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March is Women's History Month!

Don't Panic, It Wasn't Lil' Kim

In case anyone's confused. Kim Jong Il is at left. And Lil' Kim is still with us.
Korean Central News Agency / Ian Gavan
/
AFP/Getty Images
In case anyone's confused. Kim Jong Il is at left. And Lil' Kim is still with us.

Just the headline of this Buzz Feed post made us laugh.

"25 People Who Thought Lil Kim Died."

It's funny either way:

-- If some folks were confused by the death of North Korean leader Kim Jong Il.

-- Or if they were just making mischief.

The latter appears more likely — or at least it's the reason the whole thread got started. According to The Wall Street Journal's Digits blog:

"Shortly after Kim's death, cultural critic N'Gai Croal was one of the first to jump-start the meme, 'RIP, Lil' Kim,' he tweeted. Thousands more followed."

When he did that, N'Gai Croal also linked to a Bloomberg News story about the Korean leader's death.

(H/T to NPR's Stephanie Federico.)

Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

Mark Memmott is NPR's supervising senior editor for Standards & Practices. In that role, he's a resource for NPR's journalists – helping them raise the right questions as they do their work and uphold the organization's standards.