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this post was submitted on 02 Sep 2025
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You could just as easily say that of any city sponsored tour of Washington DC (or, really, any major municipality with a budget for self-promotion). FFS, that's the core of Israeli Birthright trips.
The difference is that North Koreans generally didn't want any kind of tourism for decades. They were openly hostile to it in the 70s, 80s, and 90s. Modern touring of Pyongyang is a concession to deal with the huge number of foreigners desperately curious to see inside. You're not visiting because the NK government has tricked you into coming to visit. You're visiting because you're captivated by all the crazy stories you've heard from SK, Japan, and the US, and you want to evaluate them firsthand.
Coming from a country in which we are regularly told everyone in North Korea is on the verge of starving to death at any given moment, the idea that you can walk through the country and not see lines of emaciated homeless children stretching to the horizon is perception-shattering.
Naturally, the US response is to insist our propaganda is true and the Koreans are just trying to trick you into believing otherwise. Even being on the ground and staring at crowds of people living normal lives isn't enough to shake some people's convictions. And that leads the more manic folks to try and sneak off, to hassle locals, and to shake them down until they reveal the horrifying truth you've been told is just on the other side of what you've been told is a crude Potemkin display.
What really gets me is the YouTube videographiers who have to literally walk up to storefront and push on the walls to prove they're not cardboard, to sample the food to prove its not all a wax display, and to grill locals to prove they aren't actors. Even then, the comments sections are full of people shouting "Fake! Fake! Fake!"
That whole surreal stubborn disbelief - that North Korea is real and not just an elaborate Kubrick contrived sound stage - is a big part of what brings in thousands of tourists every year to see a country that's... kinda boring on any close inspection.
Wow, talk about bullshit propaganda. Yeah, go to NK and try and venture away from the “allowed” areas or take video of things you aren’t explicitly show and see what happens. NK visits are ALL propaganda.
Go to DC and try it. Tell ICE I said "Eat Shit, while they've got boots on your neck.
you mean like all those youTube videos where literally nothing happens?
The difference between a tour of DC and a tour of Pyongyang is that you are allowed to just leave the city and go where ever you want in the US, so long as access isn't restricted because it's a literal military base. Thing's aren't great everywhere in the US, just as with every country, but at least the US doesn't have a state censorship machine preventing people from talking about the less well off people (well, not yet anyway).
Tell that to the DC paramilitary currently snatching people off the streets.
:-|
"I have to admit, I'm always so impressed by Soviet propaganda. You really know how to get people worked up," the CIA agent says.
"Thank you," the KGB says. "We do our best but truly, it's nothing compared to American propaganda. Your people believe everything your state media tells them."
The CIA agent drops his drink in shock and disgust. "Thank you friend, but you must be confused... There's no propaganda in America."
Most countries are kinda boring on close inspection.