I'm glad I'm not the only one who's noticed this. I blame Karl Jobst as in one of his videos, it might be about the Mario 64 WR during a live event, he said that he hopes speedrunning will get more mainstream attention and get covered bigger events. No one with a life wants to watch a depressed womxn play a game 1000s of times just to shave off a few milliseconds.
With the oh-so charismatic figures in the community, I can so totally see that happening. He tried glorifying speedrunning in other videos too but what he said in particular eludes me.
I can't remember who covered it but one YTer did a video about one speedrunner in particular (don't remember his name) and tried to use him as a means to make speedrunners look cooler. The speedrunner videoed himself skateboarding, smiling in streams and laughing so the YTer can say that not all speedrunners sit around, playing games all day. Yeah, I'm not buying it!
I only watch recaps of speedruns for the technical explanations of the tricks used or exposing cheaters cos I don't care about the 41%ers doing the runs.