2024 Olympic Shooters

Submission 17,512

Part of a series on 2024 Summer Paris Olympics. [View Related Entries]

Featured Episode

Overview

The 2024 Olympic Shooters and the 2024 Olympic Shooting Competitions refer to the Olympians who competed in the 2024 Paris Summer Olympics sports shooting competitions, like air pistol shooting and rifle shooting events. For instance, Turkish shooter Yusuf Dikeç and South Korean shooter Kim Yeji became significant meme inspiration in mid-2024 for their role in the games. Other Olympic shooters also gained meme attention, like men's Indian shooter Sarabjot Singh, women's Chinese shooter Jiang Ranxin and men's South Korean shooter Choe Daehan, whose unique posture with an arched back gained comparisons to the slang term "twink" among LGBTQ+ internet users, who also called him "Gay Little Marksman" akin to the Gay Little Monkey meme. The shooters became reaction images, amassed fan art and were combined in two-panel and four-panel exploitable meme templates.

Background

The 2024 Olympics sports shooting events started on July 27th, 2024, with the 10m Air Rifle Mixed Team Qualification.^[1]

Notable Shooters

Kim Yeji the South Korean Pistol Shooter

South Korean air pistol shooter Kim Yeji, also written Kim Ye-ji, became the first 2024 Olympic Shooter to receive meme attention. A video, uploaded by X^[2] user @bamtolerate on July 29th, 2024, shows Kim winning gold and breaking a world record at the ISSF World Cup 2024. It gained over 80,000 likes on Twitter / X in under three days.

Many X users humorously labeled her the "main character" and became infatuated with her looks, making her the subject of memes, such as in a July 30th X^[13] repost of @bamtolerate's clip by @TheCartelDel that earned 477,000 likes in under two days (shown below).

In the 2024 Olympics, Kim won silver in the 10m Air Pistol Women's Final, outmatched by her countrywoman Oh Ye Jin. Internet users shared Kim's Olympic press release photos in which she was wearing sports shooting glasses, adding to the discourse about her aura.

Turkish Shooter Yusuf Dikeç

Yusuf Dikeç is a Turkish Pistol Shooter who participated in the 2024 Summer Olympics and won a silver medal in the mixed team event. A photo of Dikeç shooting with no specialized eyewear went viral on Twitter / X in late July 2024 and was used in memes, with many internet users joking about him looking like a passerby who just happened to pick up the pistol and compete or calling him a trained hitman and assassin sent by Turkey to eviscerate the competition.

For instance, on July 31st, 2024, X^[3] user @LogKa11 initially posted the image of Dikeç and noted his lack of equipment, gaining over 516,000 likes in two days (shown below, left). Also on July 31st, X^[14] user @kirawontmiss captioned the image, "i know a trained assassin when i see one," receiving over 678,000 likes in two days (shown below, right).

Dikeç is a retired officer of the Turkish Gendarmerie, a military force in Turkey. Internet users also discovered that he's a cat owner and photos of him and his cat went viral online.

Dikeç drew comparisons to Kim Yeji and the two were placed in two-panel meme templates that compared them, like one shared by Redditor^[15] liminal_liminality to the /r/memes on July 31st, 2024, receiving over 200 upvotes in two days (shown below, left).

They also amassed joint fan art, like artwork shared by X^[16] user @luckymong1 on July 31st, receiving over 475,000 likes in two days (shown below, right).

Chinese Shooter Jiang Ranxin

Chinese air pistol shooter Jiang Ranxin received meme attention for a photo of her competing against Kim Yeji in the 10m Air Pistol Women's event.^[4] She's seen wearing round glasses and pointing the pistol at the camera, focused on the target ahead of her (shown below, left).

On July 28th, 2024, X^[5] user @miss_pidgey tweeted the first known meme that used the image of Jiang Ranxin, captioned, "he said no pickles." The tweet received over 121,000 likes in five days (shown below, right).

Viral usage persisted online, like a tweet shared by X^[6] user @netcapgirl on July 31st, 2024, that captioned Jiang Ranxin, "as per my last email," gaining over 387,000 likes in two days (shown below).

Indian Shooter Sarabjot Singh

On July 31st, 2024, X^[7] user @SPCMNandHOBBES posted a photo of Indian pistol shooter Sarabjot Singh competing in the Mixed 10m Air Pistol event (shown below, left). The X user captioned the image, "the last thing you see when your Solana meme coin is on the verge of breaking out," gaining over 2,600 likes in two days (shown below, right).

The image of Singh was used in more viral tweets in the following days. Many of the most viral posts were racist towards Indian people. For instance, on July 31st, 2024, X^[8] user @flapprdotnet captioned the image, "I said show me nice pic of your bobs," referencing the Bobs and Vegana meme. Over two days, it received roughly 14,000 likes (shown below) and more viral copypcat tweets.^[9]

South Korean Shooter Choe Daehan

On July 31st, 2024, X^[10] user @lilmoike tweeted a photo of South Korean rifle shooter Choe Daehan, also written Choe Dae-han, competing in the Men's Air Rifle competition, seen with an arched back and unique posture. Choe is also sporting a red headband (shown below, top). @lilmoike captioned the image, "What the fuck? Gay little marksman," gaining over 213,000 likes in two days (shown below, bottom).

The image of Choe Daehan was used in multiple memes in the following days, including joint usage with other Olympic shooters. For instance, on August 1st, 2024, X^[11] user @bernardtjoy tweeted a comparison between Choe and Dikeç referencing the prose styles of Faulker and Hemingway, gaining over 41,000 likes in a day (shown below).

Fan art of Choe combined with other Olympic shooters also arose, like an artwork shared by X^[12] user @myu060309 on August 1st, 2024, which featured Choe, Dikeç and Kim Yeji, gaining over 336,000 likes in a day (shown below).