Coming Out While Going Fast: Queer Conviviality in Speedrunning Live Streams

Abstract

Drawing on ethnographic research of LGBTQIA+ live streaming speedrunners, this article demonstrates how by centering queer perspectives, we can catalyze meaningful social changes for all. Though for most people, beating the original Super Mario Bros. in under five minutes would seem unfathomably difficult, LGBTQIA+ speedrunning live streamers regularly accomplish this superhuman feat, while coming out to an audience of thousands at the same time. For queer and trans folks, broadcasting such a transgressive, transformational form of play is defiant demonstration of vulnerability; one that creates a comfortable space for a community to thrive, by cultivating a culture of queer conviviality. Following in their fleet-footed steps, this article explicates how, as game studies and human-computer interaction researchers, we might center those on the margins in order achieve truly communal goals.