Ki Taek From "Parasite" Driving

Submission 29,492

Part of a series on Parasite. [View Related Entries]

About

Ki Taek Driving is a reaction image macro series featuring a frame from the 2019 Korean thriller film Parasite. In the film, a wealthy family hires the character Ki Taek as their chauffeur, who must endure their dehumanizing and belittling behavior, particularly in regard to his body odor. The meme features one instance in which the character Yeon Kyo discussing his smell on the phone as Ki Taek drives her. Online, people use the image of Taek driving her to express feelings of class resentment.

Origin

On May 21st, 2019, the film Parasite premiered at the Cannes film festival in France. In the film, the character Yeon Kyo (played by Yeo-jeong Jo) and her family hire the character Ki Taek (played by Kang-ho Song) as their chauffeur.^[1] In one scene, as Ki Taek drives, Yeon Kyo talks about on the phone about the weather as she holds her nose. Ki Taek notices her disgust and smells himself (clip below).

Following the film's release later, screenshots and GIFs from the scene began appearing online. On August 15th, 2019, for example, Tumblr ^[2] user @bongjoonsho shared a GIF story from the scene, intercutting it with other thematically-related moments from the movie. The post received more than 40,000 notes in less than one year (shown below).

Spread

Over the next year, the image continued to spread on Tumblr, particularly after the release of Gal Gadot's "Imagine" Video. On March 19th, Redditor Benjamin372 posted an edited version of the image in the /r/moviescirclejerk^[4] subreddit, adding Gal Gadot's head to the image and referencing the video as a criticism of class divides. The post received more than 6.400 points (100% upvoted) and 100 comments in less than four months (shown below, left). The following day, Tumblr^[3] user radicalgeni-tales shared an object labeling meme that uses the image and references the video. The post received more than 26,000 notes in less than six months (shown below, center).

On March 22nd, Imgur ^[5] jrabbitmusic posted an object labeling meme that references the $1,200 stimulus checks from the U.S. government to offset the economic fallout from the coronavirus pandemic. The post received more than 136,000 views and 2,300 upvotes in less than four months (shown below, right).