Over the course of the next several years, they would go on to create numerous elaborate fan-fictions, situational analyses, advice columns, comics, film scripts, ‘guilt-porn’ posts, poems, songs, and a veritable community all dedicated to enshrining a stranger’s adulterous relationship online. I can’t stress enough just how deranged some of these posts are, and while I don’t advise visiting the actual subreddit, I have included a number of screenshots demonstrating this.

nORMAL

A couple hundred pages worth of original artwork depicting mostly the intra-personal identity issues facing a trans woman, from the perspective of the presumably cishet author trying to convince her that she is merely ‘transtrending’.

Should we really be so surprised about this subreddit existing? This is emerging, after all, from a group of people who obsess over the most minute details of their favorite games, and what are the personal lives of no-name e-celebrities if not another game to be rigged according to our absurd desire?

I was aware of the subreddit’s existence nearly from its inception, but was intrigued to discover that, years after the fact, there remained a small but active community still fervently debating hot-button issues like “Who’s the most ‘normal’ speedrunner?” and “[does] wearing a Trump hat in a public area violate the Non-Aggression Principle?” If the original intent of the subreddit was to monitor and discuss the personal lives of Sam and Tolki, by now it had morphed into a more broadly defined ‘twitch drama’ discussion forum, where, according to the sub’s description, “You wont be censored for having any unpopular or offensive opinions”. This familiar phrase signals the go-ahead to publicly air-out any and all personal grudges one may have against any speedrunner or twitch streamer, and indeed, this makes up a large majority of the posts currently being submitted. Unsurprisingly, transgender and other female streamers are the main targets of derision, with users endlessly bemoaning the mere existence of trans women, often posting elaborately designed comics, image edits, and rants attempting to depict the perceived ‘degeneracy’ of being trans.

Strange symbols. What do they mean?

This fear that These Forum-Goers have regarding women, hormones, getting ‘cucked’, ‘mental illness’, and the general concept of ‘degeneracy’ sheds much light into the inner mental workings of this relatively niche cult (their words, and mine). After digging through the page for a while, I started to get the impression that many users weren’t merely hate-posting out of pure malice; there’s plenty of rage, to be sure, but entwined with the hate was an undeniable sense of community. Many commenters expressed gratitude towards anyone submitting relevant original content, and when the sub was on the verge of being shut down, plenty of lurkers came out of the woodwork to share their thanks and celebrate what was, to them, a moment of historic proportion.

A community leader.

Lets take a closer look at one specific post: a short clip from Nirvana The Band The Show, a Canadian mockumentary television series (that, for the most part, has nothing to do with video games or speedrunning). Recently, an ex-mod of and frequent contributor to r/SamandTolki Ryan ‘RWhiteGoose’ White appeared in a guest spot on the show to talk about speedrunning Goldeneye for the Nintendo 64, and the episode ends with Ryan giving a short summary of r/SamandTolki lore. Ryan has been a prolific Goldeneye speedrunner since the early 2000’s and plays an active role in the the scene, producing speedrun-related content on YouTube as well as collaborations with other community members, like appearing on the speedrun podcast My Insane Pace to discuss “…the big problems facing the speedrun community right now”. While most of the discussion was centered on things like decentralized leadership for leaderboards, or obscure vs. popular speedgames, Ryan frequently derailed the discussion to add quips about the evils of Vladimir Lenin, abortion, and suggests a high correlation between runners who believe there are too many arbitrary rules and ‘antifa’.

“Why do we have rules? We can’t kill each other, we can’t steal each other’s stuff. Okay, that’s great rules.”

I mentioned that Ryan is a frequent contributor to r/SamandTolki, but this is not always in ‘official’ form. Like most reactionaries, Ryan meticulously manicures his social media accounts to provide an image of confidence and professional respectability. But on Reddit, Ryan is known to have several ‘alt-accounts’, where he feels safe enough under the veil of anonymity to let loose on anyone and everyone who rubs him the wrong way.