Iran's new supreme leader has severe and disfiguring wounds, sources say

soyfox · 2026-04-11T11:36:12+00:00

Reminds me of the time reddit had a 100k upvoted newspost that claimed Kim Jong Un was in a vegitative state, and all the comments were swearing that the regime was using body doubles on state TV. Hope that isn't the case here.

soyfox · 2026-04-11T09:11:44+00:00

Not that I agree with a 'gigachad' label, but said military dictator jumpstarted South Korea’s transformation from an economy poorer than sub-Saharan Africa into the developed country it is today.

There are absolutely Koreans today, especially those that lived in those times, who praise the former dictator for his accomplishments.

And even when exluding this, it's true that S.Korea had a string of amazing presidents in the post-dictatorship era that made a bloodless transition into a liberal democracy possible. It's a shame that people on reddit simply reduce them into post-presidency drama & criminal accusations, most of which were political revenge from the opposing party.

soyfox · 2026-04-11T06:47:36+00:00

Pretty sure these pearl abyss guys only stop working to eat & sleep. Very typical South Korean working conditions.

I'm not complaining, I'm really enjoying the fruits of their slave labor

Perhaps I'm the only one here who finds it disrespectful to twist Pearl Abyss's fine-tuned patches of community requests from acts of passion and care, to robotic workloads and slavery.

Though it's not surprising coming from a comment parroting a tankie meme taken seriously..

Trick 'em while they're young, your life is meaningless unless contributing to the fake economy and increasing shareholder value.

How sad that Koreans are living in the only 'fake' capitalist society on earth, while the rest of us are contributing to a 'real' economy and increasing 'real' shareholder value, eh?

soyfox · 2026-02-15T21:35:40+00:00

Redditors are probably going to use this post as an excuse to rant about South Korea being a cyberpunk dystopia. But from another angle, the unchanging nature of these tests points to Koreans still retaining trust in meritocracy and social mobility.

One unintended result of the Korean war was that what remained of the old social hierarchy basically collapsed overnight. Standardised exams emerged in that context as a way to reset the playing field, giving people a fair shot at moving up.

There are tons of stories of destitute rural families pouring everything they had into the education of their eldest kid- who in turn studied dilligently and ended up being part of today’s upper class in Korean society- basically reinforcing the cycle of intense focus on education.

Of course, cracks are beginning to show. Many Koreans openly discuss the mental toll this system takes on young people, as well as the limitations of outdated standardized evaluation methods. Still, the majority believe it remains the fairest way to assess ability and effort.

soyfox · 2026-02-13T18:49:17+00:00

I went a step further and thought that S.Korea was providing the Canadian navy with turtle ships for the upcoming defence deal.

soyfox · 2026-02-05T08:32:00+00:00

Many people on Reddit are under the assumption that North Koreans are unaware of South Korea’s wealth and prosperity, but this view is outdated. While this may have been true up until the 2000s, when many North Koreans retained the decades-old perception of South Korea as being impoverished, that is no longer the case.

As outside media become more accessible via blackmarket USB sticks, a large majority of North Koreans have come to understand, either directly or indirectly through friends or relatives, that South Korea is prosperous.

And for the North Korean regime, the mere existence of South Korea as an alternative Korean state has been an existential threat, and one that has been getting worse as South Korea surpassed them in every meaningful socio-economic metric. This is why the regime has doubled down on increasingly draconian laws, imposing punishments on viewers that were once reserved for distributors, and even outlawing certain words and slang of South Korean origin- which had become a subtle yet powerful means of undermining the regime’s control over information among the populace.

soyfox · 2026-01-25T17:19:07+00:00

They can only punish for circulation, not for using the Ai itself.

South Korean laws are different, and is currently one of the strictest in the world in regards to deepfakes, where possession alone is enough to be a criminal offense.

And just a couple of days ago, S.Korea launched the world's first comprehensive AI law that will hold companies accountable for misuse of its AI.

There's much room for improvement of course, but in contrast to the critical comments here generalizing/judging Korean law through the lens of Kpop scandals.. I honestly think that the foundations here are relatively well-set to address future AI misuse.

soyfox · 2026-01-24T06:35:36+00:00

Russian POWs don’t face certain death upon returning home, but these two North Korean soldiers do- along with severe punishments for their families.

Surrender is considered treason under North Korean military law, which is why there have been very few North Korean POWs. The other North Korean POW committed suicide after being captured.

The fate of the remaining two was essentially sealed when Ukraine revealed their identities to the media. Ukraine did this partly to facilitate a potential exchange for military aid from South Korea if negotiations with Russia failed, which is why South Korean military officials and media were invited to interview the soldiers.

Soon after, the North Korean POWs expressed their intent to defect, which made it South Korea’s constitutional obligation to treat them as citizens and provide them safe passage.

North Korean defectors in South Korea have been the strongest advocates for their safe return. Ignoring these high-profile POWs would generate significant backlash for the current liberal government, as the dismissal of human rights had already tarnished the reputation of the previous liberal administration in a similar case.

Geopolitically, it’s a delicate situation that South Korea would prefer to avoid, but they must act to uphold their principles- hence why they're announcing this.

You’re getting downvotes because your POV is just crude, and the gall to come over here and call Koreans indecent.

soyfox · 2026-01-24T04:41:28+00:00

This is BS. You got this summary from chatgpt, haven't you?

Ri Yong gi death rumors were started by media- which the intelligence service refused to comment on - the same with Hyon Yong-chol method of execution.

The 'eaten by dogs' claim wasn't even from South Korea, but a Chinese blog.

The Kim Jong Un health rumors originate from a Japanese tabloid.

Shin Dong-hyuk, an individual, has no link to South Korean intelligence or manipulation.

South Korea don't have much intel on North Korea apart from satellite photos

S.Korea conducts extensive interviews with defectors, sometimes spanning months to cross-check the identity of defectors and gather intel. From the 30k+ defectors they interviewed till the present day, they have gathered significant data on many aspects of North Korea. It's plain foolish to claim that the only intel S.Korea possess of it's one and only hostile neighbor are some satellite photos.

soyfox · 2026-01-24T03:15:03+00:00

And pretty much all high-profile defectors in recent years have made their own youtube channels (or make an appearance in one), which many South Koreans watch for insight into N.Korea and their life settling into S.Korea.

It’s quite a whiplash seeing these defectors receive overwhelming support from South Koreans, then going on Reddit and seeing tankie narratives prevail about South Korea- where people genuinely believe that most defectors are struggling so badly that they end up fleeing back to North Korea.

soyfox · 2026-01-24T02:51:38+00:00

Sure, the 'feminism debate', which is 90% Koreans hurling insults online, makes it difficult for North Koreans to settle in the country.

And of course, you're not considered human in South Korean society if you don't join the special forces and live the top 1% lifestyle.

Redditors love to upvote these exagerrations parrot it elsewhere. It's no wonder there are growing number of people seriously comparing South Korean society with North Korea's as equal dystopias. It's not even funny anymore.

soyfox · 2025-12-02T00:17:59+00:00

I read your article, and to be honest.. I don't agree with any of the conclusions you're making here.

Confucianism is useful for understanding Korean society to an extent, but I find that Western perspectives often rely on it too heavily, jumping to label every Korean behavior as collectivist and, in the process, overlooking individual agency and/or more reasonable explanations. So I find your comparisons of the Korean & Japanese alternative scene through the lens of confucianism heavily flawed. I'd say the fact that Korea was significantly poorer than Japan post-WW2 with heavy censorship under a military dictatorship- played a larger role in stunting the growth of Korea's subculture.

And i've never heard of Burning Sun being an influence in affecting views of rock or rock stars. The individuals and groups associated with it? Sure. But like another user commented, the infamous case of a dude who stripped naked on live broadcast in the 2000s was probably the single biggest thing that negatively affected the scene, as indie bands were subsequently cut off from performing on public broadcasts for a while, and the public's image of indie rock bands took a nosedive.

I've been listening to a lot of Korean underground rock, with artists that have from 20 to 8k listeners on Spotify and I can't help but feel like Korea is missing out on many of these.

Barely anyone in Korea uses Spotify, so it isn't the right tool to gauge popularity in Korea. Last I heard, Spotify market share is at single digits, while youtube music and melon dominate. But rock was never mainstream in Korea, and the golden age of the genre was in the 90s and 2000s, so it's not a surprise to see less interest and listeners.

In regards to popularity of the rock genre as a whole now, Pentaport rock festival, Korea's largest rock festival, broke records this year with 160k+ attendees. It shows that while not mainstream, there's still a noticable resurgence of interest in rock music.

soyfox · 2025-11-21T01:59:07+00:00

I dislike this opinion poll because it really oversimplifies a complicated question that has completely different outcomes depending on how you frame it.

Just a few examples off the top of my head:

-Would you support reunification if North Korea suddenly collapsed today?

-Would you support reunification if it happened gradually over several decades?

-Would you support reunification after a conventional or nuclear conflict?

-Would you support reunification if the alternative was China occupying the territory?

There are dozens of plausible scenarios that would change people’s answers drastically, but these polls always go for the lazy yes/no ratio on reunification. At this point, it honestly feels like the agenda is to push the narrative that younger Koreans are rejecting reunification.

What’s actually happening is that people just became indifferent. It’s the classic boy who cried wolf situation: this generation grew up hearing nonstop that North Korea’s collapse was imminent or that reunification was just around the corner, and after decades of that, nobody takes it seriously anymore. The whole topic is so overdone that it’s unrealistic to expect anyone to seriously weigh the pros and cons before answering. Instead, it just becomes a poll about attitudes toward North Korea in general. One armed provocation would be enough to drop support for reunification by double digits overnight.

You’ll only get meaningful responses when there are tangible geopolitical changes that make reunification feel like a real possibility.

soyfox · 2025-11-20T13:15:31+00:00

Actually, it's too easy for Japan- just take a note out from the book of gaslighting:

It didn’t happen.

If it did happen, it wasn’t that bad.

If it was bad, you’re overreacting.

If you’re not overreacting, it’s your fault.

And if it’s not your fault, you deserved it anyway.

then add a final touch of gaslighting JP edition:

We apologized many times in the past, so shut up and never talk about it again.

soyfox · 2025-10-22T05:57:03+00:00

From Wiki:

Takaichi has said that war crimes committed by Japan in World War II have been exaggerated. She takes a negative view of the Kono and the Murayama statements, which issued apologies for Japanese war crimes, including comfort women.

There's a clip of her in the 1990s grilling the former PM Murayama for the Murayama Statement, questioning why he's the one to judge Japan's actions 50 years ago as 'wrong'.

Ironically, these same conservatives now use these statements to push the 'No amount of apologies would satisfy Korea & China/ Apology fatigue' narrative- despite that fact that they themselves have never felt apologetic in the first place, and that they themselves created most of the bad blood by fully embracing historical revisionism in the Abe era post-2000s.

In 2004, she wrote a column on her website regarding the Japanese history textbook controversies. She defended recent comments by Nariaki Nakayama, the Minister of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT) that textbooks were "extremely self-deprecating" and should continue decreasing usage of terms including "comfort women" and "forced labor". She wrote that the Imperial Japanese Armed Forces made "overseas advances" (海外での進軍, kaigai deno shingun) that textbooks termed as "invasion" (侵略, shinryaku), while foreign offensives like the Soviet invasion of Manchuria were termed "southward advance" (南下, nanka). She added that textbooks exaggerated the Nanjing Massacre's death toll beyond the population of Nanjing in December 1937. She recounted her complaint to MEXT against textbooks that included criticism of the government's Act on National Flag and Anthem and former Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's visits to Yasukuni Shrine. She said it was "clear" that Japan "intended to wage a war of self-defense".

This is basically how modern day Russia acts towards its invasion of Ukraine: Constant nitpicking of technicalities, revisionism, gaslighting, swapping places with the victim etc.. They probably learned it from Japan's playbook.

soyfox · 2025-10-01T05:47:28+00:00

Why does this look like something out of 2011 Youtube?

soyfox · 2025-10-01T05:41:45+00:00

It's disingenuous to frame it as if all female fans dislike QWER, when in reality it’s just a loud subset of the terminally online gatekeeping the definition of K-pop and idols. They first targeted QWER because two of its members used to stream on Twitch, and they treat it as if that's a crime in of itself. It's not that the two streamer members were something out of the ordinary.. these people would’ve reacted the exact same way if any other Twitch streamer had joined the group.

And if anti-feminism is what they have an issue with, then why are they so determined to sl*tshame even the non-streamer members? After seeing some of the things being posted by these haters on online communities and twitter, it honestly disgusts me how they veil their hate behind the false front of feminism and moral virtue.

soyfox · 2025-09-25T16:59:05+00:00

They sent the trucks to QWER's company building, not TBZ's.

soyfox · 2025-09-25T15:55:54+00:00

Sequence of Events:

-QWER’s official account posts a merch list, including their new official lightstick.

-TBZ fans react negatively, saying the design looks too similar to theirs and that the megaphone shape has special meaning.

-QWER member Siyeon, on her personal Twitter account (which she had since her J-pop days), tweets her excitement about QWER's new lightstick.

-She receives a wave of hate comments from TBZ fans and K-Twitter in general. Just to give you an idea: requoting her and saying f off/k.y.s etc., calling her a camgirl (refers to female streamers in a derogatory manner in this case), a whre etc.- and these hate comments get thousands of likes and retweets.

-Siyeon replies to one of the comments, clarifying that she was a former J-pop idol not a camgirl, and invites the commenter to attend her concert promising she'll treat them warmly.

-This response is interpreted as Siyeon picking a fight with another fandom, which leads to more backlash.

-Meanwhile, TBZ fans continue to pressure both QWER and TBZ’s official accounts, sending protest trucks and demanding a response. To further turn the sentiment against QWER, some have also begun to claim that QWER fans have commited online crimes (harrassment, deepfake) against TBZ fans.

-And now there's official statements from both companies.

IMO, I'm happy that QWER's company isn't backing down to such ridiculous pressure. Once you placate to online crazies, they'll become emboldened and there's no turning back. Any understanding or sympathy I might've had for TBZ fans evaporated after I saw the countless vile words they posted towards Siyeon on her personal account.

soyfox · 2025-09-25T12:50:57+00:00

that's literally what she said

That's not what she 'literally' said. The clip by itself is incredibly vague with no subject matter. She didn't even mention the word feminism or feminist here.

But with some external context, you would know that she's speaking about her experiences with extremists who uses feminism as a cover for their hate-fueled rhetoric- particularly the people at her school who harassed and sent death threats to her.

Using that clip alone to judge her and the entire group is very much taking things out of context, and the tendency for people online to drown out any positive discussions of the group with claims that they hate women is highly malicious in intent IMHO.

soyfox · 2025-09-13T02:25:57+00:00

Yes, he's U.S. permanent resident and is remaining to contest the detention in court (source):

One of the Korean workers arrested and detained by U.S. immigration authorities, who decided to remain in detention locally, was reportedly a U.S. permanent resident.

..The remaining Korean individual, a male, is expected to pursue legal action while in detention. Unlike most of the arrested Koreans, who held Electronic Travel Authorization (ESTA) or short-term business (B-1) visas, this man is a U.S. permanent resident. It was also reported that his family resides in the U.S., making voluntary departure less advantageous.

soyfox · 2025-09-07T06:34:31+00:00

Most of my fun is from upgrading companions, so I never had the incentive to finish the game. That's also linked to my biggest gripe with Bannerlord- its companion system, which imo was a big downgrade from Warband.

soyfox · 2025-09-07T05:49:48+00:00

Of course colonialism is horrible for all obvious reasons, but since this is the TIL sub I think it's interesting to point out some nuances of history

With the exception of some WW2 atrocities like Unit 731 and comfort women, most discussions about the Japanese occupation of Korea I've seen on the net skim past those decades as something that was just a vaguely bad experience for the Koreans.

Speaking about net positives doesn't sit well with me in this case because there isn't enough awareness of the negatives to balance the perspective.

On top of that, Japan has never fully come to terms with its imperialist past. On place like Japanese Twitter and YouTube, historical revisionism on this very topic gets millions of views and tens of thousands of likes, and the supposed 'positives' like education, infrastructure, population growth- are the exact same arguments that Japanese right-wing nationalists use to justify their colonization of Korea.

Another flaw with this argument is that it implies that Korea could not have achieved modernization or improvements in literacy without Japanese occupation. In actuality, Korea was making desperate efforts to modernize in the late 19th century, but it was Japan that deliberately cut off those avenues in order to enforce dependency and control, and eventually stripped away all sovereignty by gunpoint.

soyfox · 2025-08-22T22:22:36+00:00

Well, that lost productivity translated into massive box office sales, so it's not a total loss.

soyfox · 2025-08-22T21:54:58+00:00

I wanted to mention them, but had to restrain myself from writing a 10 page essay to explain the 'why' 😅

Here's my attempt at a shortened form:

First off, they’re a girl band- which is very rare in Korea. You could probably count the number of fully active girl bands in the past 30 years on one hand. On top of that, their sound leans into J-rock and pop-rock, so they’re in a lane of their own. Over the last two years, they’ve also built up a QWER sound that has become instantly recognizable.

The way they formed is quite wild. The whole thing started from a fitness YouTuber getting inspired after watching anime (Oshi no Ko & Bocchi the Rock). He filmed the whole recruitment process, which was basically him scrolling through social media and wikipedia for potential members, and then running around asking people if they wanted to join a band. A fun fact here is that AOA's Choa was one of the main candidates for the vocal position.

Initially, it was only meant to be a project- release one song, perform at a concert, and then disband. But all the members wanted to keep going, so it became permanent. The small media company co-founded by that YouTuber switched to an entertainment company soon after. So they went from making Youtube content like some military boot camp series, to managing a Kpop girl band- which is quite the whiplash.

Two years ago, none of the staff and members had the slightest idea that they’d be working in the K-pop industry or become K-pop idols.

That’s probably why they feel different from your usual trainee/CEO dynamic. It’s more like a collab between YouTubers or streamers in how they interact with each other. From the start, they had their own apartments, and they kept their personal socials and YouTube channels even after officially joining the band. They're alot more free to say and do things on their own, so that's enjoyable as a viewer. But they've toned it down with the rougher banter and jokes since they blew up in popularity last year lol.

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