Whatever westerners thought about images of Kim Jong Un trekking through mountain snows astride a white stallion, the subliminal message sent to North Koreans was to instil confidence that they have a man of strength and destiny holding the reins of power. The Internet was flooded with online jokes and memes after North Korea’s state media released the photographs. “The main thing to keep in mind is that while we might think Kim looks goofy, he doesn’t think that,” Jeffrey Lewis, a North Korea expert at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies in California, said on Twitter.