Hungry Kim Jong-un

2011image macroclassic

Published August 29, 2026

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.

advice animalspolitical satire memesimage macro memesdark humor memesearly 2010s memes

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 edible3. The tone is absurdist, wrapping dark political humor in the advice-animal template that dominated Reddit and Quickmeme in late 20112. 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 20126.

Origin & Background

Platform
Reddit / Quickmeme (viral spread)
Creator
GunnieGraves
Date
2011

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 months4. 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 Korea5.

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 days4.

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 Reddit3. 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 source6. On February 4, Cheezburger's Comixed posted its cake-mistake series6, and on February 14 the pop-culture blog UpRoxx ran a slideshow of examples7. A Funny Junk compilation posted the following day pulled over 103,000 views within two months8.

By April 13, 2012, the Quickmeme page dedicated to the format held more than 1,753 user submissions2, marking Hungry Kim Jong-Un as one of the higher-volume advice-animal spinoffs of the winter 2011-2012 Reddit meme wave4.

How to Use This Meme

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

Hungry Kim Jong-un

2011image macroclassic

Published August 29, 2026

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.

advice animals political satire memes image macro memes dark humor memes early 2010s memes

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 edible3. The tone is absurdist, wrapping dark political humor in the advice-animal template that dominated Reddit and Quickmeme in late 20112. 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 20126.

Origin & Background

Platform
Reddit / Quickmeme (viral spread)
Creator
GunnieGraves
Date
2011

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 months4. 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 Korea5.

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 days4.

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 Reddit3. 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 source6. On February 4, Cheezburger's Comixed posted its cake-mistake series6, and on February 14 the pop-culture blog UpRoxx ran a slideshow of examples7. A Funny Junk compilation posted the following day pulled over 103,000 views within two months8.

By April 13, 2012, the Quickmeme page dedicated to the format held more than 1,753 user submissions2, marking Hungry Kim Jong-Un as one of the higher-volume advice-animal spinoffs of the winter 2011-2012 Reddit meme wave4.

How to Use This Meme

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