Super Mario 64 speedrunner sets the "most cringe world record of all time" after performing a legendary trick

Weeks after Super Mario 64 speedrunners discovered a way to actually make use of the legendary 'carpetless' trick in proper runs, someone has finally used it to set a new world record - or rather, the "literal most cringe world record of all time," as the runner himself describes it.

For years, one particular Star in Super Mario 64 has been the bane of completionist speedrunners in the 120 Star category. One late-game mission forces you to take a long, slow magic carpet ride to reach the goal, and while speedrunners had long theorized about methods to do a 'carpetless' version of the level, nobody had figured out a way to do it consistently enough to actually be willing to gamble with the trick in a real full-game run.

But in September, meme became reality as one Super Mario 64 runner discovered a setup for carpetless that turned what was once a legend into a viable trick. By some estimates, carpetless represents the biggest Super Mario 64 time save the community has discovered in 20 years - it can save anywhere from 45 seconds to a full minute on a run if performed properly. It seemed like just a matter of time before the 120 Star record would be shattered.

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Now, a new world record is here, though "shattered" might be overstating it. A runner named puncayshun - a legend in the community who previously held the record off and on between 2014 and 2019 - became the first to set a new 120 Star world record in this post-carpetless era on October 12. How much time did puncayshun manage to save with this massive new trick? Well, uh… just one second.

The new record was so tight, in fact, that puncayshun didn't even realize he got it at first. The moment of realization as he completed the run is one of the funniest things I've ever seen in speedrunning. Check out the Twitch archive and skip to the 2:45:50 mark if you want to see it for yourself.

"Is [the previous record] 1:37:35 or 34? I think it's 34," puncayshun said as he grabbed the final star and set the new record of 1:37:34. "I have no fucking idea." Then there was a long pause as he read all the congratulations in chat. "So, what does this mean? Did I world record, or am I, like, tied?

"I did get it? I'm looking up the leaderboard right now. Oh, it is a 35! Oh, damn," puncayshun laughed as the moment of realization struck. "Wait… Did I just get the most cringe world record of all time? Oh my god. This is so fucking cringe. It's so cringe. Like, the literal most cringe world record of all time, dude." A 'cringe' world record is still a world record, though admittedly it loses a bit of oomph without a proper pop-off at the end.

Of course, there are still up to 59 other seconds to be saved in a carpetless run, so puncayshun's new record is unlikely to last very long. At a minimum, though, he did get to claim a $500 bounty for being the first. 

October also saw the death of the most infamous meme in the history of Mario speedrunning.