Kim Jong-un’s Terrible Haircut Is Now the Law in North Korea

It’s a crime against fashion.

Take a moment to really look at Kim Jong-un, the baby-faced “Supreme Leader” of North Korea. Behold his face: so smooth and gelatinous he could win a twerking competition with those cheeks alone. And that mouth: like a dollop of strawberry jam on a cheesecake. But topping off that ridiculous dome of his is that haircut: a weird trapezoidal ‘do only a dictator would find stylish.


Kim’s strange hairdo isn’t just a fashion statement, but a legal decree. According to South Korean newspaper Chosun Ilbo, authorities have ordered young men to model their hairstyle after that of the Supreme Leader.  

According to thereport, any North Korean man caught without Kim’s hairdo — fittingly known as an “ambitious” style within the Hermit Kingdom — will be seized upon by scissor-wielding loyalists. “University student monitors are walking around with scissors and cutting off the hair of offenders,” says one source quoted in the report.  

When the North Korean dictator unveiled his new hairdo back in February, it was the subject of endless jokes and Internet memes. Somehow, Kim didn’t catch on. Or maybe he did, and that’s why every man in North Korea is now required to have it. It’s the same principle that governs every hipster enclave in America: you can look like a total clown, just as long as everyone else does, too.

Whatever Kim’s reasoning, it’s the law, and in North Korea, laws are typically broken by people with an appetite for tremendous pain and humiliation. Barbershops in the capital city of Pyongyang are reportedly packed with men scrambling to get their hair within regulation, which requires the sides and back to be clean shaven and the top chopped down to two centimeters or less. “It’s all part of a crackdown on capitalist ideology and culture,” explained another Chosun Ilbo source.

Of course, this isn’t the first time this has happened. Nor will it be the last. Last year, Kim mandated that all North Korean men have high-and-tights, which was his style of choice at the time. Up next? The man bun! 

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