Since Sabina Altynbekova — a 17-year-old volleyball player who plays for Kazakstan's youth squad — was branded "too attractive" to play the sport earlier this month, she has become an internet fixation winning hundreds of thousands of fans.
The attention began when the local media reporting on the Asian Under-19 Championships in Taipei, who would typically only dedicate a few lines to the games, began running 10-page photo spreads on the teenager.
Altynbekova was then lambasted by her coach for being too distracting to compete. Her coach Nurlan Sadikov told Tengrin News: "It's impossible to work like this. The crowd behaves like there is only one player at the championship."
Since then, Altynbekova has become an internet sensation, with over 250,000 Instagram followers, 30,000 Twitter followers, and 200,000 Facebook fans.
As a result of the overwhelming amount of fake Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook accounts set up dedicated to her, she had to issue a comment on her Instagram clarifying what accounts were the real ones for her fans to follow.
Numerous YouTube videos of her also have been created, including one titled “Beautiful Asian Woman” that is cut to only show Sabina. It has been viewed over one million times.
International media then began asking sexist questions about whether the "babe" was "too beautiful" to play the sport.
What does that last one even mean?