Meet Octarock, our September spotlighted streamer
Monday, September 1st, 2025
We couldn’t do what we do without the support of our incredible community of streamers, and as part of our Stream Team Spotlighted Streamer interviews we talked to long-time supporter, Octarock!
Hey Octarock, thank you so much for your incredible support over the years! Please, introduce yourself.
Hello, my name is Geoffery Bunker, I’m genderfluid and use he/him/she/her pronouns. I’m 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.
I have Marfan Syndrome, so I sometimes have muscle spasms, I’m 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’s been the best painkiller, as well as being good for my mental health.
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’m enjoying. I love playing wholesome games!
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’ll be live on Twitch every day. I always tell my community, “Your health comes first… you come first.” So, my community knows that if they’re having a bad day, they can come to my stream.
Oh, I also foster kittens for NZSPCA, so sometimes we have a kitten cam on stream!
That’s an incredible commitment! So, how long have you been a creator, and how did you get started?
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.
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.
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!
His name is ElectricHawk, he’s 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!
I think you’re one of the longest running creators we know! What is some of your favourite content to make online, or games to play on stream?
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 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.
Other games I’ve been playing recently are:
- Genshin Impact – I just love the story and the lore of the game.
- Aloft – A game where you create airships Out Sky Island
- Snacko – A really cute, fun, farm simulator where you can be a cat on a farm. The developers have been so kind to me, allowing me to give feedback!
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.
Fantastic choices! How did you hear about SpecialEffect, and why have you chosen to support us?
I originally saw Paige (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 “…I’ve got free time. Let’s do a whole week of GameBlast and have my community come aboard!”
We hadn’t done a charity fundraiser in a long time, so we just had a blast that whole week. And then for 2025’s GameBlast, my community said, “Well, if we had a goal it would be for you to wear a Blowup penguin outfit.” 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.
Goals make fundraising streams so fun! So, what are your top tips for running a charity event?
I’ve got a few!
- Start small and aim to have fun with it. You don’t need to set a huge goal, like $1000, you can set a goal for $20 and actually achieve it.
- Find ways to have fun on stream with your community. Things like goals, where if we hit a certain milestone, we’ll give away a game, or we’ll do a cooking stream, or we might try making bubble tea!
- Have goals in mind and communicate those goals to your community and make it a celebration. Make sure they community knows when your fundraising event will be and how they can get involved.
- $5 goes a long way. You don’t need to try and break the bank and raise millions the first time you fundraise. And each little helps, so if each of your viewers donates $5, then together you’ve made a real change!
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 “Penguins for Jaz”” and this December we’ll have run it for 6 years. I also fundraise every year in memory of my dad, Clayton Bunker
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.
That’s beautiful, thank you for sharing that with us. If people would like to check out your channel, where can they find you online?
If you’re looking for a fun place to hang out and a great community of unique people from around the world, you’re 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.
- Twitch https://www.twitch.tv/octarock
- YouTube https://www.youtube.com/@Octarockstudios
- Social channels https://bsky.app/profile/octarock.bsky.social
- Website https://octarockstudio.co.nz/
Do you have any further comments?
I’ll be at Cubedcon, the annual Minecraft in-game convention on 3-5 October 2025, raising money for SpecialEffect later this year! I’ll be supporting them, streaming, promoting and everything. If you’d like to attend, you can claim your free ticket at cubedcon.com.
I’ll be having a booth in game this year, so come and find me in-game and check out my booth where we’ll share information about the SpecialEffect Stream Team, GameBlast26, and about me and my community. We’ll have a very big pink sheep and an ice cream penguin all built by me, so you can’t miss the booth!
Remember, you are epic. Just take each day as comes and do what can to make your life the best you can. Rember to ask others for help when you need, as we all need that little bit help sometimes.