Twitch streamer Shroud honors his late father in a 24/7 charity event

Two years after Michael “Shroud” Grzesiek’s father passed away from lung cancer, the popular Twitch streamer was ready to honor his dad by helping others going through the same thing. As one of the biggest streamers on the platform, it’s not a surprise that his first inclination was a charity stream. But one big stream wasn’t enough — he wanted to create a monthlong event to raise money “in the most gamer fashion ever.”

Grzesiek told Polygon that his father used to play PC games with him when he was just 3 years old. And when he eventually started thinking about becoming an esports player, his father cheered him on. “At the time, I was a teenager and honestly wasn’t earning much from gaming but he would still encourage me to do it because he knew it was something I loved,” he said. “If it wasn’t for him I wouldn’t be where I am today.”

The Fragathon, a daily charity stream that will run for all of January raising money for St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, is dedicated to him. Profits from every subscription and every Bit will be donated. And because it’s Grzesiek, who is known for his precision aim in shooters, he’s donating a dollar for every in-game kill he or his friends score during the stream, too.

You can see a count of the kills, or frags, displayed in the top left of the stream. It doesn’t matter if it’s Marvel Rivals, Valorant, or League of Legends; every elimination counts. It’s called the Frag Counter, and through “pixel tracking and game-specific APIs” it’s able to update the number automatically, according to Ricky Gonzalez, executive producer at Loaded, a streamer talent agency that represents Grzesiek.

After an emergency pause for the wildfires near Grzesiek’s home in Los Angeles on Jan. 8, the Fragathon has returned with over $200,000 raised and plenty more stream to go. Grzesiek told Polygon there isn’t a set schedule, but the stream will rotate through guests and occasionally move to the gym or a tabletop for board games.

The whole thing took three teams working through the holidays to complete and is running on “over 15 cameras, 13 PCs and a seemingly infinite amount of RGB LEDs piped throughout the house,” Gonzalez said. Most of that is tucked into a room somewhere behind Grzesiek’s usual setup to create a LAN center for his closest friends to join him.

“We discussed having this all be done in a studio but it wouldn’t have felt truly ‘Shroud’ if it wasn’t at home,” Grzesiek said. “I want my friends and guests to feel at home when they’re here and we want that feeling to come through on stream, whether I’m in my office, at the LAN center, on my couch, or in my kitchen.”

Six gaming PCs sit back to back in the blue LED-lit room, each with two monitors (one for gaming, one for reading chat) and a microphone. Where the walls aren’t covered up by Shroud-branded keyboards and signage, there’s graffiti depicting crosshairs and the Fragathon logo. The budget is a little higher than a LAN party you’d throw together with friends, but the DIY spirit is there. Grzesiek wanted it to “feel like the old gamer days when you would just play a bunch of different games with all your friends around you yelling, laughing, gaming, and creating memories together.”

The production team and Grzesiek are already thinking about ways to improve the Fragathon should it come back in the future — and it sounds like it will. Gonzalez said they tried to “keep it really cozy and familiar” but are ready to go bigger next time.

“I keep saying this on stream but I just know my dad would have LOVED to see this,” he said. “As a full time streamer so much of my life is broadcast online. It’s difficult to draw a line between “personal” and “professional” sometimes and I’ve always just wanted to be exactly myself on stream, so doing something in his honor — he’s the one that introduced me to gaming in the first place — just felt right.”