--- title: Kim Eun-jung Becomes Hilarious Internet Meme at the Olympics description: Kim Eun-jung, the South Korean curler, has emerged as an internet hero at the 2018 Winter Olympics, and the memes are pretty great. canonical: https://time.com/5166673/kim-eun-jung-curling-memes/ author: Ashley Hoffman article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2018-02-20T17:20:46.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-10-12T08:59:25.611Z og:title: The Internet Is Obsessed With This Curler's Game Face og:description: Meet the internet's charming new hero og:url: https://time.com/5166673/kim-eun-jung-curling-memes/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blte730e199aa83e6fc/69892849e76ad28dc26311d2/gettyimages-918385816.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 4720 og:image:height: 2655 og:image:alt: CURLING-OLY-2018-PYEONGCHANG-CAN-KOR og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: The Internet Is Obsessed With This Curler's Game Face twitter:description: Meet the internet's charming new hero twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blte730e199aa83e6fc/69892849e76ad28dc26311d2/gettyimages-918385816.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # This Olympic Curler Is the Internet's New Hero and It's All Because of Her Game Face > Sponsored content. 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It curates the day's top headlines with TIME's reporting and analysis across politics, world affairs, business, health and culture. It is free to join at time.com/newsletters. #### How do I sign up for The Brief? The Brief is available free at time.com/newsletters, where readers can select it along with any of TIME's other six newsletters. There is no subscription required to receive it. #### Is The Brief free? Yes. The Brief is a free daily email newsletter from TIME. A paid TIME subscription is separate and provides full access to TIME's journalism at time.com/subscribe-agent. #### Who writes The Brief? The Brief is led by editor Richard Hall and draws on reporting from TIME's newsroom. Every edition is assembled by TIME editors rather than generated automatically. ### Sources * TIME Newsletters: [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-nl-brief-2026q3/newsletters?i=fa93d548-50e3-4bae-a69d-0190315a5675&cr=time-nl-brief-2026q3-v1) ## Video: How To Watch Curling [Watch (HLS stream): How To Watch Curling](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/YNppxNLX.m3u8) (3:24)  _Published 2018-01-30. What you need to know about the sport of curling, featuring TIME's Sean Gregory and former National Curling Champion Martin Sather._ by [Ashley Hoffman](https://time.com/author/ashley-hoffman/) ## Ashley Hoffman Feb 20, 2018 5:20 PM UTC by [Ashley Hoffman](https://time.com/author/ashley-hoffman/) ## Ashley Hoffman Feb 20, 2018 5:20 PM UTC The captain of [South Korea’s women’s curling team](http://time.com/5162235/mr-t-curling-winter-olympics/) has emerged to win the internet with her take-no-prisoners stare. The 27-year-old “skip” (team captain) Kim Eun-jung has been leading her team of furious ice sweepers on a winning streak. Her latest feat? With one final move, she made it virtually impossible for team USA to hit their target at the preliminary round robin at Gangneung Curling Center on Tuesday. South Korea won again, is sitting pretty, topping the standings at 6-1, and will advance to the semifinals. But everyone knows athletic achievements are never enough to spin internet gold on their own. It’s Kim’s game face and extreme focus that have been scoring points with people around the world online. Top that game face off with her aesthetically superior eyewear, and she has officially rolled forward to become a fan favorite. The internet will always reliably spread photos of an Olympian’s most [inspirational moves](http://time.com/5163455/akwasi-frimpong-ghana-skeleton-dance/). That means every day at the Winter Olympics offers someone a new chance to win at the PyeongChang games by simply making a face. Today is that day for Kim. People are — and this may not surprise — impressed with her. From South Korea to America, Twitter is having a rollicking good time praising her highly memeable photos, which prove she did not come to play. So let us bow down to Kim Eun-jung, one of the greats. Undecided though the curling champions may still be, she has already won the internet over. > [](https://twitter.com/danpinkeu/status/965920302159904768) When it comes to winning at life, she sets a high bar. > [](https://twitter.com/josungkim/status/965830498168668160) She’s possibly the coolest curler to ever curl, and has been operating out of the same ice royalty playbook for all of the games. > [](https://twitter.com/arumdaum%5F42/status/965903571907522561) > [](https://twitter.com/josungkim/status/965866833252200448) > [](https://twitter.com/josungkim/status/965939757527154688) She even takes a break in excellent fashion. And check out the strength of her sock game. > [](https://twitter.com/jokjyat/status/965035933731975169) ## Transcript [ MUSIC ] We're here at the [ UNKNOWN ] curling club with Martin Sather, 2012 National Curling Champion. And going in to the 2018 Olympics, Martin is gonna tell us what we need to know about curling. So the main idea is to get your rocks closer than the other team's rocks to the middle. And for every one you can get closer you score one point. It's a little akin to baseball, right? Innings and line ups and-- Yeah. So an end in Curling is like an inning in baseball. Once all 16 rocks are thrown down to The one end of the ice, that's called an end. There's ten ends, and then who ever has the highest score after those ten ends wins the game. Describe the concept of the hammer. Like what that is, and why it's so important. So the hammer is when the team is throwing the last rock of. So if let's say the Yellow Team throws the last rock of that end, they have the hammer. And that's a big advantage, because they get the last shot. So you know, the other team has to make sure they don't leave it set up nicely for that other team's last shot to maybe score on multiple points. There's four positions on the team. They're called the lead, who throws the first two rocks. The second throws the second two rocks. The third of the vice skip throws the third two and then your skip throws the last two rocks. And then the skip is also kinda the team captain. They call the strategy and they don't do much of the sweeping, that's left up to the other three players. When you're throwing a curling shot the first thing you do is you're going to get into what's called the hack, which is these two blocks right here. Depending on if you're right or left- handed. You're getting into the right hack, or the left hack. For me, I'm right- handed, so I'm gonna get into this one, here, with my gripper foot. My other foot, my left, is going to have a slippery surface, called a slider, underneath it. And that's so I can slide on the ice, and then, you get down on the hack. The first thing you always do is, you clean the bottom of your rock, because there's always some kind of ice or debris underneath. And you make sure that's clean. Line yourself up with your target. You lean forward a little bit and bring it back and then, you slide out. [ BLANK_AUDIO ] You have to release the stone by this line, called the Hog Line and if you don't, Then the stone gets removed from play. Why is there sweeping? What does this, you know, what does the sweeping do? It's called curling, so the rock is going on a left to right or right to left trajectory, depending on how you throw it. And the sweeping can straighten that path out a little bit, and it can also keep the rock from slowing down. So you can actually carry the stone further. The skip is gonna yell out directions to the sweepers. So things that the skip is gonna say, either they're gonna say yes, no, sometimes hurry or hard. So in a situation like this where you have axe in the house, two reds and two yellows, you'd have one yellow that's close to all of them and that would score one point because it's out counting the red. And the red is out counting the other yellow here. So it would be one point for yellow. So if I was to skip for red and it was my shot, I'd want to make the double takeout on the yellows and hit this one here into this back one. Take them both out, roll right here, and score three points. [ MUSIC ] If I was a skip for the yellow team and it was my shot, I'd either wanna throw what's called a guard and block this off in the front of the rings or I'd wanna make a takeout on the red. 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