Why Speed Matters: Collective Action and Participation in Speedrunning Groups

Abstract

This major research paper focuses on the practice of speedrunning a videogame and how speedrunning’s interactive and cooperative nature establishes groups through alternative forms of social interaction and participation. In challenging traditional ideas of a hegemonic, unified community, I seek to bring in theories outside of community formation to present different ways to think about and with community formation. By interviewing speedrunners, I highlight how speedrunning does not form concrete communities with rigid social structures, but instead assemblages of individuals that co-create through a collaborative practice. Looking at social groups in this way can help us better understand how people in these groups can remain an individual collaborating with other individuals without being forced to conform to predetermined social expectations or structures