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Summoning Salt

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Summoning Salt
Personal information
Born
United States
Occupation(s)Speedrunner, YouTuber
YouTube information
Channel
Years active2017–present
GenreSpeedrunning documentaries
Subscribers1.9 million[1]
Total views213 million[1]
100,000 subscribers
1,000,000 subscribers
Last updated: 31 May 2024

Summoning Salt is an American speedrunner and YouTuber known for his video documentaries about the history of speedrunning records. As of June 2024, his channel has over 1.9 million subscribers and more than 213 million views.[2][3]

Career

[edit]

The name "Summoning Salt" was coined from a mispronunciation of "seasoning salt", originally derived from a video by British YouTuber Stuart Ashen.[4] Salt's career was inspired by a live stream by Sinister1 about the history of speedrunning records of a particular fight in Mike Tyson's Punch-Out!!. Salt wanted to do something similar, and, in January 2017, he released "World Record Progression: Mike Tyson". Because of its positive reception, Salt started producing videos about other video games. By March 2022, he had over 30 speedrun histories documented and 1.25 million subscribers; less than two years later, his documentary count had doubled. His videos have also crept up in length, more often hitting the 45-minute mark and beyond as they tackle longer and more complicated histories,[5] with a few of his more recent videos reaching feature-length status as they hovered around the 90-minute mark, and his documentary on Mike Tyson's Punch-Out!! exceeded the 2-hour mark.[6][7][8] Salt said in an interview that the research is the longest step of producing a video: "I have to contact various community members, form a small Discord server, ask questions, watch tutorials, [and] play the game itself."[5] Finding the narrative is another factor: "I have to figure out which storylines are important, what to emphasize, and how to emphasize it. This process also takes several weeks."[5]

In September 2022, his video about the history of Mega Man 2 speedruns was age-restricted for "excessive swearing"; and, after Salt made an appeal and it had been accepted, the video was age-restricted again one week later for breaking the "sex and nudity policy" despite the video having no sexual or nude content. News outlets reported on the story, emphasizing the confusing moderating system of YouTube.[9][10][11]

In January 2021, Salt was featured in a podcast by the Video Game History Foundation.[12] He narrated Running with Speed, a documentary about the speedrunning community, which was released on streaming platforms on January 6, 2023.[13]

Salt currently holds the world record for Mike Tyson's Punch-Out!!.[14] In March 2022, he got a world record in the game's blindfold category.[15][16]

Reception

[edit]

Salt's videos have been featured on Kotaku,[17][18] Mashable,[19][20] Vice,[21] and Polygon.[14] Jay Castello of Eurogamer called Summoning Salt "the most famous creator in the speedrun history space".[5] Adam Downer of Know Your Meme said: "Any video game fan and YouTube enjoyer has likely stumbled across Summoning Salt, arguably the internet's premier speedrunning historian who has carved a significant niche on the platform with his lengthy, detailed and surprisingly gripping documentaries about the history of various video games' world record speedruns."[22] About his video regarding the history of level 4-2 in Super Mario Bros., Polygon's Charlie Hall said: "Using archival footage and in-depth knowledge of the speedrunning community, Summoning Salt has created a legitimate documentary of the level. Not only does he explain the tricks and techniques needed to get through it as quickly as possible, he focuses on the evolution of those strategies over time and the people who discovered them. It's a master class in speedrunning a classic Nintendo game, and an excellent entrée into the genre as a whole."[14]

References

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  1. ^ a b "About Summoning Salt". YouTube.
  2. ^ "Summoning Salt - YouTube". www.youtube.com. Retrieved April 4, 2024.
  3. ^ 30 Year Old Food Parcel | Ashens. Retrieved April 22, 2024 – via www.youtube.com.
  4. ^ "Play it faster, play it weirder: how speedrunning pushes video games beyond their limits". The Guardian. September 28, 2021. Archived from the original on December 27, 2022. Retrieved December 27, 2022.
  5. ^ a b c d "Meet the YouTubers turning speedruns into incredible stories". Eurogamer.net. March 5, 2022. Archived from the original on December 27, 2022. Retrieved December 27, 2022.
  6. ^ The History of Super Mario Bros 3 100% World Records, archived from the original on October 18, 2023, retrieved October 18, 2023
  7. ^ The History of Lego Star Wars World Records, archived from the original on September 22, 2023, retrieved October 18, 2023
  8. ^ The History of Mike Tyson's Punch-Out World Records, retrieved February 4, 2024
  9. ^ Machkovech, Sam (September 30, 2022). "YouTube age-restriction quagmire exposed by 78-minute Mega Man documentary [Updated]". Ars Technica. Archived from the original on December 27, 2022. Retrieved December 27, 2022.
  10. ^ Wolens, Joshua (October 3, 2022). "A Mega Man documentary has been deemed too sexy by YouTube's baffling content rules". PC Gamer. Archived from the original on December 27, 2022. Retrieved December 27, 2022.
  11. ^ "YouTube Declares Mega Man 2 Documentary Too Sexy For Kids". Kotaku. October 4, 2022. Archived from the original on December 27, 2022. Retrieved December 27, 2022.
  12. ^ Kunimune, Robin (January 20, 2021). "Ep. 15: Speedrunning Around with Summoning Salt". Video Game History Foundation. Archived from the original on December 27, 2022. Retrieved December 27, 2022.
  13. ^ "A new documentary will tell the "peculiar story of the fastest video game players in the world"". Tubefilter. December 23, 2022. Archived from the original on December 28, 2022. Retrieved December 27, 2022.
  14. ^ a b c Hall, Charlie (January 30, 2018). "How speedrunners cracked Super Mario Bros. level 4-2". Polygon. Archived from the original on December 27, 2022. Retrieved December 27, 2022.
  15. ^ Mäki, Jonas (March 8, 2022). "Punch-Out speedrun record set by blindfolded player". Gamereactor UK. Archived from the original on December 27, 2022. Retrieved December 27, 2022.
  16. ^ Wilcox, Matthew (March 7, 2022). "New Mike Tyson's Punch-Out!! World Record Set by Blindfolded Player". ScreenRant. Archived from the original on December 27, 2022. Retrieved December 27, 2022.
  17. ^ "The Incredible Story Of Mario Kart: Double Dash's Hidden Shortcuts". Kotaku. July 24, 2022. Archived from the original on December 27, 2022. Retrieved December 27, 2022.
  18. ^ "Legendary Mario 64 Record For Collecting All The Stars Finally Broken". Kotaku. May 5, 2017. Archived from the original on December 27, 2022. Retrieved December 27, 2022.
  19. ^ Beck, Kellen (May 30, 2021). "A 'Super Mario Bros.' speedrunning history captures the fight for human perfection". Mashable. Archived from the original on December 27, 2022. Retrieved December 27, 2022.
  20. ^ Beck, Kellen (March 15, 2017). "The history of 'Mario Kart 64' world records, glitches and all". Mashable. Archived from the original on December 27, 2022. Retrieved December 27, 2022.
  21. ^ "Watch the History of Game-Breaking 'Mario Kart' Ultra Shortcuts". Vice. August 27, 2018. Archived from the original on December 27, 2022. Retrieved December 27, 2022.
  22. ^ "YouTube Keeps Changing Its Story For Why It Age-Restricted A Summoning Salt Video About 'Mega Man 2'". Know Your Meme. October 5, 2022. Archived from the original on December 27, 2022. Retrieved December 27, 2022.
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