On December 19, 2011, hours after North Korea announced the death of Kim Jong-Il, a Reddit user posted a photo of his son Kim Jong-Un pointing at an object with the caption 'Ok so...can I eat this?' That single post kicked off Hungry Kim Jong-Un, an image macro series that turned the untested young dictator into an advice animal obsessed with food.
Origin
On December 19, 2011, the day North Korean state media announced the death of Kim Jong-Il, Redditor GunnieGraves submitted a post to r/funny titled 'Kim Jong Un looks….hungry' showing the new leader pointing at an object with the caption 'Ok so...can I eat this?'[1]. The post climbed to more than 7,200 upvotes over the next four months[4]. Very little was known about Kim Jong-Un in Western media before his father's death, and a same-day New York Times editorial speculated that the untested young leader might authorize additional nuclear tests or antagonize South Korea[5].
Also on December 19, the first Hungry Kim Jong-Un submission on Quickmeme appeared, pairing a shot of Kim addressing a top general with the line 'What do you mean / I can't eat America'[2]. That macro also hit the front page of r/funny within days[4].
- Platform: Reddit / Quickmeme (viral spread)
- Creator: GunnieGraves (Reddit)
- Date: 2011
Overview
Hungry Kim Jong-Un is an image macro format where official-looking photographs of the North Korean supreme leader are paired with captions about food cravings, hunger, or mistaking non-food objects for something edible[3]. The tone is absurdist, wrapping dark political humor in the advice-animal template that dominated Reddit and Quickmeme in late 2011[2]. Captions play on Kim's youthful, round-faced appearance, pairing straight-faced state media shots with lines like 'What do you mean / I can't eat America'[2].
The joke lives in the gap between the propaganda dignity of the source photos and captions that reduce the new head of state to a single-minded appetite. A recurring subgenre has Kim mistaking objects like missiles, generals, or terrain features for cake, which grew into its own visual gag when Cheezburger's Comixed site collected a run of cake-confusion macros in February 2012[6].
How It Spread
On December 23, 2011, a single-topic Tumblr called 'Kim Jong-Un is Hungry' launched with the tagline 'He's always thinking about food. For himself… not for his people,' collecting community submissions and pushing the format past Reddit[3]. Momentum kept building into the new year.
On January 5, 2012, Funny or Die published a roundup of the funniest Hungry Kim Jong-Un examples, crediting r/funny as the source[6]. On February 4, Cheezburger's Comixed posted its cake-mistake series[6], and on February 14 the pop-culture blog UpRoxx ran a slideshow of examples[7]. A Funny Junk compilation posted the following day pulled over 103,000 views within two months[8].
By April 13, 2012, the Quickmeme page dedicated to the format held more than 1,753 user submissions[2], marking Hungry Kim Jong-Un as one of the higher-volume advice-animal spinoffs of the winter 2011-2012 Reddit meme wave[4].
How to Use
The format typically starts with a photograph of Kim Jong-Un touring a factory, inspecting military hardware, or standing with generals. Creators add a top-and-bottom impact-font caption in the advice-animal style, with the punchline framing him as hungry, distracted by food, or mistaking the object in front of him for cake or a snack. Common conventions include short setup phrases like 'What do you mean' or 'Ok so' that lean into a naive, appetite-driven inner monologue.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is Hungry Kim Jong-un?
Hungry Kim Jong-Un is an image macro series that captions photos of North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un with lines about food cravings or mistaking objects for something edible[4].
Where did Hungry Kim Jong-un come from?
It started on December 19, 2011, when Redditor GunnieGraves posted 'Kim Jong Un looks….hungry' to r/funny hours after Kim Jong-Il's death was announced[1].
What does Hungry Kim Jong-un mean?
The joke frames the young dictator as an advice animal fixated on eating, often confusing military targets or state visits for cake and other food[6].
How do you use Hungry Kim Jong-un?
Pair a straight-faced photo of Kim Jong-Un with an impact-font caption about hunger, cravings, or wanting to eat the object in the picture, in the classic Quickmeme advice-animal layout[2].
Is Hungry Kim Jong-un still popular?
The format peaked in early 2012 during the advice-animal era on Reddit and Quickmeme, and is now looked back on as a classic winter 2011-2012 image macro[4].
