The State of the Speedrunning Community

	Super random thoughts about internet drama more specifically with the speedrunning community because it's the community that I'm directly involved in but most of this applies to any internet community. I honestly feel like I've grown up a lot over the past few months and tonight I took a step back and realized how truly disgusting the direction that the speedrunning community has turned. It makes me really sad to think that we are at a point in time where if you go to youtube and type in "games done quick" the first option in the drop down menu is "games done quick cringe" and if you look up anything to do with speedrunning in general it's "cringe compilation" after "rage moments" etc. I'm going to talk about three types of people that I feel are damaging the community. Firstly the people doing the dumb shit causing the drama and making the community look bad, secondly the people spreading this stuff around in a public setting for their own enjoyment and the enjoyment of others, and last and most damaging of all is that troll in the chat or youtube comments that go way past what's necessary or deserved.

	I realize that people make mistakes but I can also understand how it can be hard to move past outright immoral and harmful actions such as scamming, cheating/splicing, defamation etc. Those things are pretty unforgivable so I can understand not wanting to forgive someone but rather than get on their case just don't give them the time of day, they've done enough damage to themselves already. However, to those people scamming, cheating, defaming, other awful things DON'T FUCKING DO IT WTF?! Especially cheating in speedrunning how sad are you? It's a fun hobby why would you cheat and kill everyone's mood? However, this is where we get a huge problem because obviously it's a shitty thing to let people that do these things get away with it without any flak, but the more people talk about it and make it a monstrous deal the poorer it's going to look on the community as a whole. I understand that there is a massive amount of people that really love hearing about drama and even some people that like stirring it up, I don't agree with this because almost all of the time the enjoyment that you're getting is at the expense of someone elses pain, that's my opinion.

	I'm not going to talk about any specific occurrence (I'm sure you can all think of many) where someone has done something to embarrass themselves on stream whether it be their own stream or someone elses. For the sake of something vague and extremely common I'll talk about rage. I realize that lots of people already know this but I want to say it anyways as a reminder. Try to think before you rage so hard you're screaming at the top of your lungs/smashing all of your hardware/even just being a whiny bitch for a long period of time (easier said than done I'll admit). It's not that there is anything incredibly wrong about doing those things but you're putting yourself at risk of humiliating yourself. The internet is getting absolutely riddled with assholes that want to pounce on that footage and post it somewhere so that people can make fun of you and this applies to more than just rage scenarios, obviously. To the people that literally prowl the internet to find embarrassing moments of people and expose them in someway I beg you to find something more positive to do with your time.

	This leads in nicely to the last thing I want to talk about and this is something I've really wanted to say for a while now. Generally offensive and harmful attacks are occurring in the speedrunning community just like several other communities on the internet. Why is it that so many people have to go into a chat or comment something incredibly hurtful to someone else? I promise there are other ways to get enjoyment. You don't have to say things that are racist, sexist, or intolerant of someone's sexuality and then claiming that they're overly sensitive on the internet when they get upset, isn't it worse to make it your mission to hurt someone's feelings? I know that I'm just one person and I'm not going to change a lot of minds here but I figure I should at least try. Something that I've had a huge problem with ever since it started is using autism as an insult and the fact that it has caught on and is now just another meme makes me absolutely sick to my stomach. I have never understood how people can know full well what autism is and go around calling people autistic like it's nothing. Next time you go to call someone autistic as an insult imagine if you were diagnosed with autism at a young age and had to deal with the fact that throughout your entire life you were going to be made fun of for having abnormal behaviours, not trying to take away from other horrible insults I just feel like this one is more recent than others.

	I want to finish off by saying that I know we can fight off all of this negative bullshit that's happening to the speedrun community and make it a more positive, inviting scene. Think about that incredible feeling of getting a new personal best time and sometimes having an audience feel that excitement with you. Think about that insane new glitch or timesave that has all the runners of your game excited to improve their times. Think about that phenomenal TAS that you saw the other day and how someone put in so much work to make it possible. If you're a viewer, think about how your favourite runner finally got that sick PB. Try to have an overall more positive contribution to the community and find joy in making new friends and bringing happiness to others.

TLDR: Please read I'm sure something will interest you but if not.
1. Don't do immoral and harmful actions, that won't only reflect negatively on you as a person but also the entire community. Also please don't make it your mission to spread gossip and drama, that too reflects negatively on the whole community.
2. Be aware that when you're on stream if you show a negative/embarrassing side of yourself there's an unfortunate chance that it will be exploited to make fun of you.
MOST IMPORTANT: Stop being incredibly offensive and mean to people in chats and youtube comments, stop telling everyone they have autism, and stop making these horribly negative "cringe compilation" videos that are embarrassing and hurtful to the people that they expose.
4. Remind yourself why you joined the speedrunning community and try to have a positive impact on it as a whole, everyone can make a difference!