Forget The Interview. Painter and digital artist Eric Drass has created a North Korea meme generator that makes James Franco look politically correct.
The Guardian reports that Drass was inspired by the recent release of over 300 new propaganda slogans from the North Korean government, which include nuggets like “Let’s turn ours into a country of mushrooms!” and “Make fruits cascade down and their sweet aroma fill the air on the sea of apple trees at the foot of Chol Pass!”
By inserting text to be processed by a Markov chain, the parody generator can produce insane-sounding statements, attach them to a randomly selected image of Kim Jong-un, and automatically tweet them from the account @nk_markov.
Photo: Twitter/@nk_markov
“I’ve never been a huge fan of Markov chains for creating text, since the results can be somewhat haphazard and ungrammatical,” he writes in a statement on his website. “However, when the source text is itself haphazard and ungrammatical, it seems fitting.”
Drass was apparently unfazed by the massive controversy surrounding Franco and Seth Rogen’s satirical film (see Sony Cancels The Interview Release Following Terrorist Threats, and Art House Theaters Petition to Screen The Interview), which saw their characters plotting to kill Kim Jong-un. He told the Guardian that he feels the country is “far enough away that it seems fair game.”
“The fact that Kim Jong-un is the dictator that it’s ok to laugh at is also fascinating,” he continued, adding that it would be “entirely different if I’d chosen Assad or [Robert] Mugabe.”
See Does Anyone Else Find this Photograph of Kim Jong-un Scary?, Wax Statues of Kim Jong Il And His Father Are Worshipped in North Korea, and Kim Jong-un Poses for Propaganda Photo in Front of Fornicating Toys for more on the dictator’s bizarre antics.