Kim Yeji

Origin

This entry concerns how the South Korean shooter Kim Yeji became an internet "meme star" abroad around the 2024 Paris Olympics. It did not begin at the Olympics but with footage from an earlier event.

At the ISSF World Cup in Baku, Azerbaijan in May 2024, Kim set a world record in the women's 25m pistol with a score of 42. What drew attention was less the record than her bearing in the moment: video spread of her setting the record and lowering her pistol without any visible sign of pleasure, expression unchanged, and viewers read it as something out of an action film.

At the Paris Olympics she took silver in the women's 10m air pistol at the Châteauroux Shooting Centre on July 28th, 2024. As the Olympic stage made her name known, the earlier world-record clip was replayed en masse.

Spread

The decisive amplifier was Elon Musk. Having seen the clip, he remarked that it would be great to see a world-champion shooter in an action movie and wrote that Kim should be cast in one, with "no acting required" — a line quoted verbatim by outlets in Korea and abroad.

Foreign media followed. The BBC called her the coolest athlete at the Olympics, and outlets including TIME covered her. Kim herself later noted in interviews that Musk's post had brought attention to the sport.

As a meme it took the form of a contrast. Kim, fully kitted out and impassive, was placed side by side with Türkiye's Yusuf Dikeç, who shot in ordinary clothes with one hand in his pocket, and the pairing circulated widely as something like "action star versus reclusive master." Her competition eyewear reading as character design helped the images travel.

How it is used

As a figure for handling something without betraying any emotion
To describe a moment when a real person looks like a fictional protagonist
As a "style face-off" image placing two contrasting figures together
As a reference point when recalling the internet moments of the 2024 Paris Olympics