North Korea Christmas Gift

About

North Korea Christmas Gift, also known by the hashtag #NorthKoreaChristmasGift, refers to a series of jokes and memes about a comment made in a press statement by a North Korean official, who in December 2019 said that the United States would be receiving a "Christmas gift" from North Korea.

Origin

On December 3rd, 2019, in a statement to North Korean,^[1] vice minister of Foreign Affairs Ri Thae Song said, "What is left to be done now is the U.S. option and it is entirely up to the U.S. what Christmas gift it will select to get."

Two days later, Twitter ^[2] user @Mj07810 tweeted about the "Christmas gift." They wrote, "Is he trying to signal these as the four horses of the apocalypse?? Jesus, why is this story being eclipsed by name calling??" They also included the hashtag "#NorthKoreaChristmasGift," the earliest known usage of the tag (shown below).

Spread

On December 24th, people began posting about the comment on Twitter, taking it as a threat. Twitter user @MylesAjani posted a video of man reacting to an explosion. They wrote, "waking up to see north korea’s christmas present they got for us." The tweet received more than 36,000 likes and 9,200 retweets in less than two days (shown below).

Twitter user @shrimpfriedvibe tweeted, "Waking up in California tomorrow with North Korea spreading holiday cheer." The tweet received more than 148,000 views, 8,300 likes and 2,500 retweets in less than two days (shown below).

On December 26th, The Daily Dot ^[3] reported on the posts.

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References