My attitude toward speedrunning has always been that it is at the discretion of actual, active speedrunners to basically set the boundaries for speedrunning: category rules and definitions, how issues should be handled, the basic tenants of speedrunning. There is a somewhat common sentiment on r/speedrun and other places on the internet, even on twitter from other speedrunners, that viewers should have a say in these things as well, that speedrun viewers have an equal stake in these things and so their opinions matter. I've never hesitated to vocally disagree with this. When r/speedrun says that speedrunners shouldn't use amiibo, for instance, and someone reminds them that they don't actually speedrun and so they shouldn't have a say in it, most are often quick to jump in with "but I'm a viewer and my opinion matters too".

But I want to have the discourse. I'm not trying to make some grand stand against this viewpoint, I'm genuinely trying to have it explained to me. The common analogy is "you don't have to be a writer to be a book critic" or "you don't need to be a chef to be a food critic", but I don't think these make sense; you aren't arguing with the taste of the food, you're arguing about it's preparation ("you should use a wooden spatula, not a metal one"), which I think are issues you should just leave up to the chef, even if you have an opinion about how much salt is too much salt.

I don't know. What do you think? Convince me.