Kim Jong-un Is Not A K-Pop Fan

While the rest of the world speculates about Kim Jong-un‘s recent weight loss in the odd moment they’re not glamour-blinded by the meticulously blow-dried hospital corners of the SpongeBob SquarePants-angled marmot nesting on his head, the latest complaints from the North Korean supreme leader are surprisingly not about the diarrhea tea he may or may not be using to slim down for his summer bikini figure. Kim’s latest rant instead focuses on the vexing South Korean musical import, K-Pop. My guess is that he’s envious of the singers’ glorious heads of swingy hair without a 90-degree angle in sight, but I’ve been wrong before.

via Yahoo! News:

SEOUL, South Korea — Kim Jong Un called it a “vicious cancer” corrupting young North Koreans’ “attire, hairstyles, speeches, behaviors.” His state media has warned that if left unchecked, it would make North Korea “crumble like a damp wall.”

After winning fans around the world, South Korean pop culture has entered the final frontier: North Korea, where its growing influence has prompted the leader of the totalitarian state to declare a new culture war to stop it. But even a dictator may have trouble holding back the tide.

In recent months, hardly a day has gone by without Kim or state media railing against “anti-socialist and nonsocialist” influences spreading in his country, especially South Korean movies, K-dramas and K-pop videos. As part of a panicked attempt to reassert control, Kim has ordered his government to stamp out the cultural invasion.

Who can blame Kim Jong-un for feeling his shady grip on power threatened by an influx of carefully groomed and packaged, Gen Z caterwaulers with sassy bowl haircuts? (The girl K-Pop bands are sassy minus the bowl-hair situation.) At the height of their popularity in 1966, John Lennon famously stated the Beatles were more popular than Jesus, and while this was always a messy and controversial statement, there was some truthiness to it, too.

Hair snark aside, this mess is no joke. According to The Sun:

Cultural life in North Korea is strictly dictated by the state, but young people across the country have been secretly enjoying k-pop using flash drives snuck across the border.

Now Kim has clamped down on the culture, which he believes is corrupting his country’s “attire, hairstyles, speeches, behaviours”, reports The New York Times.

In December the Communist state introduced a new law which means anyone watching or possessing South Korean entertainment can be shipped to a labour camp for 15 years.

Anyone caught smuggling music, movies or other forms of entertainment actually risks facing the death penalty. The legislation also calls for those who “speak, write or sing in South Korean style” to face two years of hard labor. But back to the pressing issue of hair, the Sun continues:

It comes after Jong-un reportedly gave mullets the chop – banning the retro hairstyle along with skinny jeans in a swipe at “Western decadence.”

North Korea recognizes 15 approved haircuts, Yahoo News reported citing an editorial by the North Korean newspaper The Rondong Sinmun.

“We must be wary of even the slightest sign of the capitalistic lifestyle and fight to get rid of them,” the official newspaper of the Central Committee of the Workers’ Party of Korea read.

Last month, a North Korean man was shot by a firing squad for illegally selling music and films, while his family was forced to watch.

I’ll end this on the less horrifying note that the real and bewilderingly unacknowledged threat to Kim’s regime is Kanye West‘s insult to former mother-in-law Kris Jenner, calling her “Kris Jong-un.” It’s no coincidence that Kris sported a K-Pop ‘do before any of these shrieking band members were even born.

Pic: YouTube/ABC News (Australia)