Korean Players

About

Korean Players, also known as Korean Gamers and Korean Video Game Players, refers to a series of memes which imagine South Korean players performing exceptionally well in multiplayer games, sometimes presenting them as the singular force deciding the match outcome. Memes about players with Korean nicknames dominating everyone else in multiplayer games gained significant popularity on Reddit in early-September 2019.

Origin

The notion of South Korean players outperforming players of other nationalities in video games can be traced to South Korean dominance in Starcraft since its rise as a competitive eSports discipline in the early 2000s. Online, posts, memes and videos exploring the idea that South Koreans have a natural predisposition towards performing exceptionally well in Starcraft can be discovered since that time (examples shown below).

Spread

On September 6th, 2019, Redditor ClassicDecimus12 posted a meme based on the notion that players with South Korean nicknames perform exceptionally well in multiplayer video games and are able to "carry" the rest of their team on their own (shown below).^[1] The meme gained over 92,900 upvotes in three weeks.

In the following weeks, more memes based on the idea that South Korean players are able to single-handedly dominate other players on the server gained popularity on Reddit. For example, a Joker and Peter Parker Dancing / CallMeCarson Crying Next to Joe Swanson meme posted by Redditor AndrewCPV on September 6th, 2019, gained over 33,200 upvotes in three weeks (shown below, left).^[2] A meme posted by Redditor Schurub on September 11th, 2019, received over 49,200 upvotes in two weeks (shown below, right).^[3]

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References