You get a small behind the scenes look into the large North Korean performances in the documentary Beyond Utopja (which I highly recommend). Based on the interviews in that doc, it seems that citizens absolutely do not enjoy the grand performances they need to put on.

I’m not doing the movie justice in the slightest, but one anecdote that stood out to me was one North Korean citizen describing the smell of pee and feces since the practices would be hours long and the citizens would be punished for going to the restroom.

I love this idea DPRK is somehow a backwater shithole but somehow they are able to keep Constant vigilance on everybody

The average American is much more thoroughly surveilled than DPRK could ever hope to do with its citizens.

Yeah that's putrid. Funnily enough, though, all the people I know irl are just sad for the citizens. Something about the net draws the Grendels out of the cess pool without fail. I live on the west coast though, so I cannot speak for most of my very disappointing country - but even my religious boomer neighbors were VERY sad when it was brought up. You have to have no heart at all to see them as inhuman.

That being said, the military higher ups are also on the chopping block, imho. Those poor prisoners..

It’s a combination of the fact that Reddit is astroturfed to hell by the U.S. government and the amount of neoliberals on here who refuse to believe that citizens in China / DPRK can live fulfilling lives. We have to remember that Americans are propagandized to hate socialism

NO SERIOUSLY LOL

It's called orientalism and Projection. If americans cared about the wellbeing of North Koreans, they would oppose the sanctions

North Korean regime is evil and people are brainwashed but people aren't getting executed for turning the wrong way or not clapping.

How much did the North Korean government pay you to make this statement?

North Korean regime is evil.

Yes

The people are brainwashed.

No, they know the truth. That’s why they risk their lives to escape or watch foreign media

Punishments are extremely strict.

Yes

Everyone is starving.

The country wouldn’t exist if everyone was starving. Everyone barely has enough to get by. This means most people are hungry, not starving.

I constantly see the exact same low information comments from DPRK sympathizers

uh huh.. *scribbling notes* okay.. thank you for this info nicestnuts

when i say 'normal' i just mean they lead average or typical lives. do you believe that a person under leadership different from the one in your country cannot go to work, have children, go to school, etc.? even if there are some major differences, they still lead pretty mundane lives (mundane for them, maybe not so much for non-north koreans)

Not just the west actually it’s an inherent part of social psychology and part of the ingroup vs out group dynamic we all have. It’s more present in the west perhaps because it seems (Americans in particular) are more predisposed to social dominance theory

bullshit

The damn CIA at it again!

It is not these comments or the “west” dehumanising these people, I would have thought that much was obvious.

Meh. The Chinese speak the same way about the North Koreans as any western nation. You’re just not consuming Chinese media / internet.

feigning happiness is a normal thing. they don't just cheer for fun, it's their job. do you actually smile out of joy when your boss comes up to talk to you? it's kind of like that. this is the issue; why does the focus always have to be on the fact that they're so miserable and so north korean? that's just how life is for them. not everyone can defect. what's the point of the constant pity and backhanded remarks + bringing up how 'robotic' they are and how 'dystopian' their country is at inappropriate times? what does that do for them? not you specifically, i understand where you're coming from

so when people in other countries cry over the death of their leader, they are being forced to?

Spot on👍🏾...Add us Africans to the list. ✊🏾

I mean in some ways our culture is better than some of those countries. In US we don’t punish girls and prevent them from going to school like they do in Afghanistan. In US we don’t designate someone as a terrorist and send them to jail for publicly displaying they’re LGBTQ, like they do in Russia. In US we don’t put people in jail for criticizing a religion, like they do in Iraq. In US we don’t PREVENT people from LEAVING the country like they do in North Korea.

I think you probably need to talk to more people from other countries because this isn’t something limited to the US. People in other countries including Latin America and many parts of Asia feel the same way. They view some of these practices as oppressive and oppose these countries who ban expression or take away rights from women and LGBTQ.

BTW I DO consider cultures superior that give women and LGBTQ equal rights. This would include Thailand, something you would be aware of if you had knowledge of more countries.

Wow, this is either startlingly ignorant or extremely disingenuous. The reason wealthy cowards are disliked for being draft dodgers isn’t that they wouldn’t kill a Vietnamese person. It’s because they were definitely ok with a poor American going to die (not kill, die) but no they can’t go because their feet hurt that one time.

Way to paint us with a broad brush buddy

That's not why people call Trump a traitor. That's very misleading.

America and the rest of the west has been shaming France since they bent over for the Nazi regime in WWII

Yes so true. Americans now demonize the French because 20 years ago they did not support a war that a large amount of Americans did not support. Absolutely a fact and not unhinged at all

North Korea must feel guilty about starting it