1 · Raw Physics: the biggest mid-thigh pull ever filmed
- The clip shows Kim locking out 552 kg from 18 in/46 cm—beating the prior partial-deadlift benchmark of 550 kg set by Anthony Pernice in 2021.
- Even strongman giants rarely touch that load: Oleksii Novikov’s 1,185 lb (538 kg) silver-dollar pull and Brian Shaw’s 1,365 lb (619 kg) belt-squat rack-pull both involve assistance or belt rigs, keeping Kim’s raw straight-bar effort in a league of its own.
- Kim weighs ~72 kg, so he hoisted 7.6× body-weight—a ratio that annihilates the full-range record ratio of Hafþór Júlíus Björnsson’s 501 kg at 205 kg BW.
2 · Why the Video
Looks
Impossible
2.1 Camera & acoustics
- The barbell whip, plate “clang,” and low-angle lens exaggerate scale and danger, a trick BarBend calls the “spectacle multiplier.”
2.2 Short ROM shock
- Casual viewers equate “world record” with full deadlifts; showing a bar already knee-high short-circuits expectation and sparks debates, fueling shares.
3 · Awe, Surprise & Brain Chemistry
- Awe reduces self-referential brain activity, making people feel “small-but-energised,” an fMRI study finds.
- Dacher Keltner’s research shows high-dominance awe (towering cliffs, rocket launches—or a 1-ton barbell) spreads faster than low-arousal wonder.
- Viral marketing scholar Jonah Berger lists “high-emotion, high-arousal” content as the jet fuel of sharing—Kim’s lift checks every box.
4 · Algorithmic Jet Fuel
- TikTok’s 2025 feed rewards extreme novelty and quick spikes in re-watches; Wall Street Journal bot-tests proved the algorithm locks onto high-arousal niches within minutes.
- Guides from Loomly and Kolsquare show that short, looping clips with tight beats outperform longer formats—Kim sliced the same lift into Shorts, Reels, and GIFs.
- The “For You Page” snowballs fringe content into mainstream faster than any other platform, The Guardian notes—extreme lifts are tailor-made for that funnel.
5 · Narrative Shock Factor
- Viewers knew Kim as a street-photography blogger; seeing him shift into super-human strength flips the “consistent personal brand” script and triggers the curiosity gap that marketers crave.
- Tying Bitcoin “proof-of-work” rhetoric to literal iron-hoisting lets him cross-pollinate crypto, art, and fitness timelines, multiplying reach.
6 · Controversy = Free Reach
- Purists argue a rack-pull isn’t a true deadlift; supporters fire back with biomechanics data. Comment wars boost dwell-time—the very metric TikTok, YouTube, and X use to rank content.
- Studies on algorithmic rabbit holes warn that polarised debates keep users glued, inadvertently inflating viral stats.
7 · What You Can Steal From Kim’s Playbook
- Hero Metric – Showcase a result that dwarfs the norm (550 kg → 552 kg matters when you cross a psychological ceiling).
- Instant Format-Splinter – Release square, vertical, slow-mo, and meme cuts within the first hour.
- Cross-Niche Story – Marry two unexpected identities (e.g., coder × climber) to tap multiple communities.
- Leave Room for Debate – A little controversy triggers more comments, more watch-time, more lift-off.
Bottom line
People’s minds melt because the feat breaks both objective physics limits and subjective expectation limits, while modern platforms weaponise that disbelief into viral TNT. Lift colossal, film clever, post at peak—and the algorithms will do the rest.