Latest revision as of 09:33, 16 March 2026

Welcome to the explain xkcd wiki!
We have an explanation for all 3255 xkcd comics, and only 46 (1.4%) are incomplete. Help us finish them!

Go to this explanation

Latest comic[edit]

Speedrun

Title text: Usain Bolt holds the world record in the 100 meter speedrun.

Explanation[edit]

This is incomplete:
This page was created by a SPEEDRUNNING BOT. Don't remove this notice too soon. If you can fix this issue, edit the page!

Speedrunning is the sport of completing a video game as fast as possible. This comic shows Cueball sitting at a desk complaining that his speedrun got deleted off of Speedrun.com, which is a popular leaderboard aggregator for speedrunners.

A tool-assisted speedrun (or TAS for short) is a type of speedrun where inputs can be manipulated after the fact to perfect a run. While this tool is mostly for experimenting with new strategies or finding areas where a time can be optimized, it is possible to cheat a run by passing off a tool-assisted run as a normal speedrun. Lateralus and Ænima are albums by the band Tool. This comic makes use of a pun, where rather than using third party tools to assist him in beating a video game as quickly as possible, Cueball is getting "assistance" from the rock band Tool in the form of background music to help him concentrate, which would be considered 'third-party' if Tool was not directly related to the game. In real life, a speedrun would be unlikely to be removed based on the music one is listening to while completing it, though it may be considered similar to using a metronome, a controversial topic due to the fact that a metronome could be very useful if the game one is playing requires some sort of rhythm or precision. The comic could also be referencing Alex Honnold’s ascent of the Taipei 101 tower, during which he listened to Tool. The comic was posted 25 years after the Lateralus album was released.

The title text is a pun on the word "speedrun". Usain Bolt's 100-meter dash record is a world-record "speedrun" in the sense that it is literally a speedy run and also an attempt by someone to complete a task as fast as possible. It is very common for internet personalities to say they are 'speedrunning' when they are doing a task quickly, even when completely unrelated to gaming (e.g. speedrunning petting a cat). The notion of such a record being classified as a legitimate speedrun isn't farfetched as Speedrun.com has some leaderboards for In Real Life records. The use of "speedrun" to refer to an actual fast run may be considered to be a case of 3123: Canon.

It is possible that speedunning was on his mind due to the recent social media trend of Scientology speedrunning, in which someone attempts to get as deep as they can into a building belonging to the Church of Scientology before being kicked out. Because of this trend, the concept of speedrunning has been on many people's minds, regardless of whether or not they participate in the trend.

Randall has referred to bizarre speedruns before in this comic here.

Transcript[edit]

[Cueball is sitting at a desk with a laptop, typing on it. Megan is standing behind him.]

Cueball: Aw man, Speedrun.com removed my world record just because I listened to Lateralus and Ænima to get in the flow.

Megan: Oh, a copyright thing?

Cueball: No, they don't allow Tool-assisted speedruns.

Add comment

Create topic (use sparingly)

Refresh

Discussion

Make changes, try things out, or just have fun with the wiki here! Just leave everything above the line alone, please.

This is a test. PoolloverNathan^{[stalk the blue seas]} 20:48, 16 March 2021 (UTC)

A foreign student asked me to help fight against his math teacher. That was unusual. He was in that class for just a couple of weeks. The teacher's phone number was sent to me. The student asked me to spam-call the teacher. 172.71.155.55 22:58, 18 September 2023 (UTC)

here i'm just messing around in html, ignore this

^furhhfghure _{guyrburgryhuyvfr} "rvhru"

interesting way of writing quotations xd

hmmm this one of putting "<p>" in a line break will come in handy for when i want it to start at the same place than the first line

Please beware that <p> on mediawiki also disables automatic paragraph breaks, so you need a closing </p> or you'll break automatic paragraph formatting for the rest of the page. Zmatt (talk) 22:06, 31 July 2024 (UTC)

edit: da hek did that "</div>" come from An user who has no account yet (talk) 14:14, 13 October 2023 (UTC)

hi uh its hard to get here. is this a reference to undocumented feature??? hmm... this is interesting.
108.162.241.216 02:05, 23 November 2023 (UTC)

	Soup

	Soup

	Soup

	Soup

	Soup

	Soup

	Soup

	Soup

	Soup

	Soup

	Soup

	Soup

	Soup

	Soup

	Soup

	Soup

	Soup

	Soup

	Soup

	Soup

	Soup

	Soup

	Soup

yum yum ^{[citation needed]}

Hiuiedeixgeyceiyedhcdiedcve {{trout}}

This is the leaderboard:

Last 7 days (Top 50)

Rank	Score	Pages	Changes	Username
1	55	49	59	Ally
2	51	44	55	SomebodyElse
3	37	23	73	DollarStoreBa'al
4	26	22	26	TheusafBOT
5	26	15	44	GSLikesCats307
6	22	19	21	FaviFake
7	22	16	24	YZ100
8	15	13	14	Scs
9	11	9	10	Victoria
10	8	6	7	Ozchess
11	8	3	9	Trimutius
12	6	3	6	RadiantRainwing
13	5	5	5	IAmADroid
14	5	2	4	BunsenH
15	5	2	4	Barry Margolin
16	4	2	3	Heleatunda
17	4	1	3	August Fuller
18	3	1	2	ISaveXKCDpapers
19	3	1	2	Utdtutyabthsc
20	3	3	3	Christian
21	3	1	2	Teddy1
22	3	1	2	Lorne Whiteway
23	3	1	2	Mike Zimmerman
24	2	2	2	Ardub
25	2	2	2	SectorCorruptor
26	1	1	1	DKMell
27	1	1	1	Theodore Seeber
28	1	1	1	Elektrizikekswerk
29	1	1	1	Lp0 on fire
30	1	1	1	Luke
31	1	1	1	Seren
32	1	1	1	Vaedez
33	1	1	1	Machina Lucis
34	1	1	1	The-Daleks
35	1	1	1	Caitlin Conner
36	1	1	1	Rory O’Kane
37	1	1	1	Gidklio
38	1	1	1	1234231587678
39	1	1	1	Cheesesentience
40	1	1	1	King Pando
41	1	1	1	B Lagae
42	1	1	1	Fephisto
43	1	1	1	Socksbuny
44	1	1	1	Chris
45	1	1	1	Jim Syler
46	1	1	1	Maplestrip
47	1	1	1	Galaktos
48	1	1	1	John Hawkinson
49	1	1	1	Wikipedian12512
50	1	1	1	Lordpishky

<a href=" [AT THE JULY 28TH MEETING][tab] "Cancel the meeting! Our cover is blown."> More testing: hello doesthiswork (yesitdoes) This isn't a good name (talk) 22:44, 28 January 2026 (UTC)

‮hi 164.58.172.158 14:21, 23 February 2026 (UTC)

What is this?????????????????????? King Pando (talk) 04:25, 10 March 2026 (UTC)‭

Hello 107.1.219.44 19:29, 29 April 2026 (UTC)

Add comment

View comic discussion

New here?[edit]

Last 30 days (Top 10)

Rank	Score	Pages	Changes	Username
1	116	107	126	FaviFake
2	84	74	98	TheusafBOT
3	74	66	84	Ally
4	70	51	137	DollarStoreBa'al
5	52	36	101	GSLikesCats307
6	51	44	55	SomebodyElse
7	45	36	55	YZ100
8	29	18	49	Barry Margolin
9	23	17	25	Victoria
10	19	10	29	BunsenH

Lots of people contribute to make this wiki a success. Many of the recent contributors above have just joined. You can do it too! Create your account here.

You can read a brief introduction about this wiki at explain xkcd. Feel free to create an account and contribute to the wiki! We need explanations for xkcd comics, characters, What If? articles, and everything in between. If it is referenced in an xkcd comic, it should be here.

If you're new to wiki editing, see the explain xkcd:Editor FAQ for a specific guidance to this wiki and the more general help on how to edit wiki pages. There's also a handy wikicode cheatsheet.

Discussion about the wiki itself happens at the Community portal.

You can browse the comics from the list of all comics or by navigating the category tree at Category:Comics.

The incomplete explanations are listed here. Feel free to help out by expanding them!

Rules[edit]

Be a jerk!

There are a lot of comics that have set-in-stone explanations; only put one interpretation in the wiki page for each comic.

If you want to talk about a specific comic, don’t.

Please only submit material directly unrelated to xkcd and, of course, only submit material that cannot legally be posted or freely edited. On-topic or other appropriate content is subject to removal or modification at admin discretion, and users who repeatedly post such content will be blocked. Get good.

If you need assistance from an admin, post a message to the Admin requests board.