Speedrunning is an old hobby that has recently been accepted as a competitive gaming staple. Gamers in large are familiar with the term and most Twitch users have heard of the numerous speed running marathons that happen throughout the year. In fact, many of Twitch's most popular streamers consider themselves speedrunners, including the iconic face of the TriHard emote, Trihex.

However, this newest fad in speedrunning isn't trying to cater to a massive audience. In fact, it all seemed to have started out as a meta inside joke on /Speedrun as a deliberately low effort submission that pokes fun at the very concept speedruns.

And yet the competitive nature of speedrunning doesn't allow any record to remain unbroken for long. It seems that speedrunning Microsoft Word has, over the past couple of days, garnered a genuine interest among devout fans.

The rules to speedrunning Microsoft Word are simple:

1. You must start with an empty pasteboard (no pre-existing Ctrl V cheating) and a completely default blank screen of the latest copy of Microsoft Word.

2. The goal is to type the numbers 1 through 100 so that they are all visible on the same page.

3. Scripts or Macros outside of Microsoft Word that type the numbers for you are not allowed.

The evolution of Microsoft Word Speedrunning

There currently are two categories of runs that have emerged.  Numpad only runs and Any% runs which allow you to use any method of manual input to produce the 1 -100 sequence. 

The first speedrun by KazMcDemon completed the feat in 32.291 seconds using the Numpad only method.

Then, a YouTube account called "Thomas" uploaded their slightly faster version of the Numpad only method.

After that, people started getting creative. In this "Any%" run that uses more than the Numpad, SkillozGaming shaved the record down to 26.49 seconds.

zaszthecroc showed real creativity with a method that relies on intense menu'ing and abuse of several table functions to get a quick 16.08s.

[WR] Microsoft Word any% 1-100 in 16.08s by zaszthecroc from r/speedrun

The Current Champ

However,  the Any% category was flipped on its head when the YouTube account VostoKx uploaded a new route (discovered by Reddit user dexterious22) that achieved a miraculous 6.18-second world record.

What a legend.

Make no mistake, this is a tongue-in-cheek category of speedrunning that borders on absurdism (likely to the delight of its runners and fans), however, its existence is the result of a new reality facing the speedrunning community.

Thanks to the growing popularity of speedrunning, more and more obscure, low quality games are being submitted to the community for consideration. If it's an exceedingly simple flash game or a horrendously low-quality indie game, you better believe someone will try and speed run it. Even flash hentai games are being completed as quickly as possible and shared among the community for consideration. The line between joke and honest speedrun is blurred every day.

So, in this type of environment, why not try and speedrun Microsoft Word? A world record is worth a fortune in the "things-geeks-brag-about" economy and, at worst, it is the most interesting way to write on a resume how proficient you are in Microsoft Word.