Guinness world record and world record are just completely different.
Usain Bolt have a world record, anybody can have a Guinness World Record if you have money, and challenge things like most helium balloons tied to a paddleboard while paying Guinness staff to fly around and some big fee to put it in their books.
This one from Lars is actually one of the 'better' ones.
I find it vexing when publications treat 'official world record' as a synonym for 'Guinness world record'. They have no official capacity. They just have very good PR to be able to capture the term for themselves and for us to be able to ignore their novelty Christmas book associations and friendliness with despots.
That's no different than sport records, though. For instance 100m running. Some agency has decided their rules (equipment, drugs, wind etc), but someone could run it faster in a non-sanctioned event not following those rules. Which one to claim as WR?
Sure, but if we take same discipline, they align into same effort. Its just that Guiness corp makes making up disciplines stupidly easy I guess for their own profit/promotion. And nobody sane cares about Guiness world record on 100m for example
I don't think it's that much of a difference. I can say that I hold the world record in replying the fastest to your comment in this thread. But for the world record to actually mean something it needs to be backed by an organisation, which is what Guinness is doing just as World Athletics is doing for Usain Bolt's records.
The important bit is how many people are competing for the record not who is keeping track.
There are any of a thousand of video game speed runs you could probably beat with a week of solid effort, but breaking the Mario 1 speed run is a different league.
Even in video game speed runs “hello you absolute legends” there is a kind of “that seems good” that can be reached - where people knowledgeable recognize that the run must be interesting, even if nobody did it before.
And of course on the tracking sites one of the best ways to get noticed is beat a famous record by a bit, or beat an unfamous one by a lot (because a large beat likely means it can be improved more, and so people will try).
This is also why record runs In track mania for example often “calm down” until a new path is shown to work (even in a tool assist) and then there’s a flurry of interest.
Usain Bolt have a world record, anybody can have a Guinness World Record if you have money, and challenge things like most helium balloons tied to a paddleboard while paying Guinness staff to fly around and some big fee to put it in their books.
This one from Lars is actually one of the 'better' ones.