According to some sources inside the country, the first portraits of Kim Jong Eun are now being hung. These ubiquitous portraits of the Kim family may be the most potent and universal symbol of the regime’s idolization. North Korea has taken this practice to an unprecedented extreme. Not only is every private household in the country required to display portraits of Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il, the residents are also required to adequately care for them. One is not even allowed to put pictures of anyone else on their own wall, whether friends or blood relatives. There are very real punishments for those who neglect the portraits or fail to put them on display. Such offenses are not petty crimes but political heresy that violate the Ten Principles and have severe consequences; a life in the prison camps is not of the question if you’re found to be unrepentant. The Public Standards Police are to visit homes on a monthly basis to inspect the portraits. North Korean newspapers have even run stories about heroic citizens sacrificing their lives to save the portraits from fires and floods. They are also found in just about every public building in the country from classrooms to the airport. Even the subway train in Pyongyang has them on board.

Just as with other propaganda of central importance like statues and monuments, the sacred visages are rendered at the Mansudae Art Studio (만수대창작사) in Pyongyang. They’re then reproduced and even distributed along with a cloth to clean them that may only be used for the portraits. In almost every case it is the same two painted portraits depicting both without their glasses and stoic faces, though a select few have a similar set of head portraits but with three including one of Kim Jong Suk, Kim Il Sung’s first wife and the mother of Kim Jong Il, beaming in military uniforms. There’s some variations, sometimes the third pictures features both Kims. The first Kim Jong Eun portraits are reportedly being hung in Pyongyang’s revolutionary museums by the National Security Agency, a notorious state organ through which he rose in rank before the succession. In 1974, the NSA also put up the first Kim Jong Il portraits, though it wasn’t until around 1980 when he was officially announced as successor at the sixth Worker’s Party congress that they were distributed to homes. Above you can also see the subtle evolution of Kim Il Sung’s portrait, more notable for what doesn’t change than what does. In the last one you can see he’s in a Western business suit, for which he permanently replaced his classic communist jumpsuit in 1984.

If there’s any propaganda to rival the ubiquitous portraits, it would have to be the equally omnipresent badges of Kim Il Sung that every North Korean must wear across their left breast. These were first distributed in 1972 to commemorate Kim Il Sung’s 60th birthday, and wearing them soon became a requirement. The Maintenance of Social Order brigade is responsible for enforcing this rule, and those who violate it would have to attend extra ideological sessions. Some editions feature both Kims. But now there’s a badge for Kim Jong Il too, and the first ones have just started appearing. Though quite a few Kim Jong Il badges seem to have appeared on eBay in the past, they’ve never been worn by North Koreans, and these ones appear to be a new edition meant for that. Scratching or getting red ink on the badges is regarded as defacing the revered iconography, and at least one man tried to commit suicide when he discovered he’d scratched his badge.