North Koreans grieve loss of Dear Leader (Updated!)

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gerardwhelan

i predict 1000 gifs/meme-interpretations by dark
- cdh1971
  
  I was into Dear Leader before it was kewl.
- cdh1971
  
  I think that I shall never see a boy as brave as Kim jong
  il.
  
  Hunger and thirst and fear and pain.
  
  He lived because his heart had aim!
  
  A horse, as black as night to day; a feast of God with whom
  he did stay.
  
  They slept in the sand and played in the ocean and rode over
  the island in a singular motion.
  
  And now here he sits, a hero among boys,
  
  with the love of a horse, much more than mere toys!
Mitchell Glaser

They are paid to do this: they get one grain of rice for every teardrop.
- SomeGuyNamedMark
  
  Like the paid mourners at an ancient Egyptian funeral
benher

I don’t know about you, but at our house we celebrated by eating Korean BBQ!
So long dear leader, and thanks for all the Hennessy!
igpajo

There’s just something I find kind of scary about seeing people standing in formation to grieve hysterically.
Tommy Timefishblue

Don’t be sad! He’s in a better place now (somewhere that isn’t North Korea).
http://twitter.com/fractos Adam Christie

Early trials of the Killer Joke showed only 1% effectiveness in Pyong-Yang today.
Ipo

I’ve seen 3 year olds fake crying more realistically.

What a strange, strange culture where this is seen as acceptible, even appropriate behavior.

On the other hand side, they pretty much act out what I feel when I see Egyptian government thugs beat women to pulp and breaking their rib cages by stomping on their chests.
- assassinmonk
  
  When his father died, people who did not grieve were sent to re-education camps.
inness

A sincere outpouring of emotion, as seen in U.S. evangelical churches each and every Sunday. The emotional and mental malleability of human beings is so depressing. Won’t someone, anyone, give them some candy?! Sweet, sweet candy, clearly needed.
- http://lemoutan.blogspot.com/ Lemoutan
  
  It doesn’t actually have to be sincere, in any ‘internal’ sense. It’s simply a piece of performance. Professional mourners abound in many cultures, they’re paid to do it. Some states have simply removed the payment aspect and made it a social event. Other states abandon the practice entirely, at an official level, but will tolerate it as an expected, condoned, display of public hero (or heroine) worship. Yet others will prohibit it completely – but there aren’t too many of those around.
  - Layne
    
    I had read about the same hysterics in regards to the death of Kim’s father, Kim Il Sung.
    Most NK communities have party officials and officers (who may or may not be known) that report on anyone who might seem to be less than enthusiastic about the ‘Dear Leader’, or thinking about fleeing to China or the south. You really don’t want to be reported since it typically involves persecution, forced camp internment, and a pretty lasting stain on your family’s reputation. So when the leader of your paranoid, tyrannical state dies, then you better not be the one who’s noticeably crying less than everyone else.
- Guest
  
  That is a fair observation. Evangelical sects in South Korea often demonstrate the same sort of hysteria and are too often the corrupt, miniature domains of the preacher-types that rule them (sole-ownership and tax-exempt). The fact that the current president of South Korea belongs to an evangelical sect speaks to how common this circumstance is there.
  - Petzl
    
    I’m no fan of religion, but it’s not sporting to compare forced worship of dictator with voluntary religious observance. And then further generalize it as a specific Korean ethos.
    - Guest
      
      Who said North Koreans were forced cry!? That is your opinion only and not fact. If you read up on the subject, you will find that many North Koreans are very sincere about their feelings towards their leadership even though quiet dissatisfaction is reportedly present.
      Also come to South Korea talk to some of the various church practitioners and see it for yourself then, sport. I live in Seoul and have seen plenty crazy evangelicals for myself.
      
      Here are some links that you might check as common examples of what evangelical Christianity is like here:
      
      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Nj2JTPjlgk
      http://www.economist.com/node/21532340
      http://www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_in_Korea#New_religions
- That guy over there
  
  Looking at brainwashed North Koreans mass theatrically sobbing for fallen leader makes you shake your head don’t it? http://i.imgur.com/EN1lq.jpg
  
  (Source: http://twitter.com/prodnose/status/148704322056765441 )
kP

This is much more fulfilling than the usual 2 minutes of hate, and we get to go outside, too! And besides, we won’t be sad for too long, I mean, how could we, in this utopia?
inness

The ones bent over facepalming with sadness have the technique down pat. Maximum payout (soup) for minimal effort.
Brood-X

Their crying only because they’re freezing their asses off.
- SomeGuyNamedMark
  
  They are crying because they know the sh*t is going to hit the fan now. You rarely get nice smooth transitions in dictatorships.
MrMarieBlanc

@ 00:16, sounds like the guy says “Oh mon dieu” to me, ha
- LinkMan
  
  I think that was his reaction to noticing the camera was on him and he wasn’t crying loud enough.
- KWillets
  
  He’s saying “father” in Korean. Basically the same script as a funeral, where public mourning is the norm.
Rajeev Dhar

It is kind of hard for me to watch these people crying and find humor in it. From accounts of those who have escaped, they have been conditioned their entire lived to believe he is a god on Earth. Their pain is likely very genuine.
- http://www.nathanhornby.com/ Nathan Hornby
  
  It doesn’t seem in any way genuine to me.
  - http://profiles.google.com/joshuabardwell Joshua Bardwell
    
    To what degree might that be due to different social cues in their country? Does a grief-stricken Vietnamese person look like a grief-stricken person in the country you live? (And I’m assuming with a name like Nathan Hornby that you’re not Vietnamese, so forgive me if I’m wrong.)
    - rocobo9
      
      oh please, that is not genuine emotion on display. as Ipo above stated, “I’ve seen 3 year olds fake crying more realistically.”
- HOTDAMN
  
  I think it’s really more out of fear than genuine pain. Anyone caught not grieving the dear leader would instantly be put in “prison” along with two generations worth of their families, no joke. These people aren’t stupid, they’re trapped.
  - rocobo9
    
    absolutely
    
    this clip is at first humorous and then very disturbing. it shows that his legacy could be here for a lot longer yet…
- http://imcravingpresidency.tumblr.com/ SedanChair
  
  Nah, it’s just that nobody wants to be the first to stop crying.
  - Antinous / Moderator
    
    That’s what swooning is for. So that you can leave the wake and do something fun.
SomeGuyNamedMark

I suspect there was someone with a clip board checking off their names as they showed up. “Hmm, Mr Kim wasn’t here. Interesting…”
http://twitter.com/mudrummer Patrick Byrne

Those are the rich N Koreans.

You can tell cause they own a coat AND shoes
DMStone

The North Koreans never competed for Lord Stanley’s cup. Perhaps the headline is referencing the mourning of its theft in the 70′s.
- Richard Dagenais
  
  OH SNAP
http://twitter.com/Skyhawk1 skyhawk1

Get ready for the N. Korea Civil War.
http://twitter.com/randomhuman random

Failure to demonstrate sufficient grief at the passing of Dear Leader is probably a capital offence there.
http://www.mynameisjay.com/ Jay

Close your eyes and listen to it. Sounds like a room filled with turkeys.
- http://twitter.com/chris_may_ chris may
  
  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0TqrDd_GAgw
  Sounds like a turkey dictator died, almost. ;) Mix this with Mike B’s 2001 clip below and it’s not far off.
Chris Merkel

Yet, in that outpouring of spontaneous grief, they manage to make such well spaced and orderly lines.
Mike Baker

I thought much of it sounded like this: http://youtu.be/GPKg2c_bRCs?t=2m50s
Andy Simmons

I must have missed something. Did they just finally get the final season of Lost over there?
emojk

It’s so genuine it affected a lot of other people, too: genuinereactions.tumblr.com
BDiamond

Close order fawning about. “Cry two three four! Sob two three four!”
Brainspore

Dang, they even weep in choreographed unison. If the country doesn’t manage a peaceful transition of power they’ll be the only place on earth overrun by rioters who never break formation.
franko

NEEDZ MOAR TEERZ!
Craig McLean

Oh how we laugh at the suppressed and corralled.. Those with a gun to their heads are judged here for making laughable TV, while scant comment is passed on how much more real are our TV debates, our press releases, and our faux grief (at the passing of British princesses?)

This kind of back-slapping, self-congratulatory dick waving is beneath boingboing. Or at least, it should be.
- Brainspore
  
  Those with a gun to their heads are judged here for making laughable TV, while scant comment is passed on how much more real are our TV debates…
  
  I’m not sure where you’re writing from but mocking TV debates is a national pastime in the U.S.. In fact they’re the main reason Saturday Night Live tends to produce a few minutes of funny material every four years or so.
bargainoutlet

Poor brainwashed citizens of N. Korea. Their undeserved affection is almost akin to Stockholm Syndrome.
Rich Keller

The Three Minute Sob is the new Two Minute Hate.
- Mitchell Glaser
  
  I had to look it up. The Wikipedia article on Two Minute Hate is fascinating.
oldjove

If you were in their place, wouldn’t you take the opportunity to have a good cry?
Navin_Johnson

Sad John Boehner (and friends) approve.

http://boingboing.net/2011/01/06/sad-don-draper-meets.html
http://twitter.com/nesnora nesnora

More propaganda, as always. Not that it’s all fake, based on what they’re educated to believe. It’s a level of brain-washing we can’t comprehend in our world.

I suggest reading “The Cleanest Race” by B.R. Myers— he got his PhD in North Korean Studies in Germany (who knew there was a degree program for this), and has been to NK quite a bit.
tristian o’brien

he was sooo lonely http://youtu.be/6z8iKVayOKk
thequickbrownfox

Remember the Solzhenitsyn anecdote?Secret police ready to arrest the first person who STOPS crying.
thezarray

Here’s a video I made (currently uploading). I can’t tell if I’m jaded or just a bad person at heart. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cud8sWhBG_8
- Brainspore
  
  You, sir or madam, are one sick little Monkee. Nicely played.
  - thezarray
    
    I think I’ll need a lot of booze and opiates but I was thinking of cutting one to something terrible like Creed, Winger, or (shudder) Nickleback. Ok not the last one that’s TOO terrible for me
http://www.commodorecrush.com/ Commodore Crush

Laugh tracks make everything better: http://blog.commodorecrush.com/index.php/2011/12/north-koreans-laughing-hysterically-over-the-death-of-kim-jong-il/
bkeybox

Reminds me of the first monolith scene in 2001: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ML1OZCHixR0&t=2m24s
schadenfreudisch

i do believe there is genuine emotion there. just not sure what it is. i also find it interesting that the mourners never touch each other. no hugs. no comforting hand on a shoulder. i was hugging everyone on 9/12/01. cultural, or someone just forgot to put it in the instructions?

… this “comment” sat on my screen for two days because i didn’t see the the “post” button. PRK plot?