How Speedrunning Expanded My Sense Of Community

I'm no stranger to having exclusively online friends. My best friend is from Philadelphia, and I met him in a Twitch chat room back in middle school. But my online friendship networking was limited to very private talks or just being passive observers of other Twitch streamers. That was until I saw one particular streamer.

I'll have to keep details spare to avoid doxxing myself, but after leaping from one Twitch user to the next, I gravitated to a charismatic guy, which I'll call George, who would race his friends to speedrun one of my favorite childhood games. George made it a point to let his audience know that you could join the races too if you knew how to play it. So, I dedicated three days to learning every glitch, skip, and exploit I possibly could. I then completed my first run, which I live-streamed to Twitch. I felt proud of myself at the time even though that run was 30 minutes behind what my best time is today.

That little venture did end up getting me into the races with George, an activity I still participate to this day. But it had an unintended side effect as well. Because I kept live-streaming my attempts of the game, my runs attracted the other members of that games community, not just fans but other speedrunners. They would come in, encourage me on my efforts, and tell me little factoids and stories about the game and the community surrounding it.

I felt so grateful for their positivity and support that I felt like giving back. I would post on the community's Discord, finding strategies, talking about ways to improve my gameplay and other newcomers' gameplay, and even just making stupid little inside jokes. It got to a point where these were no longer some unobtainable insider's club. These speedrunners were my friends. I could talk to them privately, even on voice chat. It didn't even matter if we were talking about the game or something completely unrelated.

Because I had the courage to reach out and challenge myself online, that world responded back by reaching out to me. I'm engrossed in this life and I don't want to go back. This is a lesson I want to bring to all of you. Reach out. It doesn't have to be speedrunning, or even gaming. But if you are a gamer, presenting yourself to the world is more critical than it ever could be.