Team Member: Angela Liu
“looking at a red ribbon”
“looking at fossils”
“looking at a workbench”
Who is Kim Jong Un?
Kim Jong Un is the current supreme leader of North Korea and
the youngest son of Kim Jong Il. There is little information about the personal
life of Kim Jong Un, but his birthdate is believed to be either in 1983 or
1984. He was seen as the heir apparent from late 2010 on, and was formally
declared the supreme leader after the funeral for his father, Kim Jong Il, on
December 28th, 2011. Prior to 2010, Kim Jong Un’s eldest brother Kim
Jong –nam had been the favorite to succeed their father, but quickly fell out
of favor in 2001 when he was caught using a fake passport to attempt to enter
Tokyo, Japan to visit Disneyland. Kim Jong Un has been described to be exactly
like his father, while his elder brother was said to be too feminine for the
role. Under these circumstances, Kim Jong Un became the apparent favorite of
their father. Since the succession, Kim Jong Un has been featured widely in
North Korean publications as a great and powerful leader. There are currently
reports that Kim Jong Un is continuing his father’s policies in operating
political prison camps and general human rights violations. However, there have
been rumors that Kim Jong Un has loosened his grip in the strictness of
censorship.
Kim Jong Un Looking
at Things
Kim Jong Un Looking at Things first launched on December 18th
2012 as a parody of the original blog Kim Jong Il Looking at Things, which
launched in October 2010. Most of the photographs used in the blog are taken
off of propaganda photos issued by the North Korean press to bring greater
presence of Kim Jong Un into North Korean society after his succession. The
photos were originally meant to showcase how great and powerful he is.
According to Google Trends, the first appearance of searches for Kim Jong Un
Looking at Things took place in early 2011, though the searches were quite
small. The number of searches shot up to its peak in late 2011 to early 2012
and declined since then, with a few spikes in searches in late 2012. The vast
majority of the searches were done in the United States (including Alaska),
Germany, and the United Kingdom, with the highest number of searches coming
from Germany. The popularity and prevalence of the meme and sudden interest in
early 2012 is most likely due to the launch date of the blog in conjunction to
the death of Kim Jong Il and subsequent succession by Kim Jong Un. This
critical time frame provided the most material in terms of photos released by
the North Korean press. The decreasing interest in the meme was most likely due
to a decline in exposure from the North Korean press as more time passed after
the succession and the novelty started to wear off. The slight rises in search
throughout late 2012 and early 2013 is most likely caused by international news
regarding North Korea (which links to Kim Jong Un) in the popular media; one
such example is the current nuclear missile threat made by the North Korean
government towards the United States, accounting for the increased interest in
early 2013.
“looking at children’s socks”
The Origin – Kim Jong
Il Looking at Things
The meme Kim Jong Un Looking at Things came about as a
parody of Kim Jong Il Looking at Things, which launched on October 28th,
2010 on Tumblr. The blog had received attention and traction from a Reddit
thread featuring it, though the thread itself only received a few dozen
upvotes. A second thread featuring the blog was posted on December 2nd,
2010 and received over 2000 upvotes. Soon after, major mainstream media outlets
picked up on the blog and contributed to the rapid spread to other news sites
and humor blogs. The photos that stocked the blog came about from a North
Korean propaganda campaign to promote his public image. The height of searches
for Kim Jong Il Looking at Things was at the same time that the Reddit posts
came out featuring the blog. Kim Jong Un
Looking at Things had surfaced mere hours after the official announcement of
Kim Jong Il’s death.
The Spin-offs –
Hungry Kim Jong Un
A day after the launch of Kim Jong Un Looking at Things, a
redditor submitted a photo of Kim Jong Un pointing at something with the
caption “Ok so…can I eat this?” onto the Funny subreddit. On the same day, a
quickmeme was established for Hungry Kim Jong Un, and as of November 2012, it
has over 220 submissions. A few days after the first Reddit post, a Tumblr blog
entitled Kim Jong Un is Hungry was launched, using similar photos of Kim Jong
Un with food related subtitles.
The Spin-Offs – 2012
Person of the Year Campaign
On November 26th, 2012 4chan users on the random
message board began to organize a way to make Kim Jong Un the number one voted
person in Time Magazine’s annual Person of the Year event. Over the next few
hours, multiple message boards posted the link for the voting event and got
people to vote for Kim Jong Un en masse. The campaign was also related to a
second campaign with the name #OpFuckMorsy to take down Egyptian President
Mohamed Morsi as the top voted person of the year. The Kim Jong Un campaign
gained traction as it was posted in threads on multiple sites including
BetaBeat and Reddit. The campaign was a success as Kim Jong Un raked in over 3
million votes as compared to the second place Mohamed Morsi with just under
400,000 votes.
The Spin-Offs – Sexiest
Man Alive
On November 4th, 2012 The Onion (a satirical news
outlet) posted an article naming Kim Jong Un as the Sexiest Man Alive for the
2012 calendar year. A few days later, the Korean Times published an article on
The Onion piece, but left out the fact that the piece was meant to be
satirical. A few days later, a Chinese newspaper (People’s Daily) published a
story on the Onion piece complete with a slideshow deck of the North Korean
leader. The Chinese story was then featured on prominent news outlets throughout
the world such as the Los Angeles Times, BBC News, and others. The internet
community picked up on the article and had multiple threads posted, and began
to label Kim Jong Un as the Sexiest Man Alive as a parody, often accompanied by
photos of him released by North Korean media.
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