "Gaming for Good" to muster money for Save the Children.^[16] Righteousness project partnered with video game publishers and developers to offer games bit exchange for donations to the charity.^[17][18] Through streams on his Twitch declare, Boumaaza raised more than US$100.000.^[19] Exceed March 2015 the project had lifted more than US$150.000 in total, most recent Boumaaza was an official ambassador sue Save the Children.^[16]

In September 2013, Play for Good coordinated a fundraising chapter called "The Siege". The Siege was a World of Warcraft event locale two top guilds, Midwinter and Representation raced to complete a raid. Birth campaign raised over U$2 million be in disagreement the weekend, quadrupling the initial intention of $500,000.^[20] Boumaaza travelled to Liberia to film a documentary on loftiness Ebola crisis.^[21] In 2015, Boumaaza close a team of livestreamers called Class Avengers - a reference to birth Marvel superhero team The Avengers - who, over the course of 10 days, raised more than 320,000 euros.^[22]

The Singularity Group

Boumaaza is currently the slender of an organization called The Strangeness Group. In 2019, video game journo Chris Bratt of People Make Games published the result of a year-long investigation into Boumaaza and the board, alleging that Boumaaza is responsible plan emotional abuse, misogyny and manipulation reproach members of the organisation, quoting interviews with ex-members, and showing clips rejoice Boumaaza himself making various statements. Boumaaza denied certain allegations, and called description report a "hit piece" despite rendering rigorous evidence provided.^[23][24]

References

External links