About
Kim Jong Un is the supreme leader of North Korea who assumed the position in December 2011 following the death of his father, Kim Jong-Il.
Online History
While it is widely assumed that Kim has little presence on the state-controlled and heavily censored Internet, a lot of discussions surrounding North Korea’s latest head of state began circulating in the South Korean and Western social media following the death of his father Kim Jong Il and during his subsequent rise to power in December 2012.
Kim Jong Un Looking at Things
On December 18th, a parody blog titled Kim Jong Un Looking at Things[1] launched. It was inspired by a similar blog utilizing state propaganda photos of his father, Kim Jong Il Looking At Things, which launched in October 2010. As of November 2012, the blog is still active.
Hungry Kim Jong Un
The day after Kim Jong Un Looking at Things launched, on December 19th, Redditor GunnieGraves submitted a photo to the Funny subreddit[2] depicting Kimg Jong Un pointing at something with the caption “Ok so…can I eat this?” (shown below, left). The same day, a Quickmeme[3] titled Hungry Kim Jong Un was established, with an instance (shown below, right) reaching the front page the same day. As of November 2012, it has more than 220 submissions. Four days after the first Reddit post, a single topic Tumblr titled Kim Jong Un is Hungry[4] launched, using other photos of the leader with similar food-related captions.
2012 Person of the Year Campaign
On November 26th, 2012, users on 4chan‘s /b/ (random) message board began to organize a way to fix Time Magazine’s annual Person of the Year public vote[9] so Kim Jong Un would take the top prize. Over the next 24 hours, multiple threads were posted to the forum, linking to a Pastebin[5] with a VBS script for voting as well as a downloadable Java-based program[6] to help users vote in bulk.
An IRC channel was also set up with the name #OpFuckMorsy[7], as a reference to Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi[8] who stayed in the lead of the poll throughout November 26th. Within the first day, the 4chan raid of the Time poll was featured on Betabeat[10], the Daily Dot[11]and Reddit[12], where a screenshot of one of the threads earned more than 9182 upvotes and 2148 points overall.
The Onion: Sexiest Man Alive for 2012
On November 14th, 2012, satirical news site The Onion[13] posted an article naming Kim Jong Un as the site’s Sexiest Man Alive for 2012. Five days later, Korean newspaper the Korean Times[17] published an article on the Onion story. They noted in the Korean version that the Onion article was meant to be satirical, but left that out of the English translation. On November 27th, the official newspaper for the community party of China, the People’s Daily[14], reported on the story, complete with a 55 photo slideshow of the North Korean leader.
The North Korean newspaper’s misreporting of the Onion article was featured on the Los Angeles Times[15], the Atlantic[16], the Guardian[18], BBC News[19] and Mashable.[20] A news article on the subject from the Associated Press was submitted to the World News subreddit[21]where it earned 13,686 upvotes and 2862 points overall. Following the news coverage, the Onion amended[22] their article, linking to the “exemplary reportage” provided by the People’s Daily.
Personal Life
Not much is known about Kim Jong Un’s personal life, including his birthday which may have been in either 1983 or 1984.[23] He attended boarding school in Switzerland under a fake name, where he was said to have had poor grades[25], but enjoyed skiing, the American NBA and actor Jean Claude Van Damme.[24] Kim Jong Un married a North Korean woman named Ri Sol-ju in 2009, but this information was not made public until July 2012.[26]
Search Interest
External References
[1]Tumblr – Kim Jong Un Looking at Things
[2]Reddit – Kim Jong Un looks….hungry
[3]Quickmeme –
[4]Tumblr – <a href=" />
[14]People’s Daily English – North Korea’s top leader named The Onion’s Sexiest Man Alive for 2012
[15]LA Times – Kim Jong Un ‘sexiest man,’ Onion says; China’s People’s Daily buys it
[16]the Atlantic – The Onion Convinces Actual Chinese Communists That Kim Jong-un Is Actually the Sexiest Man Alive
[17]The Korea Times – Kim Jong-un named Sexiest Man Alive for 2012
[18]The Guardian – China’s People’s Daily falls for Kim Jong-un ‘sexiest man alive’ spoof
[19]BBC News – China paper carries Onion Kim Jong-un ‘heart-throb’ spoof
[20]Mashable – Newspaper Cites ‘The Onion’ Article Naming Kim Jong-Un ‘Sexiest Man Alive’
[21]Reddit – China’s party paper falls for Onion joke about Kim Jong Un
[22]Los Angeles Times – Onion to People’s Daily: ‘Exemplary reportage’ on ‘sexiest man’
[24]Washington Post – Son Named Heir to North Korea’s Kim Studied in Switzerland, Reportedly Loves NBA
[25]The Telegraph – Kim Jong-un’s poor marks exposed
[26]BBC News – North Korea leader Kim Jong-un married to Ri Sol-ju