What Happened to Kim Jong Un?

While the last two months have certainly been chaotic due to the Coronavirus, these past few weeks have had some other interesting things occur, arguably the most significant of which has revolved around the state of North Korean Dictator, Kim Jong-un. 

Kim Jong-un is the supreme leader of North Korea, and the son and successor of Kim Jong-il. He is the third supreme leader in North Korea’s almost 80-year history as an independent country. Kim Jong-un took over North Korea in 2011 at the incredibly young age of just 28, and since then, he’s made a name for himself; unfortunately, his worldwide recognition is more infamy than anything else, as he is an extremist dictator who has been incredibly controlling and unfairly restrictive of his people’s freedoms. His impulsiveness and rashness in his decision-making have also contributed to the negative connotation that follows his name.Historically, Kim Jong-un has not been the best when it comes to managing foreign relationships. 

For these reasons, it’s easy to see why the death of such a man would have a great impact on not just North Korea, but the entire planet. So, what exactly has happened to Kim Jong-un in the past few weeks?

In mid-to-late April, uncertainty about the state of Kim Jong-un began to circulate after he allegedly skipped a public appearance at his grandfather’s birthday celebration. Fast forward a couple days later, and he still hadn’t made any major public appearances despite all of the questions and concerns surrounding his health. His extended absence and claims of heart issues   caused rumors about the condition of Kim Jong-un’s health to escalate in the media. The North Korean supreme leader has been widely known to be obese and a notorious smoker, and to top it all off, his family has a history of heart issues. So, while it would still be surprising to see a man die at the young of thirty-six, it certainly wasn’t out of the question to believe that there could be an issue with him in regards to his health. On April 25, a couple days after the initial reports of heart issues, TMZ published an article claiming that the North Korean dictator had passed away from a botched heart surgery, Despite TMZ’s questionable track record when it comes to reporting accurate news, they have had an impressive track record when it came to breaking the news of celebrity deaths quickly. They were the very first website to report the tragic death of NBA superstar Kobe Bryant. Given the North Korean government’s affinity for secrecy and propaganda, it was believable that they could be lying and keeping their leader’s death a secret to preserve their image, and make it so they didn’t look vulnerable to the rest of the world. It also didn’t help that quite a few North Korean defectors and spies were also alleging that the North Korean Supreme leader had passed, and that an official announcement of his death was imminent.

So, what happened?  

Even though I, and many others were preparing themselves for a formal death announcement, it never occured. Within the first few days of May, Kim Jong-un was captured on video attending the opening of a factory in North Korea, acting as if nothing had happened prior. In the video released by the North Korean government, the crowd was seen chanting and cheering for their leader and his return. To be quite honest, this is quite the abrupt ending to this story, as I’m sure most people keeping up with this situation assumed that Kim Jong-un was deceased, but that surprisingly did not turn out to be the case.

Despite the seemingly definitive end to this situation, some people still seem to be having their doubts in regards to what truly happened. There have been stories going around stating that Kim intentionally faked his death to expose those who were unloyal to him. This is incredibly extreme, but I wouldn't be surprised if it ended up being true. There are also those who believe that the video North Korea put out is fake, and that Kim Jong-un isn’t alive after all. The evidence for this theory stems from the fact that in the video published by the North Korean government never actually shows Kim-Jong un being videoed with the crowd, as the camera only flashed between segments of him being recorded and segments of the crowd being recorded. Given North Korea’s history with false propaganda, it’s understandable why people would think this way. Admittedly, these two theories heavily lean on the conspiracy side of things, but regardless, they’re still entertaining to look at and talk about. 

In a world where Coronavirus is at the core of seemingly everything in the media, seeing something making headlines that differentiated from that topic was refreshing, and given the actual content, very interesting. The fact that there are so many loose ends in this story keeps me checking back on it every once in a while for updates. It’s one of the first non-quarantine headlines that has interested me, and in a world where we are all feeling bored and insanely unproductive, sometimes a little bit of drama to spice things up a bit isn’t a bad thing.