Main Page

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

Speedrun

|< < Prev #3246 (May 15, 2026)

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

|< < Prev Random Explanation

Explanation

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 speedruns.

A tool-assisted speedrun (or TAS for short) is a speedrun that uses software tools to make certain hard or even humanly impossible inputs easily. 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. 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.

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.

Transcript

[Cueball is sitting at a desk with a laptop. 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.

---

        View comic discussion

New here?

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

Don't be a jerk!

There are a lot of comics that don't have set-in-stone explanations; feel free to put multiple interpretations in the wiki page for each comic.

If you want to talk about a specific comic, use its discussion page.

Please only submit material directly related to xkcd and, of course, only submit material that can legally be posted and freely edited. Off-topic or other inappropriate content is subject to removal or modification at admin discretion, and users who repeatedly post such content will be blocked.

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