The 3 North Koreas No One Talks About

Everyone knows about North Korea, but why doesn't anyone talk about these 3 other "North Koreas" that exist today? Also, there's actually an original North Korea that the Kims took notes from.

This is my first video, so I'd love to hear any constructive feedback on how to improve. ^_^

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UPDATE (November 11): Wow I seriously did NOT expect this video to explode the way it did. I cannot express enough just how grateful I am for every single one of you who watched this, and a special thank you to those who also liked and subscribed. I'm trying my best to read every single comment as promised, and I've managed to respond to hundreds of you who commented!

I was planning to just work on videos like this during my free time since I also work, so I'm still working on the next video for now. I hope someday I can get to a point where I can do this full time, because I feel super happy now knowing there are people who would enjoy more videos like this.

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Please like and subscribe if you enjoyed!

[koplireeno]

Lmao, I thought this was by some channel with like 200k subs or whatever, but nah bro's like "my first video"💀. Very well done!

[dandankovsky]

My family’s friend who emigrated from Turkmenistan used to tell that the agents who eavesdrop on phone conversations would openly laugh if they hear a joke. Her colleague was fired from job because she didn’t enunciate the words of the anthem while singing — something you are required to do at the start of the working day. Also, when president Niyazov decided to promote healthy lifestyle by opening a running track around the capital, the populace was forced to walk on it, and police would not let people leave it unless bribed. Several elderly people died of heart attacks, dehydration and exhaustion at that opening.

[SprocketN]

At a birthday party for an engineer from Turkmenistan (in the UK for a training course). His UK boss asked him how the leader of his country (Turkmenbashi?) is getting younger. Every business there must have the official photo of the leader of Turkmenistan displayed in the office and they’d just had the latest one delivered.
The engineer was visibly shaken by such a critical comment about his country, despite being in a small provincial town in the UK he looked around him as if he was looking for spies who may report him before answering that he’d not noticed that about his leader. Thousands of miles away from his home country, yet he was terrified to even witness a criticism of his country’s leader.

[aobasuzukaze]

Fun fact, Eritrea withdrew from World Cup 2026 qualifications because they legit afraid when the team will defect to other countries.

[valeckserai]

Disappointing that Turkmenistan's "Walk of Health" wasn't mentioned when going over the bizarre things the country does. The president built a 22 mile long walkway that goes into the mountains and every year forces his ministers and other government officials to walk it start to finish while he rides in a helicopter observing them, and berates them for their slow pace at the finish. Easily my favorite part of that country.

[BigTiddyTheRapper]

Hmmmm... Maybe I will leave a like.

Let's wait 3 or 4 decades.

[aidannorthup]

My friend in high school was from Eritrea, his dad worked in the government and one night they fled and made there way to India, lived there for awhile and then moved to America. He would typically just tell people he’s Indian since he had an Indian accent, he was Christian though and it was always funny to ask him what he though about Indian religious traditions, he would rant about the Ganges River and how he never understood how anyone could go in it

[miked]

Missed Belarus. Same “President” since fall of USSR. Lukashenko also killed his own people in a subway bombing around 2010. He routinely has political opponents arrested and/of exiled.

[andersjorgensen]

Cuba doesn't really have much in common with NK, functionally or in outcomes.

[jonnda]

Early in highschool, I somehow stumbled upon an article about Saparmyrat Nyýazow and his the fairly new 12 million dollar gold covered statue of himself that rotates to face the sun. Everything about this man and his country left be bewildered, and astounded, and at the time I ended up going down a rabbit hole just learning about this crazy place. Thanks for mentioning Turkmenistan.

[stevec.]

I had a professor from Eritrea. The current regime officially gained independence & took power while he was at college here in the states. Years later, he went back to investigate & publicize some of the massacres that happened during the civil war & is barred from the country. He told some stories in lecture about what it was like living during the civil war under the repressive rebel government, it was really interesting to get a picture of what's normally obscured by those in power

[usergodknowswhat]

No way did u just compare Cuba to North Korea. Literally wdym now tourists are allowed to interact with Cuba? When were they not allowed ever? and we're not fucking isolated it's USA with the goddamn embargo + my mom was trying to travel to another country and had to get this visa thing and everything was fine from Cuba but the country she was trying to go to denied her the thing and she couldn't go. I used to think it was Cuba not letting us leave but it's other countries not letting us in lmao.
Edit cuz I wanted to add more stuff: I have a teacher who is a computer scientist like my dad and computer scientists here travel a lot for work. My dad traveled to so many countries he's lost count at this point and in one of those travels he could bring his family so I went and lived in Canada for 3 years which is how I know English. Anyways my teacher went to North Korea and told us of all the crazy shit they do there and the laws and bro did not compare that to Cuba that's crazy...

[dtripp]

Genuinely surprised to not see Belarus present

[dangurtler]

The reason the other countries are largely unknown is that they don't have nuclear weapons.

[TheTeodorsoldierabvb]

You can apply this to almost every dictatorship in the 20th century. North Korea is unique because it turned its cult of personality into a religion - codified into the constitution and laws, as opposed it being just a dictatorial status quo until the leader is dead - while also remaining absolutely isolated, unlike Cuba, Eritrea and Turkmenistan, each of whom is member of at least one international organisation. Further, North Korea has managed to remain such under extreme pressure AND developed a nuclear arsenal, while having the 4th largest army in the world - from a population of merely 26 million

[coroneabhibus]

China not becoming like North Korea is entirely due to luck. Mao's third son died very young, and his second son was mentally ill and widely considered unfit to rule. That left his eldest son, who died in the Korean War. Legends has it that he died because he was hungry one night and went out to make egg fried rice, only the fire/light alerted the UN forces to his presence, and he got bombed. This is widely circulated along the older generations of Chinese people who still remember Mao's rule, and occasionally joke about how "grateful they are to egg fried rice". As such, the phrase "egg fried rice" is banned on Chinese social media like WeChat. (Funnily enough, most of the younger people who accidentally talk about egg fried rice don't actually know about the incident due to heavy government censorship, but seeing their messages censored makes them curious, which is how they find out about the exact thing the government tries to cover up.)

[Val.]

Venezuela could be an honorable mention, the regime sure tried to make an isolationist cult to personality woek

[DSQueenie]

I think the big difference between Turkmenistan, Eritrea and Cuba is that you can leave. In Eritrean you have the conscription factor but if most families that can leave while their sons are very young.

I think Cuba is unfairly on the list a little bit. It definitely has a dictatorship but it isn’t cut off the the world in terms of information. Also fun fact one of its biggest exports is its doctors.

[-_J_-]

Bro casyally dropped the hardest first video on this channel 🗣️🔊🔥

[kyusselmes]

I'd just like to note one thing: while Cuba is a repressive one party system it does actually have some democracy. Bills are drafted by the government and are then put to a public vote for the people to decide whether they want it or not. Other than that great video.