case: (Default)
Case ([personal profile] case) wrote in [community profile] fandomsecrets2017-06-19 06:33 pm

[ SECRET POST #3820 ]


⌈ Secret Post #3820 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 02 pages, 37 secrets from Secret Submission Post #547.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Re: Otto Warmbier died

(Anonymous) 2017-06-19 11:37 pm (UTC)(link)
That's what I said in the first line, and nowhere did I equate his touring to the murder of my family. That's all on you.

I'm angry in general about how people, in general, mostly from the West, treat NK as a joke, safe, or no big deal. I don't think he deserved to be tortured, like I said. Nobody does. But I hope this wakes some people up about NK being a real thing.

Re: Otto Warmbier died

(Anonymous) 2017-06-19 11:43 pm (UTC)(link)
I (in all seriousness) place a lot of that blame on Dennis Rodman. I hope that fucker makes Kim Jong Un mad at him and is sentenced to some hard labor.

Re: Otto Warmbier died

(Anonymous) 2017-06-19 11:49 pm (UTC)(link)
I don't, because I don't think even Rodman deserves that.

I just desperately wish people would stop treating NK like a joke. If people around him had taken it seriously, maybe Warmbier wouldn't have gone in the first place.

Re: Otto Warmbier died

(Anonymous) 2017-06-20 12:00 am (UTC)(link)
nayrt but I don't agree North Korea is treated like a joke? I don't think anyone besides maybe Rodman himself truly thinks it's totally safe and fun and a great lad's holiday to hang out in North Korea. There are plenty of people who visit countries that are dangerous or unstable, or even countries ruled by brutal regimes. People do it maybe for the adrenaline, maybe for bragging rights, or maybe just a genuine curiosity and desire to learn. Is it responsible? No. But more often than we condemn, we laud some people for visiting North Korea (and similar high-risk countries) and taking National Geographic-type photos and bringing back stories of how life "really is" or their observations of a place often reduced to stereotypes. We are being inconsistent and maybe risk idealizing exploration. While I don't know this kid's motives, I doubt he was there to get drunk and cause a ruckus.

Re: Otto Warmbier died

(Anonymous) 2017-06-20 12:12 am (UTC)(link)
I was revising this comment and accidentally hit send. Let me try again.

I think you're giving the tour group too much credit, and "did it for bragging rights" isn't any less gross of them if hypothetically that was what they did. Especially since the tour itself touted itself as safe.

If you don't think NK is treated like a joke, you haven't been to the same parts of the internet I have been. It's the butt of so many jokes because people believe that they posture a lot but can't attack America, which is true enough. It's harmless when you're an ocean away. That all goes out the window if you go there yourself, and people somehow seem to forget that. Plus people even make entire movies about it. The Interview, much? And all that a lot of people know about NK is that lol, Kim Jong Un is fat and weird looking and points at things. Such 1980s. Such communism. Funny impotent yellow people.

You'd be surprised how many people legit aren't aware they have active, right now, detention and torture camps or that they at one point mass murdered any that was educated or religious. Or if they are aware of it, people don't think it's still going on now, which it is. I don't think he went there to get drunk and cause a ruckus. I do think he, and the tour, and everyone else there, thought that they were as untouchable as they were across an ocean and were tragically wrong.

Re: Otto Warmbier died

(Anonymous) 2017-06-20 01:23 am (UTC)(link)
NAYRT--I seem to remember unconfirmed but persistent reports of survival cannibalism coming out of NK, so, while I laughed at the straight up disgusting, juvenile Team America World Police, I certainly don't think NK is safe to visit and certainly not to live in. I make jokes about the current US presidential administration, but they still fucking horrify me.

Re: Otto Warmbier died

(Anonymous) 2017-06-20 03:35 am (UTC)(link)
Making jokes to lighten a horrible situation you're living in is different from making jokes about another country full of suffering people that you have no connection with.

But. I'm not saying jokes are bad. Jokes and humor are necessary so as not to be depressed all the time about horrible shit all over the world.

The issue isn't with the jokes. It's that lots of people see NK as a joke and don't know much more about it. You do. That's great. A lot of people do. That's great too. A lot of people don't, evidently, by the number of people who choose to go touring there, or who are shocked when bad things happen to people who go there. They hear the same reports you do but the reality of it that it's happening to real people just like them, in modern day, in a modern country, doesn't sink in for a wide variety of reasons, like distance and foreign-ness and unfamiliarity with world history. They're never shocked until it happens to "one of their own" and then, suddenly, it's real.

Think about how many people say "starving kids in Ethiopia." How many of them could find Ethiopia on a map or know anything about the country? It's the same level of knowing that it's a thing that happens, but not thinking that it's real or understanding that it's happening or thinking that they'll ever have to deal with it. It's another world. Until you're going on tour in it. People do that, too, and it's usually a rude awakening.