Olivia Dunne is not the most talented gymnast out there, nor is she the most iconic representative of her sport. But if you were to review the library of slow motion videos Dunne posts on TikTok, especially those featuring her performing backflips and handsprings on the beach (“beachnastics,” she calls it), you’d probably understand why the 20-year-old New Jersey native is, by certain metrics anyway, the biggest thing going in American gymnastics.
Dunne has an Instagram following of 3.7m, more than Derek Jeter, Cher or the reigning all-round Olympic gymnastic champion, Sunisa Lee. On TikTok, 7.2m accounts follow Dunne – millions more than Beyoncé. Some of the pictures and videos involve gymnastics. But Dunne, who has long blond hair, a heart-shaped face and kewpie doll features, has mastered the art of posting sports-agnostic selfies that send her fans into a tizzy. Occasionally she wears a leotard, but mostly she dons croptops, minidresses, angel wings.
Her captions are coy, her poses saucy. The posts inspire comments that rain down like an endless waterfall. “Wife?” “Stunning.” “Cookie?” “Cookie???” “I’d sell my kidney and my liver just to meet you.” (“I’d like to meet you with ur kidney and liver still inside you,” came Dunne’s reply.)
Dunne took up gymnastics at age three and bounded through an impressive slate of state, regional and national competitions. She spent her childhood summers at rigorous training camps, giving up the sleepaway camp and bonfire opportunities that her classmates enjoyed. While she was polishing her beam, bar and floor routines, she also honed her social media savvy. (Dunne has had an Instagram account since she was 10, or for half of her years on Earth.)
She attends Louisiana State University on a full athletic scholarship. A leg injury kept her from competing with the Tigers in 2023 until her return this past weekend. But Dunne’s erratic competition schedule has not interfered with her being the highest-paid female college athlete in the US: she is worth an estimated $2.3m and has said that she pulls in seven figures in endorsement deals a year. No wonder: according to industry analyst On3, a single social media post by Dunne is worth $31,000.
Depending on who you ask, the frenzy for Dunne has had either a catalyzing or toxic effect on the culture of gymnastics. Her fans, mostly white, teenage males – kids who don’t self-identify as gymnastics specialists by any stretch – have gatecrashed a subculture that has long purported to celebrate a milk-fed version of childhood. This new wave of fans, under the influence of social media, have come up with new things to fetishize.
When Dunne attends a practice, it makes tabloid headlines. When she shows up at meets, so do droves of boys, armed with lifesize Dunne cutouts and an unstinting enthusiasm that many see as menacing. Former Olympic gymnast turned sports broadcaster Samantha Peszek was at a recent Utah meet where droves of Dunne admirers congregated behind barricades outside the arena, screaming: “Give us Livvy! We want her!” Peszek posted a video of the scene on Twitter, commenting: “This is actually so scary and disturbing and cringey.” Dunne’s coach called the scene “moblike” and beefed up the team’s security measures as a result.
For her part, Dunne posted a tweet that simultaneously flattered her fans and urged them to chill out: “I will always appreciate and love the support from you guys, but if you come to a meet, I want to ask you to please be respectful of the other gymnasts and the gymnastics community as we are just doing our job <3”
Perhaps the most extraordinary facet of the Olivia Dunne story, though, isn’t her ability to make a stir, but her ability to do so without sharing much at all. She has managed to be super-famous yet unknowable, leapfrogging over the traditional and somewhat embarrassing stage of a rising athlete’s career where one, say, writes an inspiring picture book for children or teams up with mainstream media to help tell her story (according to representatives, Dunne was unable to speak with the Guardian).
No matter how many hours you spend scrolling through the star’s online content, you will most likely remain fuzzy on her politics and passions. You may notice that she is a fan of the self-help book The Secret, and she regularly retweets its gnomic maxims (for example: “Thoughts become things,” “Something magnificent is coming to you today!”) Instead of establishing a layered narrative, Dunne has created a vibe, one whose influences feel more Calabasas than squeaky clean.
And it’s paid off. Dunne has worked with Vuori, American Eagle Outfitters, and a plant-based supplement company called PlantFuel. An autographed trading card with her likeness retails for $89. An Instagram account called @livvys.husband, featuring a fictional dream hunk who brags about climbing Mount Everest and surviving shark bites may seem like a clever parody with something to say about the youth and fame ecosystem. Its creator, however, purports to be a 17-year-old boy in Massachusetts who is “just trying to get noticed by her and maybe get a follow.” (#livvydunnepleasenoticeme is a popular TikTok hashtag.)
Despite the debatable intentions of some of her followers, Dunne knows they help keep the money flowing in. She frequently engages with her fans – posing for selfies or replying to their comments – and does not seem to tire of doing so. She told basketball stars Haley and Hanna Cavinder, two other college stars who have made a fortune away from their athletic careers and the hosts of the Twin Talk podcast, that she is taking courses in marketing to round out her undergraduate degree in interdisciplinary studies. And after college, in another year or so, Dunne said she can imagine herself moving “somewhere near the beach” – all the better to revive the #beachnastics.
The 2021 passage of new rules allowing college athletes to sign name, image and likeness deals, has ushered in a generation of stars who are cultivating online personae that eclipse their profiles as athletes. “This is a step back,” Tara VanDerveer, the Stanford women’s basketball coach, told the New York Times about some of the sexy social media content that is being created by female college athletes.
Is it, though? The fantasy that Dunne has cultivated is by no means quirky or even refreshing. She’s cute, she’s sexy, she’s down to whatever … we get it. But for Dunne, a basic online persona is also a platinum parachute, one capable of delivering her far away from a sport that is blighted with sexual abuse scandals and that has a long history of fortifying impossible ideals.
Gymnastics, a sport where there’s an ocean of difference between a score of a 9.8 and a 9.7, has always been about chasing perfection. At its highest level, gymnastics asks its most promising athletes to give everything – exposure to injuries, truncated childhoods and slapdash educations be damned. The best possible outcome is to avoid fractured bones and predatory coaches, collect a bucket of medals, and retire before most of your childhood classmates have even embarked on their professional careers.
Dunne is focused on sticking a new kind of landing. She is leveraging her hard-won popularity and repurposing her very self into the main event.
