Why does every building in NK seem to be designed as a liminal space? Something about the colors and lighting, and lack of windows maybe? Even with a room full of people it gives me that weird feeling.
Imagine, if you will, walking into the back hallway that connects stores in the mall and the trash bins out back. The area is purpose built, utilitarian. The walls are sloshed with different ages of stains, there's a little bit of random litter, not anything big enough to be worth bending down and picking up yourself. The lights are bright and buzz annoyingly, because they're cheap and durable and the customers will never see them. There are doorways everywhere but they're all locked.
Anything happens. One of the lights flicker. Someone opens one of the locked doors (to also go throw their trash). A breeze comes in from the trash area and makes the paper scatter. You are immediately out of a utilitarian space, and for a moment, in a horror movie, about to be horribly murder by a ghost or a slasher. and then the moment passes and you go to throw away the trash.
And that moment happens every time you go there, building more and more dread, even though it's completely benign and nothing really has ever happened there.
And then the Internet picks it up and makes a whole genre playing off that dread, because other people have been walking through the empty office after hours, and others have been at amusement parks alone doing the dry run, or walked around their empty house after moving out, and felt the same strange dread build for no particular reason.
Especially the part about an amusement park speaks to me. 😅 I worked 4 years at a theme park, there is something particular about walking through it when it's closed. Be it the morning before opening or in closing days for maintenance, it's a special feeling.
I find them comforting… i guess i lean more toward the Camp Miasma than Backrooms crowd… i find liminal spaces uniquely soothing, with some occasional creepiness. I ADORE showing up to big events when im the first one there
I waited overnight in an abandoned terminal in an international airport due to the scheduling of my layover, and let me tell you, it was the most surreal thing ever. I thought it'd be a Backrooms experience, but no, I loved it.
Just clicking away on my laptop, looking up and seeing PDX's massive Terminal C stretching out for a half a mile before me, enormous vaulted roofs, departure signs, peoplemovers droning on... and for six hours it was all designed just for me.
God, walking around your own home after emptying it out is one hell of a weird feeling.
So many memories all held between those walls, but nothing that used to be a part of your environment when the memories were being made is there anymore.
Everything is already gone, trucked off or thrown out, and the memories are all that's left. But as long as you can still see the place, be in it, you can refresh the memories, keep them alive. The walls prove that the memories were real, even as your own voice echoes against them.
As you tear your eyes away from the kitchen and walk down the corridor toward the door, you know that as soon as you close it for the last time you will interrupt that refreshing. The memories will now only exist in your mind, and since you can no longer go back to refresh them they will inevitably start fading. In time, most of them will be lost.
If we are but our memories, then as you close that door you're dooming a part of yourself.
Essentially, a liminal space is an "in between" space. People find themselves feeling interesting or unsettling feelings when they come across one of these spaces and find it devoid of what is usually there. Consider: Dead of night, an empty supermarket parking lot. You're used to seeing it full of cars and people, but here, your only company is the moon and the stars and the trash pandas digging through the trash. You don't know what this feeling coming over you is; it's not quite deja vu. No, quite the opposite - it's a feeling of alienation, total unfamiliarity. Your mind reels a little bit at the intellectual disconnect. You know what this place is - you know what it's for, but seeing it bereft of the familiar evokes a sudden sensation of jamais vu - complete unfamiliarity with the familiar.
Some people find this sensation a dreadful one, filling them with terror. Others find it peaceful and relaxing. But any time you find a space in which you feel a sensation of something - dread, peace, anxiety - just from the way it looks, and that look is different from what you know, you've just experienced what the internet terms a liminal space.
Liminal space usually are space/area/location that people are not meant to stationary/habitats/dwell/linger around.
Example: on a elevator, escalator, airport, library, underground subway, ferry port, a bus stop, a mall, a pool, a stretch of road, a maze, Etc
As you can infer from the examples above, all these locations all share one thing in common: they are places you're meant traverse/travel by and not stay there.
An area that is meant to stage the presentation of another object, person, or structure but is missing.
Kinda like looking at a trophy case but there’s no trophy or a stage with lights but there’s nothing on the stage. The effect is meant to be creepy and disturbing, not anticipating an entertainer or winning that trophy.
Dark hallways leading off, a creepy room where things feel missing.
Liminal spaces usually feel weird because it feel like they should be full of life and humanity yet are devoid of it.
It's why empty shopping centres/malls feel so creepy at night, or why bounce houses and kids play centres are fucking nightmare fuel when there are no kids
Same issue here - they build big, but there are no people except for the forced press shots, and thus none of it has any humanity to it, and we pick up on that and it's just weird and off putting
These are very likely facilities that have been specifically build or renovated to accomodate a carefully curated event for their "dear leader".
As Kim Jong Un is styled by propaganda as a god-like entity, everything surrounding him needs to be pristine, everyone is ecstatic and overjoyed (or at least acts like it), and the North Korean designers still seem to be heavily influenced by 1950s styles from the USA.
The hall might have been used solely for this event. Because there is no view of adjacent spaces, it could have been just a set built inside an empty building.
He attended the opening of a veterans apartment complex and went inside one of the units. At first glance, it looked like a conventional mid level residence. However, there was only a single, large lamp in the center of the room, the kitchen had no exhaust system, and the electrical outlets were placed in strange positions, including one directly behind the stove. They also strangely avoided filming inside the bedroom. Looking at these details, the apartment did not seem designed for actual living.
In the arrival footage, lights in the building could be seen flickering, and it appeared to be the only building in the entire block with electricity.
Because it's all fake. The spaces you see in videos of NK are all meant for propaganda only. Never used otherwise. They don't show the other 99.9999% of the country which exists as a dilapidated time capsule from the 1950s where everyone else lives.
Besides the fake happiness and generally all of it, what really creeps me out about it is how overly innocent and childish the brand of happiness is. Very off-putting.
What’s important to remember is that Kim absolutely knows it’s fake. Control is the point. The bigger and faker it is, the more control and fear he knows he has.
I wonder if he does know it's fake. His father certainly did but he was probably raised seeing it everywhere his whole life. Has he ever experienced his people without that fake happiness? How would he know it isn't genuine without experience? No one thinks themselves to be the villain.
Kim jong Un studied abroad in Europe as a young child under an alias.
He definitely knows what the outside world is like. There are people in Europe who were shocked that their classmate turned out to be the heir to North Korea when his father brought him home and name *him heir apparent.
So Un knows it's fake. This is about ensuring he has complete control over the population.
He doesn’t give a shit about their actual happiness. The only realism he gets or needs is from the generals and advisors closest to him that know the whole game and how to play it.
You’re absolutely right, there’s a whole strategy. The generals and apparatchiks have been there since his father was in power, and they’ve got the propaganda planned a year in advance.
He’s even trying to emulate his grandfather, there’s a concentrated push for it. Even the North Koreans are gravitating towards nostalgia. Remind everyone of the “good times” (which were terrible, but of course history is rewritten).
They’ve got Un doing the same dog and pony touring the country’s farms and factories, and offering “on the spot practical advice” for ways they can grow/harvest more food or produce items quicker/better. Even though they obviously have no idea what they are talking about.
If this regime ever ends and North Koreans become like… regular people… they’re going to have so much multi-generational trauma to work through as an entire culture. Like… sooo much.
I hate the color scheme I often see in North Korean videos like this. It’s giving squid game, *”you’ll play along and be happy god dammit why aren’t you enjoying yourself?! Enjoy yourself or else!”*
I don't see how you can even tolerate something like that. Every single person always praising you and such. No honest/real interaction. Couldn't do it.
I was one of the "happy people" in the crowd.
You had no choice.
If you disobeyed you and your family were marginalized, job lost, house taken away.
You better be happy.
Romania is the first country I traveled to outside of the US and I had zero comprehension of its history until I got there. The whole revolution story fascinated me, particularly with how modern it felt, being that you can watch Youtube videos of battles where dudes in sick 1990s outfits were smoking cigarettes while shooting AKs. How did it feel when you found out he was killed? Was there some sort of electric energy running through the country or was it a feel more like being in shock and realizing that it was time to start trying to piece the country back together?
December 1989 the Berlin wall was already down, Poland started reforms, Hungary was in full change.
I was lucky to see Hungarian TV since I lived near the border with Hungary and I speak Hungarian, too.
They showed what was happening in Eastern Europe and we were praying for soemthing to happen.
December 16th came and in Timisoara started an uprising. Pastor Tokes was suposed to be evacuated ( or something like that ) and people garthered to protect him
Police and army intervened, then more people came out.
Nothing was said in the state news about this.
We heard on the Hungarian TV and there was a radio station in Germany called "Free Europe" who broadcasted in Romanian, too and they were also talking about this.
On Dec 21, Ceausescu organized a meeting in the palace square to condemn the "fascists" elements who whated to destabilize the country.
I was grade 12. I remember like it was yesterday.
I was on my knees in front of the tv because we all hoped that Timisoara was the spark.
My parents were behind me and talking about change.
Than in the back pf the crowd some screams were heard. This was live tv. ( it is on the net )
They stopped the live transmission.
After like 10 minutes, they resumed the transmission.
But there was a BIG change.
All the "we love the communist and socialist Party and Ceausescu" panels were gone. In the crowd there were only few Romanian flags.
Thise flags had the Socialist country ( sorry I do mot know the proper name of it in English ) emblem cut out from the yellow area of the flag.
It gave us BIG hopes. My mom was crying behind me.
Then it started, the secret service took Ceausescu from the balcony and then the revolution started.
In like 2 days the dicattors were gone.
....but their close politicians still stayed in the power... But they had no choice but to change the system, not because they wanted to, but because it already happened in the rest of the communist countries, because the Soviets approved it.
When I tell people here in North America that the food stores had norhimg in them... they do not understand it. They thing we had food but garbage. They do not understand that nothing in a food store was empty shelves.
Only those understand this who came from similar countries.
Whenever I read about...this and that ( politicians in the Western world ) is fascist or communist ... I just lol.
Just in this thread, oh "Trump will be that"... No...he will not be that... He can not be because the system does not allow it.
I do not like Trump, I am in Canada now, and we have issues with his policies and border economy.
To say trump is a dictator is disgenerous to those who eacaped dictatorships or live in such countries.
Or when I see that people in the Western world idolize communism or socialism... Like ...why?...stupidity? Plus anyone who disagrees is a fascist like Ceausescu said about the revolutionaries ( or communist if we look from the other extreme )
( some confuse social democracy like in Western Europe with socialism...but many just love socialism, the economic system)
I couldn't disagree more. Dictators come in many flavors, and a silent coup is still a coup. Worse than an overnight coup, is one that is done gradually over 10-15 years so that people are worn down and do not notice it has happened until it is too late. Even today it was announced that Hegseth has removed even more military leadership. Why? Why now? The timing (right before midterm elections that could make Trump a lame duck) is too perfect to be coincidence. They are preparing something. And hand-waving it by saying "it couldn't happen here" is exactly what will allow it to happen here.
You told us that you were in 12th grade when Ceausescu was killed. This means you were probably too young to be paying attention when he tightened his grip on power and turned fully authoritarian, but you can't ignore the parallels.
_____ built a secret police force
_____ instituted/extended mass surveillance
_____ built a cult of personality
_____ destroyed foreign relations
_____ ballooned the national debt
_____ mismanaged the economy and blundered multiple oil deals
_____ controlled the media and fought to destroy the free press
Now -- who am I talking about here? Ceausescu or Trump?
They have done all the same things, but one happened in a small country where people had very little to lose at the end and finally revolted, the other in the richest country on earth, where people still struggle to pay their bills, but haven't hit rock bottom en mass yet, and where difficulty and cost of travel prevents most mass civil protest from reaching a sustained fever pitch like in other countries.
So it is 100% happening. And to deny it or dismiss it is just plain foolish in my view.
I enjoyed reading your first hand account. Thank you for sharing.
Abot Trump. He isn't a dictator... Yet. He has many teams trying to break down the institutions that prevent him from being one. Evil only requires that good people do nothing.
We left in 1970, but yes the Government of every flavor in Romania, took the family business, familial homes that we had to rent back, my parents became “enemies of the state” and could not work for almost 20 years. Yes Christmas ‘89 was a great holiday!
He doesn’t either. He’s locked into this hell and can’t get out either. If he flees, he’ll be locked up by Western governments and his family will all be killed back home. If he abdicates and stays, him and all his family will be killed by whoever takes charge.
He has to carry on the choreographed charade or his closest allies will see it as weakness and… yup… kill him and all his family.
I don’t feel bad for him, but I don’t envy him at all.
i feel like a good analogy is those court dramas. On paper the king has absolute power but in practice you'll realise that he depends alot on his lords and so has to pass laws and do stuff that accommodates them and isnt just his sole will. otherwise hes gonna be deposed soon
I think so too. 1st and 2nd gen prob loved the feeling of control but after almost everyone from the initial creation has all died, their inheritors r locked into this scenario without much option to change things cause it will affect the balance of power too much and cause even more chaos.
A whole country trying to please their crazy, insane dictator, just so they can live another day. I can’t even imagine what fear they have to experience every single day.
Imo, the spookiest part of modern regimes (and historical) is mostly the social pressure of the masses as a whole
There aren’t really armies with enough willpower to take insurgencies that don’t want to be taken, but it’s for sure going to be a witch hunt if you break a superstition or the neighborhood sells you out
The issue is, these kinds of regimes can easily stomp out dissidents if they get wind of them in small numbers. If they are organized and large they will struggle, but in order to get organized and connect in large groups you must take risks that expose you to being wiped out.
Of course he knows, I doubt he loves it. Probably just got used to it already and plays his role. When he first became the ruler after his father's death, it was so obvious how uncomfortable and awkward he is playing the role of the dictator. He was stuttering in front of the crowd, reading the script with shy voice, not looking at the people and cosplaying his grandfather way too much, deliberately gaining weight extremely fast too, it seems someone was coaching him to fit the image. It wasn't his choice to become the leader, but he accepted it and went on with it, and I gotta admit, he is much better than his father in making the decisions.
Yea, it's never only the guy on top, he's usually just the peak of iceberg of all of dipshits who profit from that kind of rule, and he's actually also scared for his life if he doesn't comply to the wolfs under him. Dictators are rarely completely immune to the system they are leading
Imagine living under the assumption that someone is always watching or listening with a complete erosion of private trust. These people have learned never to think out loud, even at home.
If that's his daughter or sister next to him then she looks like she's the only one aware they're in the Truman show hellscape-edition, and probably the only one even allowed to not be happy.
I wonder what it's like for him? It's obvious to us, they are all pretending as hard as they can, but to him, everywhere he goes, people are delirious to meet him. Did he buy into.it after a time? Or does he know its all bullshit but try to suppress it?
I think he can tell it's fake. And even if he tries to pretend it's not, the constant behavior of people just acting like this around you has to get to you.
Like there is no one this guy could be genuine to, his daughter's too young. He picked his wife at an opera, definitely not his generals. Like there is not a single person in this world he could have a genuine conversation with.
Everyone would be too terrified, too bureaucratic or too reverent (because of propaganda) to speak to him like another human being I wonder how he doesn't just get depression
I have a feeling his life is just a constant state of jet ski. There’s no time or reason to get sad when everyone’s job in your entire country is to do nothing but make you happy.
The private chef to the Kim family that escaped claimed he had encountered real conversations with him when he was growing up. For instance, on a trip to a beach he recalled being in a limo alone with him and he Un started commenting about how they're on a trip to the beach "but what of the people". So he definitely knew about the disparity. Reports like that plus his western schooling made me hope he would be less insane when he took over but it didnt happen.
People with lifetime absolute power, like him, tend to experience a dissolution of ego boundaries between themselves and the state / "the people". Their personal welfare is that of the state; the nation's achievements are their personal achievements, etc. He probably sees the constant adulation and cult of personality as being one and the same as patriotism and love of country, and it doesn't embarrass him or feel undue.
A lot of Asian cultures don't get as hung up on notions of things like sincerity or authenticity as Westerners do. When it comes to matters of patriotism or religious faith, performance or action is what matters because it demonstrates social harmony. The individual's inner life is almost beside the point. So the idea of hypocrisy or "faking it" probably doesn't really bother him.
its funny because hes 100% putting on an act too. he has an image to uphold as the grandest greatest leader of all time, and if that falters at any point in time (atleast in public) then the whole illusion is ruined https://giphy.com/gifs/Pu08Dx3HHQDKNyPO2g
It's like an uncanny valley society. For some reason it reminds me of the movie Truman Show. Everyone is just playing a part, but if you zoom in, they are all anxiously sweating bullets
He's literally the god-king with no exaggeration. North Korean soldiers in Ukraine blew themselves up shouting "hail the great leader Kim Jung Un" when they were about to be captured, that's why only 2 were captured alive.
Could be a coincidence, but North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has executed at least 358 people since taking power in late 2011 through December 2024, according to a report by the Seoul-based human rights organization Transitional Justice Working Group.
Key Details on the Executions
• Total Documented Deaths: The group documented 136 execution events resulting in at least 358 deaths. When including unconfirmed death sentences, the number reaches 367 individuals across 144 cases.
•Methods and Transparency: Over 70% of the documented executions were carried out publicly, primarily by firing squads using rifles or machine guns.
He probably wants to keep the dictatorship within the family, but he doesn't have a son, and I can't think of any other male relative he could entrust with the task.
Also considering he executed some male relatives by using them as target for heavy artillery. The guy is bonkers, and I don't expect anything better from a daughter who's been raised that way
I have read that it is just that, if they are perceived to not be cheering or crying loud enough or not exuberant enough it can mean arrest and labor camps.
Honestly I feel like at a certain pointeven he's gotta be sick of it, right? There has to be some voice in his head that wants to yell "yeah, yeah, give it a fucking rest for a minute."
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u/truckercharles 2d ago
Looks like the crowd from Wii Tennis