Short for '지켜주지 못해 미안해' ('sorry I couldn't protect you'), typically used half-jokingly or ironically toward someone caught in an unfortunate or funny predicament.
REAL-WORLD EXAMPLE
"He tripped on stage in front of the whole school — jimotmi."
LORE & ORIGIN
Origin is genuinely disputed: some trace it to a late-1990s PC통신-era H.O.T. fan-fiction titled '지켜주지 못해 미안해'; it gained major visibility as an expression of online mourning after the June 2002 incident in which an American armored vehicle killed schoolgirls Shin Hyo-sun and Sim Mi-sun; a similar phrase also appears in the 2001 film 킬러들의 수다. Most likely it has late-1990s fanfic roots and was popularized via the 2002 mourning wave.
MENTIONS OVER TIME
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