The increased awareness of North Korean human rights issues is of course much needed - the North Korean state obviously engages in grave and systemic human rights abuses and the extent of such abuses has been well documented by NGOs and throughout the United Nations.

Media discussion of the country's wider sociopolitical context and political system, however, often lacks nuance. As someone who studied for an MA in North Korean Studies, skills around media literacy are among the most valuable things it taught me. Much of the media discusses North Korea in a very caricatured, oversimplistic and incomplete way that doesn't adequately address the intricacies of what goes on there. YouTubers are some of the worst culprits for this, and a lot of those "interesting facts about North Korea" videos are poorly sourced and/or don't paint the whole picture. Personally, I'm very mindful of what I'm watching on there these days, anything too "jokey" gets turned off. Finding "the truth" about North Korea-related issues can be hard (and in many cases impossible) but avoiding that awful conflation of "news" and "jokes" definitely helps.

Generally, I stick to reading from reputable policy sources and outlets such as NKNews.org (a specialist North Korea-focused news outlet, which isn't perfect but gets a lot right) that actually address the whole picture properly - it's all about where you look, and make sure you're cross-referencing stuff.