‘Captain North Korea?’ Soldier in tight blue outfit at military event generates social media buzz
- The soldier posed for a photo with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un at a military exhibition, with observers speculating he could be a parachutist
- Social media users likened him to a superhero, human cannonball or rocket man, and made comparisons to the Captain America character
They all mostly wore olive green uniforms, the most common colour for North Korean military uniforms. Only two of them wore different colours – the one in the blue outfit and the other in a navy-blue uniform, which is not that unusual. Kim wore a dark suit.
Some Twitter users in South Korea, the US and elsewhere joked about his appearance, saying he looks like a “human cannon ball”, or the North Korean equivalent of Captain America.
Others said he looked like a “superhero”, a “captain DPRK” – the official acronym for North Korea – or a member of the non-existent North Korean space forces.
North Korean state media did not identify the man. But Jeffrey Lewis, an expert at Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey, tweeted that “It seems he’s the parachutist”.