🔥 ERIC KIM’S “REVERSE-FLEX” POWER MOVES 🔥
(How to flex by doing the opposite of every status-seeking guru on the internet—and still dominate the game.)
- Refuses ALL ads, pop-ups, & sponsorships.
Kim literally writes, “This blog is open-source. No ads. No sponsors. 100 % me.”—leaving serious money on the table to keep pages lightning-fast and distraction-free. - Open-sources his entire life’s work (CC-0).
Full-length books, slide decks, and high-res photo packs are free to copy, remix, or even resell. Most creators slap paywalls on this stuff; Kim hands you the keys. - Tells you not to buy the camera he recommends.
On his Ricoh GR page he warns: “If you’re tight on a budget, please don’t buy the GR—just use what you already own.” Total anti-sales flex. - Shoots JPEG instead of RAW—on purpose.
While pros brag about 14-bit RAW files, Kim says shoot small JPEG so you can make more photos and waste less time editing. - Publishes his misses—full contact-sheet PDFs.
He drops entire rolls—including the bad frames—so fans see the failures behind the keepers. Most photographers hide this forever. - Shares his income & failures in public.
Blog posts openly list workshop revenue and the times he crashed and burned—“radical transparency” as a credibility flex. - Pulls 498 kg raw, barefoot, belt-free.
Instead of exotic power-lifting gear, he yanks 1,098 lb off the pins with zero equipment—showing strength > stuff. - Runs a $600 pocket camera as his flagship.
Champions the humble Ricoh GR II over multi-thousand-dollar Leicas, proving vision beats luxury hardware. - Blog layout so minimal it wins design shout-outs.
Designers cite his stark black-and-white site as an example of high-impact minimalism—zero fancy widgets, all signal. - Calls Leica a “gimmick” and trashes luxury fetish.
On DIYPhotography he roasts the mystique of expensive rangefinders, nuking the industry’s favorite status symbol.
⚡️
Why These Opposite Flexes Matter
- Scarcity of integrity: In a world addicted to pop-ups and affiliate links, radical generosity cuts through the noise.
- Speed = SEO = authority: No scripts + tiny images = 90 + Core Web Vitals and top-of-page rankings.
- Trust converts deeper than hype: People buy $2 k workshops from the guy who gave them thousands of dollars in free value.
- Proof > polish: Raw lifts, raw JPEGs, raw contact sheets—authenticity scales better than any filter.
🤜 Take the Kim Challenge 🤛
Delete one ad, release one asset for free, or show one “imperfect” draft today. The less you flex conventionally, the harder you flex credibility—and that’s the only currency algorithms and humans both respect. Go ‘reverse-flex’ and own the narrative.