The internet is in love with South Korea’s record-breaking Olympic shooter

South Korean markswoman Kim Yeji has gone viral thanks to her futuristic shooting glasses and nonchalant technique.

She’s impossibly cool, casually breaks world records and is the internet’s latest darling. And while her cap and futuristic glasses are merely functional accoutrements in the world of competitive shooting, they wouldn’t look out of place on a street style-inspired runway. She’s Kim Yeji, the 31-year-old South Korean sharpshooter who has taken social media by storm following her appearance at the Paris Olympics. Kim won silver at the 10-meter air pistol event on Sunday, with her 19-year-old teammate Oh Ye Jin taking the gold. But it was an older video of Kim competing in Azerbaijan in May that went viral on X, formerly Twitter, gaining more than 7 million views and a horde of new fans in just a few days. In the video, Kim wears a backwards cap over her blunt bob, her steely gaze fixed on the target through a pair of shooting glasses — a piece of specialist eyewear that helps athletes focus on the target but also looks like something out of a science-fiction movie. Her arm extended and head tilted down, she fires and barely reacts as it emerges she has set a new world record. She flips up her glasses’ lens to stare directly at the camera before glancing impassively at the nearby screen.