Are YouTuber’s videos of North Korean parties ‘daily life’ or ‘propaganda’?

The Zoe Discovers channel shows the everyday lives of families in the totalitarian state taking trips to the lake or people enjoying beers after work at a local bar

Some critics slam her videos as propaganda, but British woman Zoe Stephens says ‘a lot of Western media is recycled with the same stark photos and catchphrases’

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British tour guide, Zoe Stephens interviews a military guide at DMZ. Photo: Zoe Discoversnk

Published: 11:00am, 23 Jul 2022Updated: 10:50am, 25 Jul 2022

A notorious supreme leader, prison camps, assassinations, nuclear missile tests and brainwashed citizens. Just some of the words that come to mind when referring to North Korea.

It’s also become customary to paint the “hermit kingdom” as dark, desolate and devoid of freedom.

That is why netizens were quick to label tourist YouTube channel “Zoe Discovers” as propaganda. It shows Zoe Stephens, a 28-year-old British woman, talking with a smiling North Korean guard at the heavily guarded Demilitarised Zone, dancing with locals at a public square, and singing karaoke with North Korean families visiting the mountainside during a national holiday.

“Some of my videos are just North Koreans playing volleyball against foreigners. I don’t know how that’s propaganda,” said Stephens, a marketing manager for Koryo Tours.

Zoe Stephens dancing with North Korean locals at public square. Photo: Handout

The 28-year-old, who first came to North Korea in 2015, has been out of work ever since the pandemic forced the country to close its doors to the outside world. In the meantime, the tourism and political development major has been focusing on uploading her previous trips to the capital Pyongyang and its surrounding rural regions to her combined 40,000 followers on YouTube, Instagram and Tiktok.