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That viral Korean selfie at the Olympics is cool, but it is basically a Samsung ad
- Footage of North Korean, South Korean, and Chinese Olympic athletes taking a selfie has gone viral online.
- This wasn’t a spur-of-the-moment decision, though, as officials lend all podium winners a Galaxy Z Flip 6 for selfies.
- Samsung sponsors the 2024 Olympics and also gifted all athletes with an Olympic-themed Galaxy Z Flip 6.
The 2024 Olympics are underway, and one moment has gone viral as North Korean, South Korean, and Chinese athletes took a selfie on the podium following their table tennis matches.
Footage of the moment has been shared thousands of times online, while a post on Reddit gained over 60,000 upvotes on the platform. However, some online posts assert that this was a spur-of-the-moment decision. One user on the Reddit post even claimed that South Korean athlete Lim Jong-hoon organized the selfie in celebration of being exempt from conscription. The comment received over 13,000 upvotes. However, the truth is that this was actually part of Samsung‘s over-arching sponsorship of the event.
Samsung confirmed on its website that the Galaxy Z Flip 6 phone is handed to podium winners at every event so they can take a group selfie:
In an Olympic Games first, medalists at Paris 2024 have been documenting their ceremonies from their own perspective as they were handed the Galaxy Z Flip6 Olympic Edition on the podium to take their Victory Selfie after receiving their Olympic medals. The selfies have been uploaded automatically and wirelessly to the Athlete365 portal so athletes can share their moments on a whole new level — perfectly aligning with Samsung’s belief that ‘Open always wins’ and that openness creates new perspectives and infinite possibilities.
If that wasn’t enough, Samsung also gave every athlete an Olympics-themed Galaxy Z Flip 6. The phone features a yellow design, an exclusive case, a two-year international warranty, 100GB of mobile data via eSIM, and a host of preloaded Olympic apps.
It’s still a cool moment, though, as it’s not every day that we see a selfie between citizens of two nations that are still technically at war. But it’s not quite as serendipitous as people have suggested.
This brings to mind another Samsung-sponsored selfie when TV show host and comedian Ellen Degeneres took a group selfie with a host of celebrities at the Oscars in 2014, using a Galaxy Note 3. The Galaxy maker sponsored that year’s Academy Awards.