Reflections on my Momocon talk -- Entertainment to Die For
05/28/25

I had the privilege to another talk! This year I went to Momocon and did a talk titled Entertainment to Die For was about the ways, legal and illegal, that North Koreans like to relax. The turnout was great! The photo is from 10 minutes before the show started and you can already see that folks showed up pretty deep. we had 597 people register to attend and the room was packed by the mid point of the talk. It was standing room only by then end. People were so engaged, it was honestly such a great audience.

We started a few minutes early and I played the entire 6 mintes of Where Are You Dear General, and after that we just went back to back for an hour staight watching clips from North Korean entertainment and got some context about the clips.

It was so much fun to do. In fact, I think Im going to try to do a few more cons. The crossover seems pretty strong between people who like anime/fandom and people who are interested in whats going on in North Korea.

I was able to tell people about my new newsletter and the investigative reporter I hired to help me create compelling stores about North Korean Tech, and we got some early sign ups! This was all so very humbling and inspiring to see so many people with an interest in North Korea right now. Especially given the seemingly catastrophic effect that the funding freeze has had on the NK Human rights space.

As promised, Ill be releasing my sources on NK.exe with a write up and link to the clips. Im so excited for my next talk. We are going to figure out together what it will be.