Jacksepticeye is back with Thankmas, and he is going bigger than a single day can hold. On July 22, the Irish YouTuber (32 million subscribers) announced Wishmas, a six-month Make-A-Wish campaign chasing $3 million by December 5. Make-A-Wish is matching the first $500,000. Fans dropped over $70,000 in the first 48 hours.
⚡ Key Takeaways
- Jacksepticeye's Thankmas is back after a 2025 hiatus, rebranded Wishmas, with Make-A-Wish as the beneficiary and a $3M target by December 5, 2026.
- Make-A-Wish is matching the first $500,000, so every early donation counts double. $3M underwrites roughly 300 wishes at $10,000 each.
- Fans dropped $70K+ into the campaign in the first 48 hours. The 2026 all-star lineup drops closer to December (prior years: Jack Black, Markiplier, Bella Poarch, Valkyrae).
- This is the first Thankmas structured as a six-month campaign, not a single-day telethon. The 2022 $10M peak is the number to beat.
- Jacksepticeye canceled Thankmas 2025 because his fans "just didn't have money" and creator burnout sits at 62%. Wishmas is his answer to both problems at once.
What actually happened?
Wishmas was announced July 22 through a Variety exclusive and a Make-A-Wish release on PR Newswire. The structure is the news: six months of pre-campaign fundraising, brand and creator partners, and community livestreams, all culminating in Seán McLoughlin's annual Thankmas livestream on YouTube on Dec. 5, 2026. The $3M goal underwrites roughly 300 wishes at $10,000 each, and Make-A-Wish is matching the first $500,000 so every early dollar counts double. Fundraising runs through Tiltify, giving any creator the tools to spin up their own Wishmas fundraiser without touching the main stream.
Thankmas has been a single-day December stunt since 2017. It cleared $4.6M in 2020 for Red Nose Day, $7.6M in 2021 for New Story, a peak of $10M in 2022 for World Central Kitchen, $6M in 2023, and $3.2M in 2024 for Crisis Text Line and Samaritans. Lifetime, Thankmas has moved past $26M and McLoughlin's total charitable haul is over $29M. Then in 2025 he skipped the event entirely, the first year the annual telethon did not run.
Why does this matter for creators?
The 2025 pause was the tell. McLoughlin told Tubefilter his fans "just didn't have money" and that he needed to restructure. Wishmas is the restructure: spread the ask over 180 days, front-load a matched institutional donation, let the community stream in staggered beats instead of one 12-hour lightning strike.
The shift matters because the single-day telethon model has quietly been shrinking. Thankmas peaked at $10M in 2022, dropped to $6M in 2023, and dropped again to $3.2M in 2024. The trajectory kept going down, not up, even as YouTube gaming audiences grew. Wishmas is the first serious attempt by a Thankmas-caliber creator to bend the curve back up by changing the format itself.
Creator burnout sits at 62%, per a Creators 4 Mental Health study McLoughlin himself cited when canceling 2025. Wishmas answers a specific question: how do you keep a $10M-per-year charity engine running when the human at the center is cooked and the audience is tapped out? You stop treating it like a hero moment. You start treating it like a season.
"Every time that I've had the honor of being a 'wish granter,' I've witnessed firsthand the one-of-a-kind impact that Make-A-Wish has on the kids and families who need it."
Seán "Jacksepticeye" McLoughlin, YouTube creator, PR Newswire
Where does this go from here?
The all-star creator bench is coming back. Variety and Make-A-Wish name Jack Black, Markiplier, Bella Poarch, and Valkyrae among prior Thankmas participants, with the 2026 lineup landing closer to December. McLoughlin, the largest Irish creator on YouTube per his Wikipedia page, has personally helped grant more than 30 wishes over his years working with the nonprofit.
Two things are worth watching. First, whether the six-month cadence actually banks more than the single-day burst (the $10M 2022 peak is the number to beat). Second, whether other creator-run telethons copy the structure. MrBeast's Team Trees and Team Seas have been one-and-done spikes; the multi-month campaign with matched institutional giving is a proven nonprofit format that just crossed the creator threshold.
What does Fanvault think?
Wishmas is the clearest signal yet that the flagship creator charity format is shifting from one-night telethon to multi-month campaign, and the economics of that shift matter. When creators keep 92% of every fan dollar instead of 85% (Fanvue), 90% minus $0.30 per transaction (Passes), or roughly 80% (Fanfix), the same math applies to charity moments wrapped around drops, auctions, and paid tiers. Fanvault's 8% platform fee is built for exactly the model Jacksepticeye is now running at Make-A-Wish scale: recurring revenue over 180 days, not one hero grind, powered by a conversational automation layer that handles DMs and scheduling so the human at the center of the campaign does not burn out at day 90.
$3 million in six months, 300 wishes, one YouTuber, one nonprofit, one very deliberately slower pace. If it works, the 12-hour telethon is over.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is Wishmas, and how is it different from Thankmas?
Wishmas is Jacksepticeye's rebrand of his annual Thankmas charity event into a six-month campaign benefiting Make-A-Wish, culminating in a Thankmas livestream on YouTube on December 5, 2026. Classic Thankmas was a single-day December telethon; Wishmas is a season of pre-campaign fundraising with brand and creator partners, feeding into that same December stream.
How much has Thankmas raised over the years?
Thankmas has moved more than
Across Thankmas and other charity livestreams, Seán McLoughlin has personally driven more than $29M in donations.
Why did Jacksepticeye skip Thankmas in 2025?
He told Tubefilter his fans "just didn't have money" and that he needed to restructure the event. He also cited a
How can other creators participate in Wishmas?
Wishmas runs on Tiltify, the creator fundraising platform that has powered Thankmas since day one. Any creator can spin up their own Wishmas fundraiser and turn any type of content (streams, videos, drops) into wish-granting impact for Make-A-Wish, feeding into the main December 5 stream on Jacksepticeye's YouTube channel.
How much does one Make-A-Wish cost, and what does $3M actually fund?
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