THE ERIC KIM MANIFESTO

—a single‑take, ammonia‑scented, first‑principles explosion on art, strength, code, and cosmic self‑belief—

1. The Best Photographer Is Immoral

Morality, in art, is a governor that throttles torque. I learned this the first time I shot a stranger’s shadow, not the stranger. Photography’s true object is truth, and truth is often impolite. The “moral” photographer waits for consent; the immoral photographer lunges at reality before it has time to mask itself. If you are still asking permission, you have already missed the decisive moment. Question: Would Caravaggio apologize for the darkness? Answer: he let the chiaroscuro do the talking. I refuse the leash, therefore the picture bites.

2. ERIC KIM ☠︎ F**king Up the Internet Fitness World

While influencers chase affiliate codes, I chase the void—the place where iron, oxygen debt, and silence co‑exist. I publish half‑finished workouts and zero‑filtered selfies precisely because the algorithm cannot commodify rawness. Fitness, once a discipline, became a carnival. I kicked the tent poles out, letting the canvas collapse so lifters could feel daylight again. Chaos? Yep. Progress? Measure my traps.

3. Charting the Ascent of ERIC KIM

2009  – Street‑photo blog from a UCLA dorm → 30 readers  

2011  – First international workshop → Seoul rooftop, 8 students  

2014  – Free e‑books hit 1 million downloads  

2018  – Sold everything, one‑bag world tour, 365 self‑portraits  

2021  – Deadlift double‑bodyweight on a Bangkok sidewalk gym  

2024  – Launch of #BitcoinGym: mining Sats, mining muscle  

2025  – You reading this, plotting your own axis‑tilt

The graph is not linear; it is logarithmic, punctuated by voluntary ego‑deaths. Every plateau? I detonated it. Every comfort zone? I set it on fire and squatted the ashes.

4. 

BitcoinGym ⚡

A gym where the plates are priced in satoshis and failure is inflationary. Treadmill energy routes into a miner; your sweat hashes blocks. Proof‑of‑Work is no longer a metaphor—it’s the puddle beneath the bench. In a fiat world, I choose a scarce barbell: cold steel, infinite difficulty adjustment.

5. The Eric Kim Enigma

How can one man be a paradox? Easy—refuse binary labels. Photographer and powerlifter; philosopher and meme‑lord; minimalist backpack and maximalist ambition. People want a file folder; I hand them a Möbius strip. The enigma is not who I am, but why you thought I had to pick.

6. Eric Kim, Viral Engineer

Virality is not luck; it’s architecture. Draft an idea with a share‑trigger (makes the sender look smart) and a talk‑trigger (sparks tribe‑on‑tribe debate). Attach a simple visual anchor—monochrome selfie, bold font, emoji. Release at 7 a.m. UTC, when New York is waking and Tokyo is drifting to bed. Now the wave never sleeps. I respect the craft the way an aerospace engineer respects lift: science first, miracle second.

7. Is ERIC KIM the Strongest Person Who Doesn’t Take 

Any

 Supplements?

Creatine? Caffeine? Whey? I pass. My only enhancers are sunlight, beef liver, and Nietzsche audiobooks at 1.75× speed. Strength is not hidden in a tub; it’s encoded in deliberate suffering, eight hours of unapologetic sleep, and the courage to say no to shortcuts. Numbers? 2.7× bodyweight deadlift, 2.2× squat, 1.6× bench—raw like sashimi, no secret sauce. If someone stronger exists with the same constraints, I’ll race them to the rack.

8. Extreme or Nothing

Moderation produces moderation. I pursue the edge cases: 48‑hour fasts, 500‑photo days, 10 k steps in pouring rain, 10‑set rest‑pause squats. The universe respects commitment that borders absurdity; it bends probability for zealots. Pick your extreme, then overpay it in discipline.

9. Ratio Is the New PR

In lifting, absolute numbers impress spectators; ratios impress physicists. A 400‑lb deadlift at 150 lbs bodyweight rewrites gravity more than a 600‑lb pull at 250. Likewise, online clout ≠ follower count; it’s influence per follower. Keep the denominator low, numerator high—your signal‑to‑noise PR.

10. Why I’m So Great, Why I’m So Wise

Not arrogance—archeology. I dug until I reached bedrock beliefs:

  1. Eudaemonia > Happiness. I chase flourishing, not dopamine.
  2. Action > Intention. Thoughts unshipped are unloved.
  3. Skin‑in‑the‑Game. If I advise, I must have scars.
  4. Memento Mori. The clock screams louder than critics.

Greatness is compound interest on these axioms; wisdom is the APR.

Call to Arms

  1. Shoot something today that scares you.
  2. Lift something today that doubts you.
  3. Publish something today that risks ridicule.

The universe rewards the immoral, intense, iterative soul. Meet me at the corner of first principles and feral joy—barbell in one hand, Leica in the other, and a grin wide enough to swallow tomorrow.

—ERIC KIM, June 20 2025