What a great idea this is!! I'm so sure it will work! (N Korea bans sarcasm) How effective will it be?

Trump would definitely want to apply it to everybody—but himself, of course. His sarcasm is as compulsive as his habit of inventing the truth.

Will it work here? I doubt it. The twelve of us not under arrest would work ourselves to death trying to feed the other 350 million sarcastic bastards in lockup.

Are they deleting the ”~” key from their computers?

North Korean lack of sarcasm is best lack of sarcasm.

The ban actually doesn’t seem so crazy after all if you think about it a bit harder. I have read various articles on the internet about the connection of humor and politics, and they suggested that humor has been used throughout history as a powerful weapon against a disfunctional government. And it’s effective because it can drive people’s fear away and bring them closer to the cause you are fighting for. As a result dictators have been reported to dislike humor.

Back to Kim’s ban, I think he is taking things to a new level. He doesn’t want any kind of humor, even the smallest, to enter his people’s mind and obstruct his government. He wants to strip his people off every right possible, even the right to laugh, so that they become mindless sheeps that take everything he say seriously and literally.

You can see he’s up to something…

That’s the best sarcasm of all, @Mimishu1995 – and amazingly subtle, too! “It’s not crazy at all.”~~~

I love it. And I almost missed it. You’re very good at satire.

That’s like banning comedy. And sarcasm and humor go hand in glove. Especially droll humor.

Perhaps sarcasm used used by N. Korean people is a way of coping with a brutal life.

Banning sarcasm will be another knife in the human spirit already bleeding.

Poor North Korea.

As a non North Korean it’s so funny.

Can anyone take this nation seriously?

Then there’s the 2,000 Rolex watches It hasn’t paid for either.

@Mimishu1995 Best analysis. You are now head of our Asian Bureau.

^^I second that ~

Heard an NPR piece yesterday that debunked this. Apparently, it got started with a legitimate news report that humorous or sarcastic phrases about the Leader had been, er, discouraged.