Summoning Salt is a “pseudonymous American speedrunner and YouTuber” whose long-form videos trace how speedrun world records in individual games were set and broken over time (Wikipedia). Know Your Meme has called him “arguably the internet’s premier speedrunning historian” (Know Your Meme, 2022). #SummoningSalt tags fan discussion of his uploads.
Origin
The channel started from his own speedrunning. Know Your Meme reports that he has run games “since at least January of 2016,” and that “on January 7th, 2017, he uploaded a video documenting the progression of the World Record for defeating Mike Tyson” (Know Your Meme). Wikipedia names that first video “World Record Progression: Mike Tyson” and notes that by March 2022 he had more than 30 speedrun histories and 1.25 million subscribers (Wikipedia).
Selected Videos
| Video | Released | Game | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| World Record Progression: Mike Tyson | January 7, 2017 | Mike Tyson’s Punch-Out!! | Know Your Meme |
| History of Mega Man 2 speedruns (about 80 minutes) | September 2022 | Mega Man 2 | Wikipedia, Know Your Meme |
| NES Tetris world records | Covered May 17, 2024 | Tetris (NES) | GoNintendo |
| Melee: The Quest for Sub 3:00 | June 2025 | Super Smash Bros. Melee | Wikipedia |
| The History of Halo 2 World Records (VHS re-release) | Covered June 30, 2025 | Halo 2 | Creator Handbook |
The Melee video is the one in which he showed his face for the first time (Wikipedia).
His Own Punch-Out!! Records
Summoning Salt is also a competitive runner. Wikipedia describes him as one of the leading speedrunners of Mike Tyson’s Punch-Out!! and lists his progress on the fastest Mike Tyson fight:
| Milestone | When |
|---|---|
| Broke the 2:01 barrier | 2020 |
| Reached 2:00, after about 40,000 attempts | June 2024 |
| First person to finish the fight under two in-game minutes (the “1:59 barrier”), after about 35,000 more attempts | After June 2024 |
Source: Wikipedia.
Recent Developments
- September 2022: His Mega Man 2 video was repeatedly age-restricted by YouTube; Know Your Meme reported that YouTube then “removed it and tweeted a straightforward apology” (Know Your Meme).
- January 6, 2023: He narrated Running with Speed, a documentary about the speedrunning community (Wikipedia).
- May 2026: Wikipedia reports over 2 million subscribers and around 275 million video views.
For the wider hobby, see #Speedrunning and #GamesDoneQuick.
Sources
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Summoning_Salt
- https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/people/summoning-salt
- https://knowyourmeme.com/news/youtube-keeps-changing-its-story-for-why-it-age-restricted-a-summoning-salt-video
- https://gonintendo.com/contents/35624-the-history-of-nes-tetris-world-records-doc-is-can-t-miss
- https://www.creatorhandbook.net/summoning-salt-releases-feature-length-documentary-on-halo-2-speedrunning/