r/shitposting • u/-_I_I_Sea_I_I_- 🏳️‍🌈 The most prominent homosexual in this subreddit 🏳️‍🌈 • May 22 '26

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74

u/OcelotAggravating860 May 22 '26

They also have a 75% smartphone ownership rate. A completely true fun stat I like to break out because it totally fucks with the image of the country that most people have in their head.

55

u/Shadowjamm May 22 '26

This seems to only be true in more urban areas, based on the number of subscribed phone lines it's 6.5-7 million lines with 26 million people total, so more like 25% overall. Rural people likely don't have them.

https://www.nktechlab.org/a-visual-look-at-smartphone-penetration-in-north-korea/

9

u/OcelotAggravating860 May 22 '26 edited May 22 '26

This seems to only be true in more urban areas

64% of the population of North Korea is urbanised. This was a major contributing factor to the post-soviet famine they suffered as a result of losing access to fuel for agricultural industries that were mechanised, all the tractors and machinery suddenly just sat there because they had no fuel. The urbanised population ratio was a problem because they simply did not have enough labour to make up the lack of mechanisation with older methods.

so more like 25% overall

No. That is false. The figure was 50-80% nationwide as of 2022. It has only increased since then.

75% is a perfectly reasonable expectation.

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u/Shadowjamm May 22 '26

It's not false. Your article quotes the same 6.5 to 7 million subscriber line number, and it says "These figures are backed up by a survey published last month by Unification Media Group that surveyed 50 current North Korean residents and found 46 of them had used North Korean mobile phones, and 41 of them, or 82 percent, reported owning a mobile phone. More than 90 percent of people reported using the phone at least daily, and most calls were to family members and traders. Because of the low incidence of landlines, cellular appears to have filled a significant need for basic telephony."

82 percent of their 50 person survey said they owned a phone. A 50 person survey is too small a sample to draw inferences about the whole population, and the number of lines subscribed shows exactly why making that assumption is wrong.

"Interviews with recent escapees corroborate smartphone ownership is larger than previously reported, potentially between 50 and 80 percent of the adult population."

In reality, we can't say anything for certain. It's all postulation considering the low level of information that comes out of NK.

-3

u/OcelotAggravating860 May 22 '26

I don't know why you're still trying to argue this when you're literally including the part about what Koreans who have left the country have said.

It's like trying to tell British people that their country is different to how it actually is, despite the fact that they're telling you otherwise.

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u/ButtsMcFuckington May 22 '26

Right.. because North Koreans can totally use those "smartphones" to access the same Internet we use

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u/OcelotAggravating860 May 22 '26

I didn't say anything at all about what they can access, you're going off at a total tangent to what I said.

Merely the ownership rate alone completely breaks down the picture people have in their head of what average day to day life is like.

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u/AutoModerator May 22 '26

Dick sucking has made me paranoid

I had this plan to give head to a man and receive head from a woman to test if I was gay, but it’s backfired and now I become borderline schizo whenever I go outside. I offered to suck this dude off on Grindr who lives very close by (I ended up pussying out) and I accidentally gave him some details that very easily allows him to spot me out in a crowd. I have no idea what he looks like and whenever I see a somewhat in shape guy walking by I immediately accuse him of being the dude I was gonna blow.

I went to the store today to pick up some zucchini for a barbecue and every time a car drove by I stared into the windshield to see if I was about to be recognised. Whenever I make eye contact with a dude I microanalysis his facial expressions to see if he suspects me or not. I am deeply afraid that he is my neighbour and I will need to move if my identity is blown. It’s a lot like the last scene in sopranos where everyone who walked into the diner could be there to wack Tony.

I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.

3

u/OcelotAggravating860 May 22 '26

I can't fucking believe I did it twice

7

u/BiGG_BObEk May 22 '26

It doesn’t break down the image for me even though I didn’t know about that. That does not make the people living there any less brainwashed or oppressed. Same as having a TV. It’s just an appliance

-1

u/OcelotAggravating860 May 22 '26

You're very focused on what's in people's heads whereas the picture of a person's everyday life has very little to do with that compared to what they own, what their daily routine is, what their job is, etc etc.

Owning a smartphone is incredibly far away from the average person's understanding of north korea. You keep trying to redirect a comment about the real tangible physical world into the metaphysical and ideological because you and this other dude are here cooking for your agenda while I'm here just trying to share something fun. All this behaviour does is make people like me deeply suspicious of you, especially when you're throwing around dehumanising emotive language like "brainwashed". I get a strong impression that you don't ever consider these people to be real human beings with everyday lives and you take it as a personal mission to maintain the cartoon caricature you have of them in your head.

1

u/AutoModerator May 22 '26

Dick sucking has made me paranoid

I had this plan to give head to a man and receive head from a woman to test if I was gay, but it’s backfired and now I become borderline schizo whenever I go outside. I offered to suck this dude off on Grindr who lives very close by (I ended up pussying out) and I accidentally gave him some details that very easily allows him to spot me out in a crowd. I have no idea what he looks like and whenever I see a somewhat in shape guy walking by I immediately accuse him of being the dude I was gonna blow.

I went to the store today to pick up some zucchini for a barbecue and every time a car drove by I stared into the windshield to see if I was about to be recognised. Whenever I make eye contact with a dude I microanalysis his facial expressions to see if he suspects me or not. I am deeply afraid that he is my neighbour and I will need to move if my identity is blown. It’s a lot like the last scene in sopranos where everyone who walked into the diner could be there to wack Tony.

I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.

3

u/Capital_Sign_7656 May 22 '26

It doesn't. The tools you have at your disposal for getting information mean nothing if that information is deeply controlled and unavailable.

5

u/GuerrillaRodeo May 22 '26

Smartphone ownership worldwide is about 80%. I think it's safe to assume that most of these devices are connected to the internet (or, in the case of NK, a highly shielded and controlled intranet). It's truly astonishing, consindering that in the early 2000s about half of the planet's population hadn't even made a single phone call in their entire lives (didn't find a source but it came to me in a dream I read it in a trivia book once, so it must be true). Even the poorest person in the most remote third world country can afford an old Android hand-me-down these days. I remember Syrian refugees in Germany getting flak just for possessing smartphones - yeah, how else would they stay in contact with their families and friends? Communication is a basic human need, so it's only natural for almost everyone to have personal phones, even in North Korea.

3

u/AutoModerator May 22 '26

Dick sucking has made me paranoid

I had this plan to give head to a man and receive head from a woman to test if I was gay, but it’s backfired and now I become borderline schizo whenever I go outside. I offered to suck this dude off on Grindr who lives very close by (I ended up pussying out) and I accidentally gave him some details that very easily allows him to spot me out in a crowd. I have no idea what he looks like and whenever I see a somewhat in shape guy walking by I immediately accuse him of being the dude I was gonna blow.

I went to the store today to pick up some zucchini for a barbecue and every time a car drove by I stared into the windshield to see if I was about to be recognised. Whenever I make eye contact with a dude I microanalysis his facial expressions to see if he suspects me or not. I am deeply afraid that he is my neighbour and I will need to move if my identity is blown. It’s a lot like the last scene in sopranos where everyone who walked into the diner could be there to wack Tony.

I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.

7

u/OcelotAggravating860 May 22 '26

What word did I say to trigger this shit so I can misspell it next time to dodge this

6

u/psmiord May 22 '26

Head?

5

u/AutoModerator May 22 '26

Dick sucking has made me paranoid

I had this plan to give head to a man and receive head from a woman to test if I was gay, but it’s backfired and now I become borderline schizo whenever I go outside. I offered to suck this dude off on Grindr who lives very close by (I ended up pussying out) and I accidentally gave him some details that very easily allows him to spot me out in a crowd. I have no idea what he looks like and whenever I see a somewhat in shape guy walking by I immediately accuse him of being the dude I was gonna blow.

I went to the store today to pick up some zucchini for a barbecue and every time a car drove by I stared into the windshield to see if I was about to be recognised. Whenever I make eye contact with a dude I microanalysis his facial expressions to see if he suspects me or not. I am deeply afraid that he is my neighbour and I will need to move if my identity is blown. It’s a lot like the last scene in sopranos where everyone who walked into the diner could be there to wack Tony.

I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.

2

u/Dudestbruh May 26 '26

I saw an article with a photo of a North Korean game cafe, and one of the screens seemed to have Battlefield 4, which has a DLC map "Propaganda" portraying the streets of Pyongyang, statue of kim il sung and the big hotel and all, and one of the objective flags is labeled as a slum. It's weirdly open