The Onion Convinces Actual Chinese Communists That Kim Jong-un Is Actually the Sexiest Man Alive

We're not here to debate whether or not North Korea's supreme leader is the sexiest man alive. No, we're here to snicker that The Onion fooled the official paper of China's communist party into thinking it so.

Update 11:32 a.m. The Onion has updated its story with this funny little tag:

For more coverage on The Onion's Sexiest Man Alive 2012, Kim Jong-Un, please visit our friends at the People's Daily in China, a proud Communist subsidiary of The Onion, Inc. Exemplary reportage, comrades.

Nope, we're not sure if the People's Daily will run that comrade joke.

Update 11:10 a.m.: Not to be outdone by China's People's Daily, it seems that the Korea Times, a South Korean paper, has also picked up Onion's story of Kim Jong-un being the sexiest man alive (Note: as some people have pointed out, the Korea Times article mentions that the Onion is a satirical magazine in its Korean translation, but fails to do so in the English version which we went off of—going off that Korean version, it seems like the Korea Times is actually laughing with The Onion).  Unlike the People's Daily, there is no 55-image gallery.

Original: We're not here to debate whether or not North Korea's supreme leader, Kim Jong-un, is the sexiest man alive. No, we're here to snicker that The Onion fooled China's communist paper into thinking it so. The actual article from the People's Daily Online, the official newspaper of China's communist party, isn't much more than taking a few quotes from the Onion article and smacking them onto a 55-PAGE SLIDESHOW GALLERY of Kim looking all majestic and whatnot.

And another photo from People's Daily, which we guess is their stab at depicting Kim's sexiness (if this is a meta-joke People's Daily, tell us now). That "(21)" is the 21st picture in the 55-image slideshow (in case you thought we were kidding with that 55-page funny business):

The actual Onion article satirically congratulating Kim for his sexiness first appeared on November 14. "With his devastatingly handsome, round face, his boyish charm, and his strong, sturdy frame, this Pyongyang-bred heartthrob is every woman's dream come true," reads the original article which was copied and pasted word for word sans satire in the People's Daily. "Blessed with an air of power that masks an unmistakable cute, cuddly side, Kim made this newspaper's editorial board swoon with his impeccable fashion sense, chic short hairstyle, and, of course, that famous smile," both articles read. Okay fine, this isn't the first time the Onion fooled a foreign paper—back in September they fooled Iran's news agency into thinking "Rural Whites Prefer Ahmadinejad To Obama"—and hopefully it won't be the last.