SOUTH KOREA — Striking up a conversation with unfamiliar faces, even in social settings, may be daunting for many people. So why not break the ice with a flattering photograph of yourself instead?

A trend that has supposedly taken off in South Korea has strangers using the "airdrop" function of their Apple iPhones to mass-send pictures of themselves to strangers at the bar, in the hope of attracting a potential date.

A TikTok video posted last Thursday (Nov 9) by Ms Stephanie Ahn — a South Korean content creator based in Toronto, Canada — details her discovery and thoughts on the supposed phenomenon.

She says at the start of the video: “I just found out the number one way people in Korea are meeting their potential partners and it’s absolutely insane.” 

She explains that “apparently”, South Koreans looking for a partner would visit bars and use the "airdrop" function to send photographs of themselves to others who also had the airdrop function enabled on their phones. 

They would then wait to be approached if they had piqued someone's interest.  

Ms Ahn claims that the method would "work" because there are special bars in South Korea for strangers to get acquainted. 

“But I feel like in North America, it’s just way too unsafe. There (are) so many creeps. So this would just never work,” Ms Ahn adds. 

She ends the video by encouraging viewers who are looking for a Korean boyfriend to try this method.

As of Tuesday (Nov 14) afternoon, Ms Ahn’s video had gone viral, having attracted more than 420,000 views, 23,600 likes and 340 comments.

However, many TikTok users were quick to question the authenticity of the supposed trend.

One wrote: “Nope. Lived in Korea for 29 years and never heard of this method.”

Another echoed: “Lived in Korea the past few years. Never heard of this, but there are jokes about doing this. Are you sure you’re not confused?”

One viewer further questioned: “Where do you even get (this information)? I’m 24, born and raised in Korea, Korean, and never in my life seen or heard anyone doing that.” To this, Ms Ahn replied that she had heard about the trend from an episode of the popular South Korean variety show Running Man.

Several comments on online forum site Reddit similarly called out Ms Ahn for her seemingly baseless claim that this was the “number one” dating trend in South Korea. 

Other users were more fixated on her generalisation of men in North America.

The top comment asked: “Soooo Korean guys are not creeps, only American guys are?”

One TikTok user said: “Nah, I live in Korea and it’s full of creeps here. Young Korean guys have no mercy, with foreign girls especially.”

Another South Korean content creator named “annabellejoy11” posted a video last Thursday responding to Ms Ahn’s video and sharing her own views on the dating scene in South Korea.

“So like this creator said, there is, like, this new way of meeting people where you just airdrop your photos to everyone at the bar,” she says at the start of the video. 

While “annabellejoy11” does not have any evidence backing this statement as well in her five-minute video, she delves deeper into other parts of Ms Ahn’s video, including explaining the intricacies of “hunting pochas” or “hunting bars”, where bar-goers openly seek a potential partner. 

She then addresses Ms Ahn’s comment on “creeps” in North America and says that South Korean men are “creepy” as well. 

“Every girl in Korea knows someone who’s been, like, stalked or, like, harassed,” she adds.

She also advises foreign women in South Korea against taking part in the airdropping trend, stating that they may be easily taken advantage of by a “certain population” of people there due to vulnerability and a lack of connections.

“I personally wouldn’t do anything that, like, openly invites any of (these things) to happen.”