Viral clip of 'average Korean woman' watching baseball game is AI, fans say

A clip purporting to show a beautiful woman in the stands at a Korean baseball game spread rapidly across global social media, but baseball fans quickly found signs that the viral footage had been generated by AI.

The five-second clip was posted on X under the title "The average Korean woman" on Saturday. 

The video showed a woman in a white off-the-shoulder top and jeans watching a game between the Hanwha Eagles and Doosan Bears.

She appeared deeply focused, biting her lip and seemingly letting out a sigh. The clip had received 14.9 million views and 28,000 likes as of Thursday. The video was also shared on Korean online communities and drew intense attention.

Baseball fans, however, soon noticed inconsistencies with the clip and pronounced it an AI-generated video.

The first clue was the on-screen graphic listing the Hanwha Eagles' Kim Seo-hyeon as the pitcher and Doosan's Cho In-sung as the batter. Cho played for the LG Twins, SK Wyverns and Hanwha Eagles and only joined the Bears as a coach.

Kim also joined the Eagles in 2023, years after Cho retired as a player in 2017 and started his coaching career.  

Fans also pointed out a banner in the video that not only sounded awkward grammatically but also didn't match the Bears' actual Korean-language slogan. Some online users went further, saying there had been no Doosan-Hanwha game that ended in the eighth inning with Doosan leading 4-3, either this year or last year.

A Reddit post was shared Monday under the title "Not an average Korean woman," featuring a screen capture of the X post with X's community note below it. 

"Forget average Korean woman, that's not even a real woman. It's an AI-generated video," the community note said.

X's community note allows users to add comments that either clarify the post or debunk it. 

Other users reacted with surprise. 

“It looks natural no matter who watches it, so I’m shocked it’s AI,” one wrote. “If it had been real, someone would have come forward saying they saw her,” another wrote.

This article was originally written in Korean and translated by a bilingual reporter with the help of generative AI tools. It was then edited by a native English-speaking editor. All AI-assisted translations are reviewed and refined by our newsroom.

BY SHIN HYE-YEON [[email protected]]