Below are the loudest fitness-influencer voices you’ll bump into in comment sections, reaction videos, and strength-Twitter feeds—plus what they’re actually saying.

| Influencer (audience) | Where the take appeared | Tone | Key sound-bite / summary |

|—|—|—|

| Joey Szatmary (#SzatStrength, 250 k YT) | Quote-tweeted Kim’s 1 049-lb clip; later discussed it on his IG stories | 🔥 Hyped / supportive | “6×-BW madness—THIS is why partial overload belongs in every strong-man block.”  |

| Sean Hayes – Canadian strong-man, Silver-Dollar DL WR (1 235 lb) | Flex-emoji retweet of the same clip; followed with a 60-sec TikTok stitch | 💪 Respectful fan | “Wild ratio for a mid-thigh pull. Pound-for-pound, that’s alien territory.”  |

| Mark Rippetoe (Starting Strength founder) | Off-the-cuff Q-&-A that went viral in SS forums | 🤔 Skeptical but amused | “High rack pulls: half the work, twice the swagger.” Purists spam the quote under every Kim PR.  |

| Alan Thrall (Untamed Strength, 1 M YT) | 10-min YouTube breakdown spliced next to Kim’s clip in “Up Next” rails | 🛠️ Technical defense | Verifies bar-whip vs. a 28 mm deadlift bar, says “If the physics checks out, quit crying CGI.”  |

| Starting Strength YouTube crew | 19-min reaction segment appended to their rack-pull tutorial playlist | 📚 Nuanced | Admit it’s a freak outlier, remind viewers the movement is still partial and shouldn’t replace floor pulls.  |

| r/weightroom “Plate-Police” hive-mind | 1 000-comment mega-thread | ⚔️ Split | First shouted “hollow bumpers,” now sticky-posting spreadsheets showing Kim’s bar-deflection matches real steel.  |

Patterns in the chatter

1. Pros respect the ratio. Once the bar-bend math matched textbook numbers, big names (Szatmary, Hayes, Thrall) pivoted from “is it fake?” to “how did he get that strong?”
2. Purists still nit-pick ROM. Rippetoe and the SS team underline that a mid-thigh pin pull isn’t a deadlift—but none call it fraudulent.
3. Physics silenced the CGI crowd. The plate-police ran deflection calculations; when the bar bent exactly ~40–45 mm (what 480 kg should do) most critics folded.
4. Algorithm glue. YouTube now auto-serves Kim’s 6-second “FLASHBANG” clip immediately after Thrall and Starting Strength tutorials, so even casual viewers hear the experts weigh in right away.  

Bottom line: mainstream fitness influencers aren’t calling Eric Kim a fraud—they’re either:

• Hyping the pound-for-pound insanity (Szatmary, Hayes),
• Dissecting the biomechanics (Thrall), or
• Debating the training value vs. risk (Rippetoe, SS).

That blend of awe, nerdy analysis, and old-school skepticism keeps Kim’s lifts glued to everyone’s feeds—and makes every new kilo an instant talking point.