Life In North Korea is a TikTok account dedicated to showing the day to day life of the world's most secretive country. While the page itself is almost certainly government controlled propaganda, it is still fascinating to watch every day people go about their business. The normalcy is terrifying.
These videos show people in North Korea commuting to work on public transportation, walking with their families, and biking around cities. But even in these short curated clips, something feels very wrong. "North Korea is in the future of 1965," one comment says.
Clips like these remind us that the people of a country are victims, not perpetrators in the wrongdoings of their government. They have lives and families just like us, with wants and needs. They are you and me, had we been born into different circumstances.
And no matter how many TikToks they post, those circumstances are undoubtedly different. "You can’t even listen to this song in North Korea," one person says about a video's Calvin Harris backing track.
Every clip reveals an immediate and glaring lack of cars or other motorized vehicles, and a video designed to show the opposite only makes things look worse. "They gathered up all the cars in the country for this TikTok," one person comments. Even a video designed to show off North Korean phones features someone holding a Samsung knockoff more awkwardly than my grandparents. "Has that person ever held a cell phone before this video?" One person jokes. "Now go on Google," someone else says.
This page not only gives us a glimpse of normal North Korean citizens, but the dystopian 1984 society they live in. North Korea is home to some beautiful landscapes, and a whole population of people who deserve to live happy and fulfilled lives. It's heartbreaking to watch so many people with so much potential stifled by a prison of a country. As one comment on this video points out, "You’re right. The parts of North Korea untouched by the government are quite nice."
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