4chan prank means Justin Bieber must tour North Korea

Justin 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:

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)

Boing Boing editor/partner and tech culture journalist Xeni Jardin hosts and produces Boing Boing's in-flight TV channel on Virgin America airlines (#10 on the dial), and writes about living with breast cancer. Diagnosed in 2011. @xeni on Twitter. email: xeni@boingboing.net.

MORE: Entertainment • Funny

More at Boing Boing

Eurovision 2013: An American in London

The technology that links taxonomy and Star Trek

Anonymous

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

A Kim-Bieber duet would be epic. The two do have much in common, both purportedly resembling lesbians.

(Craig Ferguson uses Kim Jong-Il’s photo in reference to “an angry lesbian”, and then there’s this site… http://lesbianswholooklikejustinbieber.tumblr.com/ )
Anonymous

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
Antinous / Moderator

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.
Manooshi

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?
- chlitto
  
  rigged :/
  (im from Poland)
Anonymous

bad singers are a dying breed
Nom_de_Guerre

They’ve blocked North Korea in the voting screen… :S
W. James Au

Remember, Kim Jong-il, a huge film buff, kidnapped a South Korean movie star and director and forced them to make a monster movie. No shit:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2003/apr/04/artsfeatures1

So yeah, not only does Kim probably know who Justin Bieber is, but I bet he’d want him to make a movie extolling the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.
Anonymous

I’m starting to like 4chan more and more.
Anonymous

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

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’.
adwkiwi

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

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.
spejic

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.
Anonymous

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

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.
netsharc

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!
- teapot
  
  Im with you.
  
  Look at this picture from 1996 of a Lebanese baby:
  http://www.davidduke.com/writings/baby.jpg
  
  Here is the accompanying story by Robert Fisk:
  http://www.bintjbeil.com/E/occupation/robert_fisk_qana.html
  
  I think the world should be treating Israel the same as we did South Africa in the 80′s.
- Moriarty
  
  Such a law would probably be redundant, as conversations involving Israel are inevitably Godwinned anyway.
airshowfan

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.comâ€™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).
BadIdeaSociety

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.
Anonymous

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?
ThomDowting

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

“No Bieber for you!”
PushTheOtherButton

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?!
Thac0

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!
Anonymous

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

.~.
Nash Rambler

Alas, “Pit of Wolves” is not recognized as an official country.
mhlaxp

lol, internet
Anonymous

As an Israeli – thank you, 4chan!

NEVER thought I’d say this…
Anonymous

beiber if you do go there…

“please don’t come back” : )
JBL

“It is not known if Kim Jong-il is a fan of Justin Bieber’s music”
Anonymous

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.
- Anonymous
  
  One hell of a BIG favour!!!!
spiderking

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

As long as he closes with “America-Fuck Yeah!” it’ll be epic.
- Anonymous
  
  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!
puff

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

Well, it gives him something to do while his mother is posing for Playboy.
- Anonymous
  
  his mom was never even asked
Anonymous

Now now, the Canadian government has apologised for Justin Bieber on several occasions
Antinous / Moderator

My captcha to vote for sending Biebz to NK was ‘enough eunuch’.
johnnyaction

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.
Anonymous

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

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…
Anonymous

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?
- Anonymous
  
  because its wrong btw i love justin bieber
- Anonymous
  
  The Americans are good at recognizing garbage and turning it into famous garbage
- Itsumishi
  
  Oh come on that’s not fair.
  
  Sum 41 were far worse than Nickleback and certainly came out and became famous later.
Anonymous

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.
Gordon Stark

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.
mn_camera

What is this Justin Bieber of which you speak?
querent

wow, he’s a kid. oh well.
morcheeba

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)
Anonymous

Hmmm, Canada balances the excellent actors and comedians they give the world with terrible musicians like Nickleback, this guy and Rush!
- Anonymous
  
  …Did…did you just say “Rush” was terrible?!
dhalgren

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.
- spcfgt
  
  Watched any movies or TV lately? Odds are they had a good chunk of Canadian talent in them (per capita.)
  - dhalgren
    
    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.
    - spcfgt
      
      “I’m not racist, I have a black friend!”
Xopher

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

What the fuck is up with that kid’s hair?