I'm going down a rabbithole? You've entirely bought into North Korean propaganda and believe a city they literally use as a showcase for foreigners to lie about life in the country is somehow representative of the country, and I'm the one going down a rabbithole?

Surely at some point you’d realize, "Wait I’ve been fed lies." Nobody can seriously believe that Pyongyang isn't a propaganda piece.

Foreign visitors are given strict routines and routes they must follow, with government minders at all times to prevent them from photographing anything they don't want seen or talking to people who they aren't approved to talk to. Of course it looks good in the photos and videos that are allowed out, because it's a carefully constructed and orchestrated falsehood.

But even in that, it fails, because of what's so obviously missing from Pyongyang that you find in pretty much any other major city.

Ever been to an actual large and well-off city that isn't in a despotic dictatorship? Paris? Tokyo? London? New York? Mexico City? Toronto? If you've ever been to any city like those, you'll find you don't have government handlers, can take photos of anything you want, there is traffic on the streets of all sorts, there is music, there is entertainment, parts of the city will be dirty while others are beautiful, and no one is putting on a performance for you.

This is a photo of downtown Pyongyang:

Do you see what's missing? That's the largest city in the country, in the middle of the day. A four-lane street cutting right through the heart of the city - and it's nearly empty of traffic. The street next to it clearly has more people in it, but most are on foot.

The image of the city as presented to people like your friends that have been there really is a lie. Not everything, of course... I mean, people do live, work, and go about their lives there, too. Obviously. There's a great uncut video of a drive through Pyongyang here that highlights that fact - just people, living their lives. It matches pretty well with the video you shared, too. Real people, walking the streets of Pyongyang. No dispute there.

But both videos also highlight how weird the city is, with the regular propaganda street-signs, the fact that the streets are far over-built for the traffic that they carry, the sparseness of all forms of traffic (seriously, the parts of the videos that are most densely packed with people still look less active than cities 1/10th Pyongyang's size), the weirdly identical brutalist apartment buildings everywhere... And then, once the driving video leaves downtown Pyongyang, cars basically vanish from the street (which becomes much more poorly maintained). It becomes apparent that people are walking - likely for hours - to get to and from their places of work.

Other things I looked for and didn't find in either video:

• Cafes. There are no cafes visible in either one, anywhere. There are a couple street food vendors, and that's basically it.
• Windows. There are no businesses or organizations of any sort with windows that would let anyone see in or out. Watch a bike tour of Paris to see what an incredible difference windows make.
• Shopfronts. I don't doubt there are businesses in Pyongyang, but you will not be able to identify any of them from either your bike ride video or my drive through video. You'll see very few signs (except for propaganda posters of Kim Il Sung), lots of faceless, nondescript buildings, and tons of brutalist apartments.
• Teenagers. I didn't see a single person who looked like a teenager in either video. That's not to say I don't think they exist there, of course, but usually in a vibrant city you'll see people of all ages.
• Architectural variety. Every building looks like it basically follows the same design pattern.
• Clothing variety. Most people in both videos were wearing basically similar outfits. I noticed in the bike video several women wearing identical coats.
• Shopping bags. In any other large city, you would expect to see people coming or going from shopping expeditions. Not one person that I could find in either video looked like they were going shopping. Maybe the woman at 4:45 in the pink coat in the bicycling video, though those didn't really look like shopping bags. She was also one of only a small number of people I saw wearing anything colorful at all. (Another was right at the beginning of the bike video).
• Art. As far as I could tell, there is no street art anywhere in Pyongyang with the exception of things like monuments to Kim Il Sung. No sculptures, no murals, not even any flower gardens. Maybe they exist in other parts of the city, but they were certainly not visible in either video.
• Music. At about 50 seconds in, there is music briefly audible in this Paris bike ride. There is never any music audible at any point in the Pyongyang bike ride. (I happen to like this particular Paris ride video because it shows the city, good parts and bad.)

Seriously, watch any video of a driving or bicycling tour through nearly any major city in any other country, and you'll see astonishing differences. It's impossible to watch your friend's video or the driving video I shared and conclude that's a thriving city when compared to cities like Tokyo or Paris.