29 minutes and three seconds. That’s the Guinness World Record for the longest time someone held their breath underwater. It was submitted for approval and approved by the rigorous Guinness process. You may be thinking something along the lines of, “Wow, that’s pretty impressive!,” since most humans can only hold their breath for 45 seconds or less. The most sweaters put on in 30 seconds, specifically from a team of two, is ten. This was also submitted and verified by the “rigorous” Guinness process. But are you impressed, or do you even care about this record? And even if you are impressed, is it as impressive as holding your breath 40 times longer than the average person? Over time, Guinness World Records have lost their meaning.

Guinness World Records came about from an idea in the early 1950s. The then-managing director of the Irish brewery Guinness, Sir Hugh Beaver, attended a shooting competition in which he argued with the hosts about the fastest game bird, but he could not find any answer or backup in any record books. In 1954, Sir Hugh commissioned a reference book to settle exactly these kinds of disputes. Guinness Superlatives was made on November 30 of that same year. In about 14 weeks, they had published their first book, “The Guinness Book of Records.” In 1964, a million total copies were sold, and in 1974, it became the bestselling copyright book with almost 24 million copies sold! And now it’s been 70 years since it was created. So what has happened since then?

Guinness holds upwards of 65,000 world records today. If you want to set your own world record, you first need to apply for the record, which requires you to decide if you want to create your own category or use an existing one. If you choose to create your own category, it will be scanned to make sure it isn’t too niche or unregulatable, and then they will provide you with nonnegotiable rules you have to follow to break the world record. In either case, you need very precise measurements and hard proof. You need multiple camera angles, laser accurate measuring equipment, and more. Even more taxing, you need unbiased witnesses to vouch for your record. However, instead you could hire an officiator, which costs thousands of dollars, but eliminates the need of worrying about witnesses or insufficient equipment.

Let’s go back to the 65,000 world records today. A world record such as the tallest man on earth is way more impressive and rare than the most Taylor Swift songs identified in a minute or less, or even worse, the fastest time to visit every location on the London Monopoly board by bicycle, which may make you wonder why the standards are so low.

The main reason for these low standards is to help Guinness World Records make money. Guinness World Records functions as a consulting business that offers to find world records that paying customers, often companies, can break to help generate good publicity. These clients include popular brands such as Adidas and influencers such as Nick DiGiovanni. Half of the Guinness company’s income comes from consulting, while another 43% comes from the actual publication and sales of the book. This wears off the exclusivity, awe, and prestige of a Guinness World Record. Rather than being a super exclusive title for super impressive feats, it has become a moneymaking machine aimed to make a huge profit off of super niche, and arguably unimpressive, records. This is not helped by social media accounts such as the popular drink brand Red Bull, which hires performers to create incredible stunts for users to watch. The thing about these Red Bull stunts is that a lot of them aren’t in the style of a world record, they are just aimed to impress the viewer, which diminishes the excitement of world records. These are much more exciting to view than watching a video of the fastest time to set up and topple ten books one handed.
Even for companies that seem like their goal is to provide the world with a service rather than earning money, you never know their intentions at first glance. For those who think that Guinness World Records is still a cool concept and book, it is. However, know that the main goal is not to provide plaques and create a book to entertain people’s curiosity, but instead to generate profit.