Kim Jong-Il is gone. That said, he continues to live on, looking at things, on the popular blog Kim Jong-Il Looking At Things which continues to be updated with new content from the archives.
It is now joined by Kim Jong-Un Looking At Things. I think I agree with João Rocha, creator of the original, that the younger Kim seems to be missing some hard-to-pin-down quality that made the original work well.
Great. Now I’ve got two more wonderfully worthless, must-view blogs to add to my reader. Really, thanks a lot, Ben.
I think Kim Jong-Un emotes too much – in the posted photos he’s clearly Going Places and Doing Things, and possibly even having fun, and that’s why it doesn’t work.
By contrast, Kim Jong-Il is a tired old man slowly shuffling past an endless, surreal sequence of objects; in every photo his expression could be captioned “Oh god, another one.” I think there’s a bit of sympathy for this world-famous super-villain caught in a weird hell of his own devising, and that’s what makes it interesting.
Screwtape, I think you have hit it on the nose!