/ Xeni Jardin / 9:11 pm Mon Jul 5, 2010

4chan prank means Justin Bieber must tour North Korea

bieber2.jpgJustin Bieber's "My World Tour" Twitter voting contest asked fans to vote on which country he should tour next, without restriction on which countries could be included in the vote. 4chan smelled opportunity: Anonymous nominated North Korea, then the boards clickswarmed. At the time of this blog post, more than half a million votes now demand the Canadian singer go do his thing on Kim Jong Il's party train.

I can't tell what's funnier, the Bieb stunt or the Beeb's coverage:

bieber.jpg il.jpg

The contest, which ends at 1800 on 7 July, saw North Korea move from 24th to 1st place in less than two days, several thousand votes ahead of Israel.

Given the fact that almost all citizens of North Korea are denied internet access and there are restrictive controls over all media, it is unlikely that any of the votes have actually come from within the country.

A spokesman for the North Korean Embassy in London told BBC News that any application for 16-year-old Bieber to tour would be dealt with by its mission to the United Nations, although the matter would be referred to Pyongyang.

Thank you for reminding us this is serious bizness, BBC News. Anyway, if the prank's outcome really does obligate Bieber to go to North Korea—hey, fair's fair— let's just hope he stays there. Just one day left for votes, as I publish this blog post!

Also: 4chan's been busy with this guy. Ars Technica reports on a related attack that exploited a YouTube vulnerability.

(via Jodi Ettenberg)

noko.jpg

63

  2. We can treat this prank as an opportunity. North Korea gets Bieber, and in exchange…well…let’s just say we’ll owe them a big favour.

  3. Whoa. Easy with that “Canadian singer” label. He was just another YouTuber kid until your Usher decided to do whatever it is he did. Let’s not turn this into a diplomatic incident.

    1. Don’t you think sending Justin Bieber to North Korea would be a diplomatic incident in and of itself?

    1. Fuck that, let him open with that, they’ll swarm him and he will killed early on in the set.. We shouldn’t allow him to be inflicted on anybody, not even the North Koreans.. Thats just cruel!

  5. Of course, North Korea could see this as a psychological warfare attack and use it as a pretext to invade Westeastern Buttheadistan.

  6. Well, it gives him something to do while his mother is posing for Playboy.

  7. Now now, the Canadian government has apologised for Justin Bieber on several occasions

  9. Maybe Bieber and Kim Jong Il can do a duet!

    I’ve got you babe, Ebony and Ivory, Under Pressure, Up where we belong…

    The possibilities are endless.

  10. I kind of secretly pity that kid. Hopefully he didn’t break down in tears or something after viewing the poll.

    Although he is the worst thing out of Canada since Nickleback. Why do all our awful acts have to be popularized?

    1. Oh come on that’s not fair.

      Sum 41 were far worse than Nickleback and certainly came out and became famous later.

  11. Kim, just do us a solid and detain the biebs indefinitely. We’ll just forget about that whole nuke situation. South Korea, you’re on your own.

  14. The contest ends at 8am Israeli time, so it would be harder for them to pull ahead at the last hour (and it’ll be 10 pm – 1 am US time… prime 4chan hours, or so I’m told)

  15. I must be getting old. The last thing of interest that came out of Canada that I took note of was Pamela Anderson – before she became a blow-up doll.

    I should be thankful that I have no idea who Justin Bieber is so I’ll keep my mouth shut.

    1. Watched any movies or TV lately? Odds are they had a good chunk of Canadian talent in them (per capita.)

      1. From what I gather from the comments is that Beiber is lacking this so-called ‘talent’. As for TV I stopped watching television in 2000. The television I do own that I watch my old DVD’s on is an ancient SONY Trinitron that I’ve had since the mid-1980’s. And yes I do realize that THE X-FILES was filmed in Canada.

        Good for you.

        As for new movies I try to avoid them if at all possible. Unfortunately two or three times a year I find myself in the movie theater. You may be right. There might be a Canadian or two in the movie but more likely a Mexican or Chinese or Korean and maybe some random European actor since my taste in movies runs in that direction.

        I have nothing against Canada. I loved Vancouver in the early 1970’s when my parents and I would drive up during the summer from California.

  16. I didn’t think anything would put me on Justin Bieber’s side. Having 4chan go after him does it, though. Poor kid.

  18. In related news, Toy Story 3 is now the 6th greatest film of all time on IMDb’s Top 250 list. Please, please, please let it be a prank.

  19. Haha! Way to go 4chan. Btw- don’t you think the other top 3 countries were rigged as well? Or are Israel, Poland, and Turkey really Beiber-nations?

  22. Who lets the internet vote on anything anymore? Have we learned nothing from Stephen Colbert?

  23. Ah, quality BBC coverage as usual. My favourite headline from this week was Lady Gaga being the first person to hit some ridiculous number of Facebook fans. Hard-hitting stuff.

  24. So the internet has given us Bieber and the internet has given us 4chan and the internet has given us the war between them. What The Frak.

    I am so going to buy a Prince CD from a real record store tomorrow. It’s clear he’s onto something.

  25. If Bieber conquers North Korea by some near non-existent miracle, we’ll know who to blame.

  26. Misleading headline … no it doesn’t mean the blowhard has to tour the country, unfortunately. They will probably just say… “surely the votes for NK were a joke”. Oh, will that offend the Dear Leader? Do they care if they offend the Dear Leader?

    I wish they’d excluded assholic regimes, in which case Israel doesn’t have a right to be there either. Yay, what’s the Godwin equivalent of bringing Israel v. Palestina into a discussion? Because I think I just won it!

    1. Such a law would probably be redundant, as conversations involving Israel are inevitably Godwinned anyway.

  27. It would have been more amusing if they had coordinated the votes to send Justin Bieber to Palestine. You’d end up sending Bieber to a dangerous place and break the heart of the number 2 country’s Beiber fans at the same time.

  28. N. Korea has a 7,000 vote lead over Israel. So who’s going to take home the prize, the Bieb Dweebs, or the Bieb Heebs?!

  29. I did my part and voted. I hope all the people at boingboing will do so too. Its time to infect the DPRK with Bieber Fever!

  30. israel is catching up: north korea is 6175 votes ahead now. oh, the gory recount.

    .~.

  34. I feel sorry for the kid. In a few years he’ll just get spit out the other end by the record industry. Maybe he’ll be totally fucked up so he’ll stay in the news long after his musical career is over, but that will be even worse. Of course I’m sure his handlers are taking care of this, I wouldn’t be surprised if he doesn’t even know North Korea is in the lead here.

    My eleven year old daughter has just discovered Mr. Bieber, so the sooner his career is over the better…

  35. Bieber didn’t even know what Germany is. He almost certainly doesn’t know what N Korea or what their political atmosphere is.

  36. I think he may be limited to communist era folk songs… which might be an inspiring addition to his ouvre!

  37. In all seriousness: Who IS this Justin Bieber that I keep hearing about? Have I now become Old, since I must occasionally consult Wikipedia or KnowYourMeme to understand what them kids these days are talking about? (I’m 28).

    Also:

    This reminds me of that story that Clay Shirky likes, about how to get Web 2.0 wrong: People magazine once asked its readers to vote on the web for People.com’s Most Beautiful Person of the year, and this included a write-in option. A campaign led by a Howard Stern fan encouraged people to write in Hank The Angry Drunken Dwarf, and he won with something like 10x more votes than the runner-up (who was also a write-in).

  38. if we send justin bieber to north korea, lets trap him in there like all the other north korean people :P

  40. If Justin Bieber offer North Korea as a voting option, he must go to North Korea.

    is not 4chan fault that he must go there, is his fault for putting the option to be voted there.

    Why offer some countries as voting options if you don’t plan to go there even if they win?

  41. Quote: “…let’s just hope he stays there.”

    OMG! Are we already raining on Justin’s netride?

    It’s not his fault! Let the kid enjoy his ride
    while it lasts.

  42. Hmmm, Canada balances the excellent actors and comedians they give the world with terrible musicians like Nickleback, this guy and Rush!

  43. At the beginning Poland was voting for Israel and vice versa, but then they decided to form a treaty and vote for North Korea.
    There is a lot more people which You should be thankful to than just 4chan.
    I’m just sayin’.

  44. There’s no Palestine option? Guess the Palestinian territories don’t count as a country.

    “No Bieber for you!”

  45. the results are in
    North Korea
    #1
    659141 votes

    Israel
    #2
    624803 votes

    Poland
    #3
    513867 votes

    Turkey
    #4
    107388 votes

    Colombia
    #5
    90094 votes

  47. Silly BoingBoing.

    Didn’t you realise that it was a fan site not an official site that ran this vote?

    This entire debacle is nothing more than free advertising for the afore mentioned ‘celebraty’

    There’s already several more of these sites setup for different famous wastes of space.

Comments are closed.