Ppikki Ppikki

Origin

The “ppikki ppikki” dance is an out-song routine the KIA Tigers cheer squad had been performing since 2022 — a short move danced whenever an opposing batter is retired. It was local ballpark culture, familiar mainly to fans who went to Gwangju Champions Field.

It went national on 22 June 2024. A YouTube channel that mostly posted KIA cheerleader footage uploaded a clip titled “Ppikki ppikki, cheerleader Lee Ju-eun, mid-touch-up.” In the video, believed to have been shot the previous day at the Hanwha–KIA game on 21 June, Lee Ju-eun is fixing her makeup and dances without stopping what she is doing, entirely unbothered. That indifference was the point. The low-effort delivery is precisely what caught people’s eye, and the clip spread well beyond Korea; The New York Times reported that videos of baseball cheerleaders doing “ultra-chill” routines had taken over social media algorithms.

Where the song comes from

The track attached to the dance was not written in 2024. Its root is “My Lecon,” an album cut by the three-piece group JTL, who debuted in 2001, written by Tony An. The version that went viral is a sped-up remix of that song released in 2021 by the Indonesian artist Olive Beat. The syllables Korean listeners hear as “ppikki ppikki” are not lyrics at all but a transcription of a sound the remix pushes to the front.

Despite the scale of the hit, little of it reached the original writer. His bandmate Lee Jae-won said on air that as far as he knew, Tony An had not registered the copyright and so did not earn much from it. A twenty-year-old album track was revived as a ballpark chant by way of an overseas remix — and the case also showed that without registration somewhere along that path, no royalties follow.

Aftermath

Lee Ju-eun’s following grew to roughly 1.03 million on Instagram and 260,000 on Facebook. In September 2024 offers from Taiwanese clubs were reported, and she later signed with the Fubon Guardians in Taiwan. It is cited as a case of Korean baseball cheer culture being exported abroad at the level of an individual cheerleader.

How it is used

Song and movement come as a set, so it lives in video and short clips rather than in text.

• Challenge videos copying the thumbs-up, arm-swaying move exactly
• As background audio to gently mock someone who fails or walks off
• To describe an attitude of doing something casually and still doing it well

Sources

• Namuwiki, entry “삐끼삐끼 춤” — the out-song routine dating to 2022, the 22 June 2024 upload and its presumed filming date, the original-song and remix lineage, the New York Times coverage
• Money Today, “Everyone assumed he got rich — what Tony An, who wrote the ‘ppikki ppikki’ song, missed” (16 November 2024) — “My Lecon” and the unregistered copyright
• Aju Business Daily, “Cheerleader Lee Ju-eun of ‘ppikki ppikki’ fame courted by Taiwan: ‘she may come next year’” (14 September 2024) — the move to Taiwan