Theory 1: CIA Op floated through various media outlets. It’ll eventually seep into the DPRK and amp up his paranoia. Then he’d feel compelled to isolate a close (?) advisor.

Theory 2: The CIA is creating an international consensus that Kim Jong Un is dead, regardless of whether it is true. Repeat a lie long enough and it will become “true” to millions.

With that task out of the way, the boys in Langley play an old song: Surely we can’t let an ambitious, emotional woman have nukes, can we?

USA pushes for regime change. China and Russia protest. Brinkmanship ensues. US plans for coups fail because of our Imperial Hubris. China grabs the bourgeoisie by the balls and we quietly forget the whole venture. We make ourselves feel better by drone striking some Afghan School for the Blind.

The wheel of spectacle keeps on turning, the masses return to their work. The capitalist vampires continue to feed until this planet dies quietly in the dark. Have you seen Elysium? That, but with less coordination and competence.

It might be as easy as newspapers realising that reporting these things brings in clicks (and thus money). The good thing for them is that they can make up any story they want about the DPRK, and people will believe it. So its much cheaper and more profitable than doing actual journalism.

Another factor could be the thing where someone in DPRK intentionally reveals false info to someone, and if it ends up getting leaked to South Korean press they are likely a traitor or something. I don’t know the nuances of it but I hope you get the idea.

But a lot of it is bullshit speculation by capitalist media too as @pimento@lemmygrad.ml says.

recently these tend to happen when the USA is anxious about its own stability and wants a distraction to fill the news

It’s a baseless tabloid thing spun out by amerikan media to push the narrative that the DPRK is weak and about to collapse, and that A New Eviller Kim is in charge so amerikans are more receptive to invading it. It’s just taking clickbait and turning it into manufacturing of consent.

(Disclaimer that all that I’ll say is speculation, I can’t know for sure.)

I looked at that “NY Post” site, seems like a typical tabloid to me. It’s probably indeed just clickbait for the advertising revenue (see here for all the scripts I see on the NY Post page, many of which seem to be for advertising).

I’ve seen the claim from a Twitter account (don’t remember which one, sorry) that many westerners have taken interest in Kim Yo Jong. So, there is a “demand”, and the tabloid gives them the stories they want.

The story from some months ago, however, was reported by more serious outlets. The reason may be may be what @ksynwa@lemmygrad.ml or @pimento@lemmygrad.ml said below. My other suspicion is that it was some kind of distraction manoever. If westerners are talking about Kim Jong Un’s alleged death, they’re not talking about their own countries’ bad response to COVID-19. My connection to the Internet Archive is terribly slow, so I can’t analyze the coverage, but according to this analysis:

On Twitter, the hashtag #KimJongunDead went viral as well, and millions of users swallowed the fake news whole.

Next, a photoshopped picture went viral on social media purporting to show Kim dead in a glass coffin.

So if this was a distraction manoever, it clearly had some success.

I doubt that the Supreme Leader has any serious health problems. He has been guiding some conference every week recently. I don’t think he could do that if he had some serious health problems.

In the story from some months ago, the rumours of his death or coma were backed by the fact that he hadn’t showed up on camera for a month or so. But his absence could have been for any other reason. Maybe he indeed was recovering his health. Maybe he just wanted to avoid large gatherings as a precaution. Maybe he just had more important work to do than the visits and guidances. We can’t know. But we know for fact that he returned later.

Considering the other stories that western “news” outlets have reported about the DPRK, I don’t think anyone in the DPRK government is going to take these reports seriously.

I haven’t seen recent reports about Yo Jong’s “growing influence” yet. Could you give me a link so I can analyze further?

The theory that “American” capitalists make up these stories for clickbait purposes is wrong, simply for the reason newspapers are not profitable enterprises. They don’t make money in the first place, online and especially not in print. Newspapers are largely owned by billionaires to spread their own personal bullshit, and actually cost them money to keep in business. This is a fairly well known and documented phenomenon that has become especially pronounced with the age of the internet.

The idea that they could be spreading stories about Kim Yo Jong to discredit her makes more sense to me. It is undoubtedly true that the stories about Robert Mugabe’s wife had a great deal to do with the Emmerson Mnangagwa coup in Zimbabwe. However, the difference here is that all educated people in Zimbabwe speak English, and there are much less restrictions on the flow of imperialist propaganda there, whereas this is not the case in Uncircumcised (North) Korea.

My own guess is that it is simply aimed at English-speaking people. It isn’t meant to play on the sexism of Korean men, but on English-speaking men who already think of socialism as effeminate in some way. There is a reason, after all, why Hollywood wanted to insinuate Kim Jong Un is a homosexual in that film The Interview. Instead of an insinuation that anything socialism is effeminate and gay, by trying to portray their leaders as effeminate and gay in Hollywood propaganda, why not just insinuate the real leader of the country is a woman? Such thoughts only come to the mind of liberals in charge of managing the stupid whites on the ‘Right,’ who they imagine only hated Hillary Clinton because she didn’t have a penis.

I’ll have a go with a low effort attempt (mods, delete this comment if you think it breaks the rules).

Capitalism in 2020=Suffering

Suffering=Bad

Capitalism=Bad

DPRK=Socialism

DPRK=Do evil thing (that didn’t happen)

Do evil thing=Bad

DPRK=Bad

Socialism=Bad

Capitalism=Socialism=Bad

Capitalists: You see, socialism is just as shit. It’s the end of fucking history, so just give up and let us rule forever ya assholes! Stop imagining a better world!