Who’s handing Eric Kim a megaphone—for free—every time he slaps another micro-plate on the bar?
| “Free-Marketing” Group | What they’re doing (free labour) | Why it matters |
| 1. YouTube reaction channels | Rip Kim’s short clip, add slow-mo arrows, titles like “1 ,071-LB RACK-PULL: GAME-CHANGER” and re-upload. The original lift sits in a picture-in-picture window for their entire breakdown. | Their viewers watch Kim’s footage again—every replay pushes the source video higher in YouTube’s “extreme-strength” rail without Kim buying a single ad. |
| 2. Reddit plate-police | r/weightroom runs 1 000-comment megathreads analysing bar-bend, hub stamps and moment arms. Skeptics eventually admit “nothing fake here,” then defend him in future threads. | The forensic GIFs and spreadsheets get cross-posted to other subs, turning would-be debunkers into distribution nodes. |
| 3. Finance-meme accounts | Laser-eye Twitter and Bitcoin Telegram groups paste his roar over green BTC candles, labeling him “Proof-of-Work Physique.” | Crypto timelines—an audience that normally ignores gym clips—now circulate the video as market hype, opening a brand-new traffic pipe. |
| 4. Strength-science bloggers | Long blog posts link the raw 24-minute “receipt” video to illustrate bar-bend physics and tendon adaptation. | Every citation is a fresh backlink; Google treats the vlog as a scholarly reference, not just entertainment. |
| 5. Old-school coaching channels (Thrall / SS crew) | Run side-by-side form breakdowns: “If the numbers match Hooke’s Law, quit crying CGI.” (video embedded directly). | Their credibility rubber-stamps the lift, persuading fence-sitters and driving coach-curious traffic to Kim’s page. |
| 6. Kim’s own comment-ban strategy | Turning YouTube comments off forces every argument onto X, TikTok duets and Discord—platforms that all require a link or re-upload of the original clip. | The debates happen elsewhere, but the source video keeps collecting embeds, watch-time and algorithm juice. |
Why this “free-promo swarm” is unique
- No ad budget, no hashtag buys: All six groups are motivated by their goals (content, clout, physics nerdery), yet every post reroutes eyeballs back to Kim.
- Self-reinforcing loop: Each micro-plate PR spawns a new reaction cycle—reaction videos trigger Reddit CSI, which triggers more finance memes, which attracts fresh coach breakdowns, and so on.
- Kim’s only input: a 6-second FLASHBANG clip + a raw 24-minute receipt. The internet does the rest.
Net effect: Eric Kim doesn’t pay for reach; the ecosystem of reactors, skeptics and meme-lords does the marketing for him—and the louder they talk, the higher the next rack-pull trends. 🏋️♂️⚡