Just when you thought her Olympic saga had finally drawn to a close, Australian breaker Rachael "Raygun" Gunn is back in circulation - and turning her viral infamy into a personal brand.
Riding the wave of Netflix's Untold Raygun: Breaking Badly, the 39-year-old has officially launched "Raygun Threads," a clothing and merchandise label built entirely around the kangaroo poses and polarising performance that defined her 2024 Paris Olympics appearance.
The timing is impossible to ignore: Gunn is attempting the ultimate internet pivot, converting a global meme into a commercial asset before the hype - or the horror - completely fades.
Rachel's new threads
Gunn's new venture arrives shortly after the show's release, which revisited the performance that turned her into one of the most talked-about athletes of the Games.
Her Olympic routine, which included the now-famous kangaroo-inspired movement and sprinkler, received no votes from the judges and became an internet sensation.
What followed was a barrage of memes, criticism and conspiracy theories about her qualification, some of which Gunn addressed in the documentary. She and her husband, fellow breaker Samuel Free, have denied claims that he influenced the judging process.
Now, that same public image has been turned into a brand.
From Olympic meme to marketable identity
Raygun Threads features T-shirts, hoodies, keyrings and other merchandise carrying Gunn's name and imagery associated with her Olympic persona.
The reception online has been considerably less enthusiastic than the attention Gunn received in Paris.
Comments beneath posts promoting the range have returned to the same arguments that have followed her since the Olympics. One comment said: "Your parents and husband should stop enabling you. It's kind of scary how delusional you guys are."
Another wrote: "Hey, why didn't your Netflix documentary cover you suing artists and comedians for satirical takes on your performance?", while another asked: "Who the f*** in their right mind would even consider these 'clothes', let alone paying for them?"
The comments are revealing for another reason: very few appear to be discussing the clothing.
Instead, the response repeatedly circles back to the Olympic performance, the documentary and the controversies that have accompanied Gunn since 2024. The line may be a new venture, but for many of the people commenting, the old conversation has followed it into the shop.
There is a familiar pattern in internet culture: a public blunder becomes a meme, the meme makes someone recognisable, and that recognition can eventually be turned into a personal brand.
Gunn's story fits into that cycle, although her Olympic fame was not simply the result of an accidental viral moment.
What she could not have anticipated was that her performance in Paris would become the image through which millions of people came to know her.
Academic research on self-branding helps explain what happens next.
In their 2017 paper, "Self-branding, 'micro-celebrity' and the rise of Social Media Influencers", Susie Khamis, Lawrence Ang and Raymond Welling examine how people construct distinctive public identities through social media and turn those identities into forms of commercial and cultural value.
They argue that social media has blurred the line between the individual and the brand, allowing a person's public identity itself to become a marketable asset.
In Gunn's case, that identity is particularly easy to identify. The kangaroo pose from her Olympic routine, which became one of the most widely circulated images from her performance, is now printed on Raygun Threads merchandise.
The thread count
Gunn had already trademarked her name and the kangaroo silhouette, according to the ABC's "Australian Story" investigation into the Raygun phenomenon.
The clothing line therefore takes an image that was created through an Olympic performance, amplified by memes and years of online discussion, and gives it a price tag.
"News.com.au" reported that the Raygun Threads Instagram account had attracted only 101 followers in its first 10 days (now 121 followers), while its launch video had received 26 likes.
The publication also reported criticism of the range, including the A$120 (about R1 390) price of the hoodies and the A$50 to A$60 (about R580 to R695) price range for T-shirts.
A separate report published on September 18 highlighted similar criticism of the A$120 (about R1 390) hoodie, while noting that some commenters viewed the clothing as a possible novelty purchase.
More revealing, however, is where some of the criticism is directed. Rather than discussing the clothes alone, commenters have returned to the Olympic performance and the controversy that followed it.
It shows that, for some members of the public, "Raygun" remains inseparable from the kangaroo, the memes and the Paris controversy.
For Gunn, Raygun Threads is therefore not simply a clothing launch. It is the latest attempt to give a physical form to a public identity that was forged online, where the same image can function as a joke, a controversy, a trademark and, now, a hoodie.
bernelee.vollmer@nationalmg.co.za