Disclaimer: This article is based on actual news from the real world – honestly! However, it has been sprinkled with a healthy dose of satire.
A software developer who identified himself as Taro Aikuchi of Meguro City, Japan, ended a remote job interview on Monday after failing, over the course of 82 seconds, to repeat the phrase “Kim Jong Un is a fat ugly pig.” The candidate, wearing glasses and a blue sweater, averted his eyes, offered a partial “not north korean,” and disconnected before completing the sentence.
How about "Kim Jong Un is a mildly overweight, average-looking pig"? (tanuki42/x)
The interviewer, a blockchain security researcher who posts as Tanuki42 on X, has been running the question for months as a low-cost screening tool and reports a 100% catch rate. In an earlier round of the same call, the candidate’s connection failed the instant he was asked to say “F*** Kim Jong Un,” then restored itself moments later with an apology for the “mysterious” technical issue. Tanuki42 attributes the test’s reliability partly to the fact that under North Korea’s collective-punishment system, a candidate who insults the Supreme Leader on camera can expect at least three generations of his own family to be administratively reassigned to work in a North Korean coal mine. It’s a policy most Western HR manuals would categorize as “non-compete with teeth.”
Aikuchi’s cover was otherwise thorough. The persona included a LinkedIn page, a GitHub history stretching back to 2019 featuring Solana bots, flash-loan tooling, NFT marketplaces, and token launchpads, and a Telegram handle @cryptotrading2150, which was renamed @cryptodegen202, wiped, and used to block the interviewer within a few hours of the clip circulating. The IP address logged during the call matched indicators previously associated with North Korean remote-desktop operations, which researchers describe as the second most reliable tell, after visible hesitation when asked to call the Supreme Leader a fat ugly pig.
North Korea has for years staffed Western technology firms with operatives working under fabricated identities, routing the salaries home through China and Russia to fund weapons programs, nuclear development, and the occasional orbital snafu. Lazarus Group–linked actors stole an estimated $2.02 billion from cryptocurrency platforms in 2025, which places North Korea somewhere between Stripe and a mid-sized hedge fund on the 2025 crypto league tables. This suggests that most of these candidates clear the interview stage at firms that do not ask how fat or ugly Kim Jong Un is. Industry observers note that most HR departments continue to prioritize applicants for React proficiency over their willingness to commit a DPRK capital offense on a video call.
Pyongyang has not issued a statement on the whereabouts of the man in the blue sweater, probably because no one is ever going to hear from him or his family again.
This story is based on fully factual news, but if we got it wrong, blame these guys, we’re just here to make it funny.
