Being followed home, having his house raided, getting his hair cut weekly and being deported from Vietnam are all occupational hazards for Howard X.
When Kim Jong Un first entered the scene in 2011, taking over the role of supreme leader of North Korea from his father, Howard immediately thought ‘he looks a lot like me’.
‘Other people started saying the same thing, and I thought I should do something with this,’ Howard explained, and so in 2013, using a suit he already owned he took pictures of himself as Kim Jong Un pointing at various items in supermarkets.
He uploaded them to a Facebook page, which exploded in popularity, and within two weeks he’d booked his first professional gig as an impersonator and was flown out to Tel Aviv
Howard, who is in his mid-40s and originally from Hong Kong, had been interested in global politics, especially that of dictatorships like North Korea, for many years.
Combined with his enjoyment of satire and comedy, the music producer realised that becoming a Kim Jong Un impersonator was his ideal job.
Speaking to Metro, Howard said that while interest in his work fluctuates depending on current events, he can see himself continuing his activism for many years to come.
‘Whenever Kim launches a missile, my phone is ringing off the hook,’ he explained.
‘But I don’t wait around for him to do something. I’ve noticed that the best way for me to get work is to do my own projects.
‘I’ve always been political, I’ve always gone to protests for various causes I believe in, and I found that this is a very useful tool to satirise dictators.’
Howard spoke to Metro from The Hague where he protested outside the Nato summit venue earlier this week.
Posing with an inflatable nuke with ‘Europe, my troops are already in Ukraine. Where are yours?’ written on the side, it’s safe to say his political views are clear.
Howard said: ‘People enjoy my satirical take on world events, and being in The Hague with all the action happening here it’s been good for my career – unfortunately.’
But this has got him in trouble in the past. After taking part in the Umbrella Movement in Hong Kong in 2014 as Kim Jong Un, Howard’s house was raided and he was arrested.
Although the charges were dropped, he felt he had to leave Hong Kong for his own safety.
From Donald Trump’s inauguration to Olympic opening ceremonies, Howard has been all over the world to make a statement, but not everything has gone smoothly.
He has previously been deported from Vietnam and detained in Singapore for his protests, and he says he was even followed and assaulted by North Korean agents.
Thankfully, as he has Australian citizenship, he’s been able to set up a secret base down under.
In fact, the most bookings he’s ever had came after he documented being kicked out of Vietnam.
Howard explained: ‘I knew my notoriety in the press would give me some protection, and even when the cops came in Hong Kong they said “we’re big fans, but our boss told us that we had to come”.
‘I had to leave a life behind in Hong Kong, I miss getting some proper dim sum, but I have the privilege of being an Australian citizen, so I figured that since I have this privilege, I need to use it to speak up.
‘We have two dictators now basically controlling the world, we’ve got Trump on one side and Xi Jinping on the other side, and everybody else is caught in the middle.
‘I think for a lot of people who are not Trump supporters, they get sad and frustrated when every time they turn on their TV they see this idiot spouting his garbage.
‘That’s why I decided to satirise it, because the only way you can deal with that psychologically is to point out how ridiculous it is and make a joke out of it, which is extremely easy.’
From Sacha Baron Cohen’s The Dictator to political satire show Spitting Image, Howard has a wide variety of influences. He also rates Frank Sanazi, a comedian who impersonates Adolf Hitler singing the songs of Frank Sinatra.
But how effective is satire at bringing about change? Howard argues it’s vital.
‘If I was just one protester with a sign, I would be ignored, it wouldn’t have much of an impact, so I decided to use this impersonation to draw eyeballs to the cause of democracy, and it’s very effective,’ he explained.
‘I think that’s why dictators are so sensitive about it. All dictators fear being made fun of.
‘A lot of protesters will be very angry, and a lot of people will get very turned off by that very aggressive way of protesting.
‘If you’re making a joke out of it, it’s a gut reaction so people cannot look away, and the people you’re making fun of, they feel they lose face.
‘If you can make people laugh, it takes away the fear.
‘I’ve even made supporters of China laugh, and as a protester and political activist, you not only want to get your side to be united but you want to change the minds of the supporters of the dictatorship, so I think it’s very useful.’
And if he was to ever come face to face with Kim Jong Un, he already knows what he’d say to the dictator.
‘I’d say “go kill yourself and make me the leader, I’ll free your country”,’ he said.
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