Rodman in Pyongyang

Dennis Rodman sang Happy Birthday to Kim Jong-un, and if you haven’t seen the video, it’s worse than you’re imagining. The singing is bad. Kim’s grinning through the whole thing. It doesn’t work.

There’s something genuinely depressing about it. Not in a funny way—just actually depressing. Rodman’s spent his entire life not giving a shit what anyone thinks, which is usually kind of cool. But this is what happens when you take that and point it at a dictator who runs concentration camps. He just goes for it. Does it badly. Leaves thinking it was fine.

I don’t even remember if they played basketball afterward. I think there was basketball. It doesn’t matter. Basketball was never the point. The point was just another famous person deciding that this was how they wanted to be remembered.