Empress Tessa’s Sojourn in Moscow

Tessa Violet is an American singer of modest popularity and talent who kick-started her career by video-blogging and lip syncing songs.

Here is her most popular music video to date:

This isn’t exactly a pop culture blog, so why am I writing about her?

Basically her imperial flag-colored hair has made her into a minor cultural curiosity in Russia. The first meme was manufactured by the VK group “Memes for Russians” in December 2018, and from there on Russian nationalists and very online trolls memed her into the budding Empress of the Russian National State.

This had obvious resemblances to the Alt Right’s memeing of Taylor Swift into a White Nationalist in 2015-16, while I suppose just goes to demonstrate the internationalization of Zoomer right-wing troll culture.

Inevitably, eventually, the memetic energy propelled Tessa to give a concert in Moscow.

She was not thrilled with her admirers chanting “Russians Forwards”, the Russian nationalist slogan that is fast becoming our equivalent of the Ukrainians’ “Glory to Ukraine” or the Arabs’ “Allahu Akbar”:

Or so she claimed, anyway.

Personally, I think there was a much more credible explanation:

Regardless of the real reasons for Tessa’s disavowal, it was certainly very fun to observe and troll the betacuck soyboys and genderfluid otherkin apologizing to Tessa about the fervor of her most devoted fans in Russia.

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Comments

  1. Please keep off topic posts to the current Open Thread.

    If you are new to my work, start here.

  2. Daniel Chieh says

    She also removed all her earlier, saner videos when she actually seemed like a normal girl. But of course.

  3. German_reader says

    This had obvious resemblances to the Alt Right’s memeing of Taylor Swift into a White Nationalist in 2015-16

    tbh it sounds even more stupid, at least Taylor Swift is a well-known star with instant name recognition, so the joke worked to some extent…who has ever heard of this Tessa person ? Seems autistic and pointless even by the standard of internet memes.

  4. That’s what makes it funny though, what is funnier than some random nobody who has the burden of Russian Nationalism placed on them? Reminds me of Billy Herrington (rip) in that sometimes you don’t have a choice in what happens to you, but you do have the ability to go with it or cuck out and apologise.

  5. Each time I hear modern pop, I wonder if it is too late to launch a crash eugenics program.

  6. Russia for Russians, Belarus for Belarusians, Ukraine for Ukrainians, Israel for Everyone! /s

  7. Lol she has real fans in Russia. I just search in Twitter and can see they were tweeting about the concert and then they are annoyed by a chant in the song Crush.

    https://twitter.com/kostyabitches/status/1189245575520247808
    https://twitter.com/kostyabitches/status/1189266880089001986

    Also in the song she has predictive programmed this meme.

    Listen to lyrics at 1:12 in Crush – she says “it’s such a Russian thing!”. So she intentionally or not, she has originally programmed whoever psychologically susceptible person has begun the meme.

    https://youtu.be/SiAuAJBZuGs?t=72

  8. It is kind of interesting as a test of conditioning, to show how easily “herd of sheep” can be programmed by simple content on the internet – i.e. this herd has manipulated themselves to this create a nonsensical connection to the singer in real life, from an internet meme, because they see others in the herd repeat.

    Their perception of it being “funny” – is because they are copying some other members of the herd (which they perceive being in the same herd, because they follow the same pages in social media). Brain is rewarding them for repeating others in the herd.

    But this one is actually quite funny, because it has manipulated people with self-perception as nationalists, to connect to the most girly, American liberal singer, that only homosexuals would listen to.

    So they have been conditioned to go to a concert of this liberal, girly singer, which is only known to gays, and have now given her money now (the final part of the experiment, would be if she admits she had secretly planned this).

    More strange, is that in her original song she (unintentionally or not) predicatively programmed this. She sings “It’s such a Russian thing” at 1:12 in a video above.

    Generation Z are first people who it might be actually possible to hypnotize by the internet. And this will intensify – imagine when peoples’ choices about real life will determined by cookies and page suggestions, etc.

  9. Her song actually sounds better with the chant (russkiye vperod) added the chorus, but adding it to the most gay song in the world (it feels like some NWO brainwashing practice).

  10. There is one thing a bit creepy though, as she has predictively programmed a phrase about Russia, into the original song (“It is such a Russian thing”). Why would this be programmed into the song? And she does in a really subtle way, while she looks like the flag and video reverses.

    She dresses in the colours of a Russian Imperial Flag.

    Even her hair is she shaded from black to yellow like the top of the flag.

    I don’t know if that’s creepy or not. If I smoking enough weed, or Jacques Vallée – I would be paranoid about this, as it looks like some kind of experiment to see if internet can be used for brainwashing (the fact she also comes to Russia, and how brainwashed the chanting).

  11. Korenchkin says

    Seems autistic and pointless

    Weclome to the internet

  12. Maybe it is a psyop? I’ll leave it to the Russian version of Q Boomers to discover it though.

  13. The jews at the ADL/SPLC/Google are completely aware of these things happening. Observe how they made Taylor Swift renounce her apolitical ways and fully embrace their ZOG culture. No doubt Tessa was getting bombarded by various sources to disavow or else face the standard exile from polite society.

  14. Spisarevski says

    Should have posted the real video. The “original” is actually a ZOG edit.

  15. Sounds like Dmitry, master of thots is some sort of psyop.

  16. Brabantian says

    Many readers here will prefer this video of Tessa Violet, she and a gaggle of leggy dancing girls in tights and heels, quasi-flashing under too-short mini-pullovers, ‘I Like the Idea of You’

  17. I’ve always liked ethnic-nationalist songs. Beyond the obvious reasons, they tend to be more complicated – have more lyrics, better music. Perhaps, this is because they appeal to a different type of people, or maybe because, even with newer ones, over the course of decades, they are kind of in a genre where the styles are more rooted in the past.

    Trouble with nationalist songs is that you limit yourself to a smaller market. Not only a subregion, but a subset of people. Part of the reason for this might be that the music is more technically difficult – it would be hard to cross borders and imitate other national styles. For instance, hard to sing in other languages.

    Still, I wonder if it wouldn’t be a good idea to try to create a nationalist pop star across European borders, releasing songs for different European countries, all with the theme of sovereignty. Some pretty young woman, but with other people doing the heavy-lifting, writing the lyrics, and perhaps even different groups playing the instruments.

  18. Daniel Chieh says

    Meekakitty is just a silly girl who does unboxing videos and songs that have gotten more attention over time.

    Its not like she jumped out of the Internet randomly in 2019.

  19. Europa Nationalist says

    Why do Russian nationalists feel the need to make a hero out of some practically unknown American pop singer? Do they not have any pop singers of their own who would fit that role? Would most Russian pop singers vehemently reject such an association?

    Seems like an inferiority complex to me, a desire for affirmation from the great Americans.

  20. TheTotallyAnonymous says

    Why do Russian nationalists feel the need to make a hero out of some practically unknown American pop singer?

    Take a look at Tessa Violet’s YouTube channel. She has around 1.68 million subs. She’s not completely unknown. Plus, she’s going to be more popular now, whether she likes it or not, lol.

  21. Why do Russian nationalists feel the need to make a hero out of some practically unknown American pop singer?

    I first learned of Tessa’s existence from this post in Karlin’s blog. Maybe in the Internet club of “Russian nationalists” this Tessa-a great hero, but in Russia she almost completely unknown.

  22. This thread acquires its second 30 year old boomer after German_reader.

  23. The subtle comedy of the thing is growing on me.

    IMO, why it works is her novelty hair. She is obviously not blond, but her dyejob is like an abstraction of a blonde. If they manage to get her to change her hair color, to signal she is not a Nazi, I would consider the whole thing a success.

    That said, I think it is more like an inside joke to nationalists (as many of these things are), than good propaganda. But who couldn’t use more humor?

  24. Why do American larpers feel the need to overanalyze every joke?
    Seems like a deluded boomer complex to me

  25. TheTotallyAnonymous says

    Not sure whether to react with AGREE or LOL.

  26. RadicalCenter says

    May I suggest “Kotik” by the Russian/Norwegian singer Alexander Rybak. I’m a fan of his, and a bigger fan of the ladies in his videos.

  27. OT: Rod Dreher is reporting from Russia in the next 10 days, first from
    Moscow, then SPB. Before his visit he described Russia as an Eastern
    Orthodox country. He’s in for a surprise. I wonder if he knows that
    there are at least 3 million Muslims in Moscow alone.

    His first stop: the 1937-38 killing fields of Butovo, just south of Moscow.

  28. RadicalCenter says

    P.S. Rybak’s “Europe’s Skies” features his usual trio of violin-playing (or as we might say, “fiddle-playing”) Nordic gals, against a beautiful natural backdrop. A pretty song that he sings in both English and Russian, but it sounds better in the original Russian.

  29. Belarusian Dude says

    This blog already discussed myth of moskvabad

  30. Lol before you laugh at me too much for schizophrenic eccntricity, look at this.

    In 1:12 she talks about Russia, while posing as the flag.

    In the English language there 170,000 or so words.

    However, I think there are only two words (?) with the sound of the English word “Russia” (pronounced as Rush-a) –

    Crush
    Rush

    Song is Crush and the official lyrics “It’s such a rush, I’m thinking”, but she says instead “It’s such a Russian thing”.

  31. Lars Porsena says

    These memes (Tailor Swift, Tessa) seem to expose a missed opportunity.

    Of course they are just jokes, but their popularity suggests they should not be joking. How hard would it be to find a marginally attractive pop-tart type girl to sing or act like whatever you wanted for even a modicum of money?

    Nationalists should start fielding their own pop tarts and then using their concerts as recruitment tools for the easily hypnotized. Mind you, you can’t turn them into total obvious nationalists but keep them 95% normal seemingly gay poptart, but with concerts full of recruiters, and only a very occasional hint from the star that she’s basically OK with it.

    If nothing else, thing how delightfully hilarious it will be to read liberal articles getting the vapors over it when they figure out what’s going on. Their reaction would be the real joke. Have some 98 lb waifu singing about identifying with pandas or something while a horde of blue haired freaks outside are screaming “Down with the Russian patriarchy!”

  32. Europa Nationalist says

    It’s not even a particularly good song, not even by the standards of modern pop music. Seems like a very average Eurovision sort of song that would get a few points but would have no hope of actually winning.

    I was actually expecting more before I listened to it to be honest, but really it just seems like the sort of unremarkable song that countless wannabe pop singers produce every year.

  33. 20th century style of folk song, is usually by its nature (and why it can be good art) focuses too much on the individual.

    For nationalism – a suitable kind of “art”, I think, is mass dance.

    This some modifications (not lyrics about peace and love), you could make this kind of thing into nationalism art.

  34. Song is Crush and the official lyrics “It’s such a rush, I’m thinking”, but she says instead “It’s such a Russian thing”.

    Maybe, we could use Deepfake to turn all this globohomo sausage into nationalist sausage?

  35. Well whether for a good cause or a bad cause, there is something immoral, as art should not be used for hypnotizing gullible herds of sheep and cattle, recruiting such weak people for support of different politics, etc.

    Good work would be to try to give these weak people which are susceptible to herding behaviour, some of an immune system so they are not so open to hypnosis and herding behaviours, can be critical, learn to understand logic and evidence, understand to notice propaganda, etc.

    you can’t turn them into total obvious nationalists but keep them 95%

    98 lb waifu singing

    Lol, you have not seen Tatu?

  36. This some modifications (not lyrics about peace and love), you could make this kind of thing into nationalism art.

    Exceptionally ugly girls in this video

  37. According to the 2010 census (Source:Wikipedia), Moscow has 1.o million
    Muslim residents and 1.5 million Muslim migrant workers. The figures have
    increased since 2010, so 3 million Muslims is not unrealistic. I’ve seen
    figures as high as 3.5 million.

    By the way, Rod Dreher already had a very unpleasant experience in Moscow
    (in addition to cold weather – a challenge for a boy from Louisiana) involving
    dishonest and corrupt taxi drivers. I guess nobody warned him.

    That’s Dreher for you. In his reporting from Poland a few weeks ago, he also
    focused on the negatives.

  38. According to the 2010 census (Source:Wikipedia), Moscow has 1.o million
    Muslim residents and 1.5 million Muslim migrant workers. The figures have
    increased since 2010, so 3 million Muslims is not unrealistic. I’ve seen
    figures as high as 3.5 million.

    This statement is ridiculous nonsense.
    Кarlin: http://www.unz.com/akarlin/myth-of-moskvabad/

    According to the 2010 Census, 92% of Muscovites are Russians, rising to 94% amongst infants. For all intents and purposes these figures go up to more than 95% if you only count Slavs and other non-Central Asian and non-Caucasian minorities. Now yes, to be sure, if you go outside, then 85%-90% of the faces you encounter will have a Slavic appearance. In 2014, the Federal Migration Service estimated there were 1.4 million foreign workers in the city, of whom 400,000 were there illegally.

    That is, of the 12 million permanent population of Moscow, 11.4 million are Slavs and other non-Central Asian and non-Caucasian minorities. Of the remaining 600,000, only a fraction are Muslims.

    Among the 1.4 million foreign workers, only a smaller part are Muslims.

  39. In continuation-here are the data of 2017 about what names were given to children born in Moscow

    https://cdn3.imgbb.ru/community/232/2328175/201803/204e56d4c8faa3693c1d2cc875fa37fb.jpg

    https://cdn3.imgbb.ru/community/232/2328175/201803/b3735bc1bb4a007053f7f88d07b62103.jpg

    Of the 30 most common names in the list, only two non – Slavic names-Timur (29th place in popularity out of 30 for boys) and Amina (also 29th place out of 30 for girls).

  40. Daniel Chieh says

    I’ve known of her back when she was still doing awkward video clips as an effort to create “transition” effect.

    This is all very silly.

  41. / Riding gypsy mafia cabs in the Year of 2019 instead of ordering a Yandex.Taxi or Uber like a civilized human being.

    According to the 2010 census (Source:Wikipedia), Moscow has 1.o million
    Muslim residents and 1.5 million Muslim migrant workers.

    I love how Poles (Ukrainians, etc.) have such a remarkable concentration of experts on Moscow demographics. TIL the Russian census asks about religion! /s

    Meanwhile, IRL: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moscow#Demographics

    At the time of the official 2010 Census, the ethnic makeup of the city’s population whose ethnicity was known (10,835,092 people) was:[72]

    Russian: 9,930,410 (91.65%)
    Ukrainian: 154,104 (1.42%)
    Tatar: 149,043 (1.38%)
    Armenian: 106,466 (0.98%)
    Azerbaijani: 57,123 (0.5%)
    Jewish: 53,145 (0.5%)
    Belarusian: 39,225 (0.4%)
    Georgian: 38,934 (0.4%)
    Uzbek: 35,595 (0.3%)
    Tajik: 27,280 (0.2%)
    Moldovan: 21,699 (0.2%)
    Mordvin: 17,095 (0.2%)
    Chechen: 14,524 (0.1%)
    Chuvash: 14,313 (0.1%)
    Ossetian: 11,311 (0.1%)
    Others: 164,825 (1.6%)

  42. Lars Porsena says

    there is something immoral, as art should not be used for hypnotizing gullible herds of sheep and cattle

    OK. But we are talking about poptarts. None of this is more credibly described as art, than the art of hypnosis part maybe (or art of trolling for social chaos).

    The rest is all flashing lights, jiggling chicks and autotune.

    so they are not so open to hypnosis and herding behaviours, can be critical, learn to understand logic and evidence, understand to notice propaganda, etc.

    That’s completely utopian. If we’re going to tilt windmills I’d rather we try to make the sky rain candy.

    Lol, you have not seen Tatu?

    Just read the wiki. Proof of concept! Practically the whole genre is people doing what I suggested in the other direction.

  43. Daniel Chieh says

    Of course they are just jokes, but their popularity suggests they should not be joking. How hard would it be to find a marginally attractive pop-tart type girl to sing or act like whatever you wanted for even a modicum of money?

    Money isn’t enough. Ultimately it is a matter of passion and art, and some degree of alignment of values with the actor(or actress). I come from art circles myself and it can be a smallish world at times. For a variety of reasons, nationalism isn’t going to appeal to women and artists in general lean left on top of that. Truth is not much of a defense there, I remember a girl I knew who went full 180 to an extreme pacifist view after reading about the memoirs of a nurse in WW1; familiarity with brutality immediately led her to a belief that any surrender is better than war.

    It is, of course, possible to get girls to cheer on traditional feminine things and that’s an angle that can annoy liberals a lot, something which the entire Japanese idol scene does and there can even be a vaguely and playful jingotistic tilt to it(K-pop was argued to have that with Girl’s Generation “Genie”), but its usually at least slightly tangential to their direct anger.

  44. Incidentally, I keep wondering how these taxi mafias manage to survive at airports.

    Now I know, it’s thanks to clueless American boomers like Rod Dreher.

  45. I don’t claim to be an expert on Moscow demographics. The problem
    is – you see widely varying figures, even as large as 3-4 million Muslims,
    in western press, backed up by aerial photos of huge throngs
    of people outside mosques on Muslim holidays. Then they mention
    their enormous fertility rates. So which sources do you trust?

    Dreher is doing a lot of interviews so we’ll see what his take is.
    But of all the Slavic countries he visited, he seems to only
    like Slovakia. He is a very emotional man who, like Derbyshire,
    thinks we are all doomed, so I don’t expect him to be objective.

  46. Lars Porsena says

    I remember a girl I knew who went full 180 to an extreme pacifist view after reading about the memoirs of a nurse in WW1; familiarity with brutality immediately led her to a belief that any surrender is better than war.

    That has to be one of the basic of feminine impulses. Surrender to the most aggressive. She is basically declaring herself to be spoils, which is not a bad idea because she probably sucks at fighting.

    We could probably get her to do it by threatening to attack her if she doesn’t.

    Anyway the point here would not be to appeal to women with nationalism but to appeal to the type of nationalistic guys who show up at Tessa concerts.

    Also you and Dmitry seem to be universally conflating art with professional entertainment.

    I just read about Tatu. Some guy wrote all their songs for them and made them pretend to be lesbians. We don’t need actual artists we just need a pretty girl who can dance and lipsync.

  47. Muscovites themselves complain of much too many Muslims. Official figures are an underestimate.

  48. a desire for affirmation from the great Americans.

    And the problem with this would be:?

  49. Daniel Chieh says

    Also you and Dmitry seem to be universally conflating art with professional entertainment.

    Without going into the details, even the better performers in some very grungy things believe that they are executing “art.” Passion is a necessary detail.

    I’m familiar with Tatu but there is almost certainly a more detailed story to it and as in many things, I do believe that the girls at least bought into the fiction that they were doing something great on some level. The same kind of thing happens quite often – its how idol groups are formed, and they are enormously fake, and yet on some level, they also have to buy into their own fiction.

    Incidentally, the near total failure of Tatu afterward versus the faint but still productive career of Alizee is a good example of how actual talent and passion can continue after the initial buttresses are gone.

  50. Korenchkin says

    you see widely varying figures, even as large as 3-4 million Muslims

    You gonna link a source or just spout random numbers?

    backed up by aerial photos of huge throngs
    of people outside mosques on Muslim holidays.

    They are in large number because the number of Mosques in Moscow is limited, usually the pics spammed by trolls are from the restored Cathedral Mosque, one of the 4 (four) Mosques in the city (6 if you count the ones Bolsheviks turned into museums), so they come from across the city to pray

    Sergey Sobyanin has denied permits to construct new Mosques despite Muslim whining, meaning the Moscow Mayors office at least has no intention of making the Muslim population comfortable
    The fact that you cite those trollpics as evidence of anything makes you seem really uninformed and just plain naive

  51. Korenchkin says

    Boomers don’t trust apps or phones, wait a generation and Taxishivilis will die out

  52. You are arguing against something I never claimed.

    But they are nowhere close to being 20-25% of the population (as Anon 2’s 3.0-3.5M figure would imply).

  53. As both melanf and Korenchkin both mentioned, see http://www.unz.com/akarlin/myth-of-moskvabad/

    There are four mosques in Moscow (that’s two orders of magnitude less than in London), so ofc there will be throngs of Muslims around them on their holy days.

  54. Even worse, he took it all the way from Sheremetyevo to the center instead of just using the Aeroexpress.

  55. You are arguing against something I never claimed.

    I’m arguing not against your claim but against the implication from the stats you posted.

    But they are nowhere close to being 20-25% of the population (as Anon 2’s 3.0-3.5M figure would imply).

    Agree. I’d guess around 10%. A different world from Paris or London, but no Warsaw or Kiev.

  56. TBH, having visited numerous times before the Aeroexpress existed, I assumed it it did not exist last time I visited. Though in-laws just drove us from the airport.

  57. German_reader says

    Well, I can see how it’s funny…but apart from that, I fail to see the point, I can’t discern any viable political strategy behind such memes. Politically it’s probably a waste of time.

  58. German_reader says

    Now I know, it’s thanks to clueless American boomers like Rod Dreher.

    Dreher was born in 1967.
    He’s an appallingly stupid person imo, but calling him a boomer renders the term completely meaningless.

  59. Daniel Chieh says

    At the end of the day, if you want to keep people together in an organization or trend, you have to provide something for them. Entertainment is a good.

    And as we know from the Roman graffiti, trolling is truly the most traditional form of expression.

    “Weep, you girls. My penis has given you up. Now it penetrates men’s behinds. Goodbye, wondrous femininity!”

  60. German_reader says

    if you want to keep people together in an organization or trend, you have to provide something for them.

    If you want to create a genuine nationalist movement, you have to offer a vision, with myths and rituals of community, which will inspire people to sacrifice, possibly up to including their own deaths. Silly internet jokes with their postmodern sense of irony (nothing is ever serious) might actually be corrosive of such a project.
    Not that I’m complaining, given the historical track record of nationalism it might perhaps even be better if young men spend their time on memes instead of paramilitary exercises.

  61. Boomerism is a state of mind, not just a chronological marker.

    Also I know next to nothing about Dreher so I just guessed that he is a boomer. 🙂

  62. German_reader says

    Also I know next to nothing about Dreher

    You really should read his blog, you could learn a lot about important issues like demons, ghosts and the occult.

  63. Dacian Julien Soros says

    Mindless adulation for nobodies (Hasselhoff and Karl Marx) from the enemy camp brought you the humiliation of the twenties and the nineties. You don’t have to be a boomer to know that. The reason why America eats everyone’s lunch is that no American would give a shit about a Russian meme, including a Butina.

  64. Korenchkin says

    Mindless adulation for nobodies

    And this coming from an American, talk about projection!
    You literally have an entire month dedicated to worshipping nobodies,
    it’s called Black History month

  65. Dacian Julien Soros says

    So Maria, Ana, Daniil, Mikhail are Slavic now? Jewish Christ!

  66. Dacian Julien Soros says

    Stop being so provincial and fixated on American. I am Romanian. You could take a short break from your Taylor Swift updates to read about Dacians. Or could you? Is a Russian still able to stop drooling over today’s Hasselhoffs?

    Our lunch, as little as it was, has been long eaten by the Russian, but it’s now safe in Kushner’s hands, thanks to the Hasselhoff Event.

  67. Dreher comes across as pretty naive for someone so well-travelled. It’s interesting to me how so many North American visitors to European cities rely exclusively on taxis and give off the impression that it never even occurs to them to get around by metro, bus, tram, etc. Must be due to the ingrained car culture and possibly the sad state of North American public transportation.

  68. It was created as a completely fake “musical group” by psychologists. So they had “lesbian theme” as clickbait and also “school girl” theme. (The singers hired are heterosexual.)

    Psychologists who created the group were very sophisticated and they know already about fashions like “Kawaii”, “Japanese school girl”, “LGBT religion” – and they know this in Russia, about 15 years earlier than it became fashionable in the West.

    It’s the only pop music from Russia of that last 20 years, that was globally exported. Retrospectively, they are very “ahead”, being almost 20 years before all these things became the religion of Generation Z.

  69. Lol, how do you know her as a YouTuber? She’s not even famous now, as a singer.

    Intentional or unintentional co-incidence, perhaps this is not the interesting thing. In either case, the programming in the song, has this result which we see.

    It would funny if people would experiment (or are experimenting), to see how easily you can generate these phenomenon.

    For example, program this content to a not famous singer in New York, and count how many hours until it will generate your random seeming, but expected reaction in the other half of the world.

  70. Problem of “boomers” (as described in America, definitely) – that they were such a far lower quality than generations that was before this. Sadly, it was not an anomaly, but a trend, and the generations’ quality continues to fall globally.

    So, some boomers were inferior, but some still could write good books, create good films, etc. But have you tried to read any books written by millennials, who consider Harry Potter to be cultural heritage? Or listen to the music? And now, Generation Z “elite culture” – living from Japanese manga, Korean boybands and non-binary toilets.

  71. That video looks to be a rip off of Nancy Sinatra’s 1965 Scopitone video jukebox music video for ‘These Boots Are Made For Walking’ which can be readily found on YouTube.

    Though, it has to be said, the women (in general) in either of the two vids are not too shabby. 😉

  72. Never heard of her, but then I suppose I’m not very acquainted with today’s popular culture

  73. Lars Porsena says

    Baby One More Time came out in 1997.

    Tatu had her beat on the fake lipstick lesbo theme though.

    I really don’t think you need to be a psychologist to figure out what makes these acts appealing and exciting.

    Which is the point. I really think that most of the genre is like that. Tatu looks like a great example, proof of concept. Katie Perry was apparently singing religious songs before she became famous with ‘I Kissed A Girl’. Pretty much every single Disney girl talent follows the same trajectory. It might have something to do with this crap becoming the religion of gen z. There is the conspiratorial, as well as the (((conspiratorial))) interpretations. But even if it didn’t, the recipe is easy enough to figure out. So many of the newer ones are basically gravitating to a BDSM motif because where else can you legally go from here for the time being.

    But as to herding, like I was saying to Daniel about women being predisposed to pacifism because they suck at violence, as an inequalist I think the reality is there are different rational strategies that must be pursued by different people based on their differences. They do it because it is right for them. They are in fact safer following the group (at least as a meta strategy, specific odds may change depending on how crazy the group gets).

    Teaching gazelle to act like lions, let alone panthers, wouldn’t be good for the gazelle, besides the fact that it won’t work, because different animals are different.

    Think of it as noblesse oblige. A good shepherd doesn’t try to teach his sheep to use GPS so he can wank off all day while they navigate themselves off a cliff, he guides them. Either we brainwash them or psychologists will, and they will monetize turning them into furries.

    So we twerk their brains into fine upstanding citizens with families and jobs.

  74. Lars Porsena says

    I believe you that you have some experience here, and you surely have infinitely more experience than me if you have any. But still, you seem to be thinking of something different than what I envisioned.

    I don’t know anything about Alizee, but I can buy that she has actual talent and passion. A lot of them do have great talents for sure. I’m not saying the whole genre is without any artistic merit. Although some of it, a great deal even, is. And anyway, it seems irrelevant to the task if we are trying to brainwash people. As does the continued viability of their careers after the brainwashing is done. The talent does not have to be all that talented, we are not chasing music fans here. We’re chasing the lowest hanging fruit with the lowest common denominator. (Just the way Democracy was suppose to work!)

    Tatu is a great example. Apparently people are still begging them to get back together and they only broke up because they hated each other and what they were doing, they already had a comfortable amount of money and fame and they thought it would follow them to solo careers where 1 wrote her own music and the other just kept performing the same music solo. These girls were started on this when they were 16 and it ran for about 10-15 years at which point the people behind the scenes were probably losing interest and didn’t care.

    Passion just means we have to brainwash the talent first. Although I still can’t buy that half the talent won’t brainwash itself for fame and money.

  75. Daniel Chieh says

    I knew her through a girl with really great legs.

    And insofar as your question goes, its called “guerrilla marketing” or perhaps these days, “viral marketing,” especially in specific to what is essentially meme creation. This also led to the idea of “alternate reality” participation, a significant example of its use in the video game Secret World:

    The websites led to a Flash page with a countdown timer that uses Eastern Arabic numerals. The timer would presumably have reached zero at 12:00 AM on December 21, 2012, adjusted for the location of Funcom headquarters. The date is the end of the Mayan calendar cycle, which is notable in Maya mythology. A puzzle was also included on the same page, hinting at the destruction of three major cities. Solving the puzzle gave the players 5 sets of coordinates, revealed several early screenshots from the game and marked the end of the first ARG.

    By and large, they weren’t extremely successful beyond the novelty concept – though the idea of increased participation to increase ownership is in and of itself, perhaps still viable. However, the idea of long-term hypnosis is really silly for a number of reasons:

    1) As with all other concepts in HBD, “humans” aren’t universal. Marketers would love it if they could precisely find out what makes every humans tick, but by and large, beyond the self-evidently obvious(and schoolgirl uniforms are one of them), marketing efforts only work if they’re localized against a specific demographic, and that demographic’s concerns can change based on the political situation and time.

    2) As with the above, long-term timing means that its far more subject to various other trends and impetuses that might be happening. Ultimately, you want to have high conversion of effort to sales, as soon as possible; the longer you delay it, not only has your actual cost increased due to upkeep, but the more likely that the effect desired may never materialize.

    3) Hypnosis and “subconscious programming” in and of itself is rather limited utility, because its hard to consistently predict how the target audience will react to it. Insofar as any success can be found, it’d be through “buzz” familiarity bias and emotional evocation. The former would be the repetition of “Coke” as a soft drink hopefully encouraging an individual to ask for a Coke in lieu of any other strong preferences. The latter would be McDonalds providing playpens for children to create a sense of happiness and familiarity associated with the brand, so that hopefully the children will grow up to associate McDonalds with cheer. What is common in both is that its kind of random, relatively weak, and can’t evoke anything like complex and precise behavior.

    Ultimately, this is all a form of communication, which means that there’s both a signal(the message being communicated) and reception(the message being heard). Its ultimately futile to obscure the signal vastly, pitch it over and hope for a reception that’s exactly what you want, and not even be able to get feedback to know if your message worked for years.

  76. So Maria, Ana, Daniil, Mikhail are Slavic now?

    In Russia, Yes.
    Muslims (and, ironically, religious Jews) will not give children these names

  77. anonymous coward says

    Not ironically, Jews hate everything related to Christianity. It’s their religion.

  78. Dieter Kief says

    I agree. This CRUSH-line from her video 1:12 min. in is indeed interesting: “It’s such a Russian thinking / Wish You were here“.

    (And there are traces from Pink Floyd to Russia, too on The Wall). So, yes: This line is a deeply rooted pop-culture trace).

  79. She has cleverly programmed this response. It’s a pretty weird or creepy social experiment though.

    It’s statistically improbable to be accident, because the only English words which match to English pronunciation of Russia – are Crush/Rush (i.e. she chooses 2 words from 170,000 words in the English language), and if you listen, she does not pronounce the official words of the song “It’s such a Rush I’m thinking”, but says intentionally “It’s such a Russian thing”.

    In addition, when she says at 1:12 min “It’s such a Russian thing”, she poses as the imperial flag.

    https://i.imgur.com/ercOM8s.jpg

    https://i.imgur.com/vME1xiT.jpg

    And writing on her clothes say in Russian – “Mishka”.

    Of course, for Americans, which have boycotted the 1980 Moscow Olympics

  80. These all common or popular names from the Old Testament.

    However, in transcription from Hebrew to Greek, they remove a consonant in two of the names (I guess because of the Greek orthography?), except in Mikhail and Daniil which is the identical from Hebrew.

    Mikhail = “who is” (Hebrew = mi) + “god” (Hebrew = khel)

    Maria (Greek Μαρία) = Mari +m (Hebrew מרי+ם)
    Ana (Greek) = H + Ana (Hebrew)

  81. For Israel (I don’t know if this the religious Jews or not), Mikhail is reported officially most popular name for women born in the 1970-1980.

    It’s written in the left side of the diagram for 1970s.

    https://besttv232-ynet-images1-prod.cdn.it.best-tv.com/PicServer3/2014/01/23/5115589/names2-.jpg

    And I just notice Empress Tessa has unconsciously programmed me to talk about Mikhail by a message in her clothing.

  82. I can dismiss nearly everything but this: where did this bizarre outbreak of Russophobia come from? Could it have been implanted in pop songs, with their many synthetic sounds?

    Was Tessa sent to Moscow, after this “Russian thing” slip, as a coverup? To hide the true nature of pop music? And why was it done during the election season in America?

  83. Athletic and Whitesplosive says

    I don’t really have a strong opinion on predictive programming, but it’s a poor method I think to suggest that the pool of words possible in some vapid pop song is all 170 000 english words.

    How many english words does the average modern speaker know? (Ignoring of course that pop singer/songwriters very easily might be below average.) Being too lazy to look up the average vocabulary test results, I’m inclined to think less than half of 170 000, but let’s say 100 000. Now, how many of these would be of use in a brainless pop song, almost all of which center around an idiot’s idea of romance or relationships? Much much fewer than 100 000, my vocabulary is considerably larger than average and I think it would take me quite awhile to think of 1000 words that were about “love” or “romance” (and fewer that are easy to put to song), so let’s say the pool is more like 1000 words, one of which (and likely a popular one) is “crush”.

    Now how many brainless pop songs are put out by aspiring teenage pop stars every year? Considerably more than 1000 I think, likely several thousand, so even if these 1000 words are chosen randomly, and only one is used, there should still be a couple using “crush”. And what’s the most obvious rhyme of crush (that fits easily in the genre to boot)? “Rush” of course, and there’s probably plenty of combinations to come up with something that sounds like “russian”, not least of which is “rush in”.

    All that being said, the similarity to the imperial flag on top of this is strange, and I’m tired of idiot journos who want us to believe every absurd happening is just a collusion of circumstances, so you may have a point.

  84. anonymous coward says

    Ancient Hebrews were a phoenician tribe, ethnically and culturally.

    Whatever tenuous link the modern germanic Ashkenazim have to ancient Phoenicians is absolutely dwarfed by the Christian connotations of these ancient phoenician names.

  85. I don’t think it’s rusophobia?

    I guess it could be a weird three-part coincidence (combination of singing “It’s such a Russian thing”, + Russian Imperial flag + writing her message in clothes), which has a predictable consequence on programming Russian nationalist fans.

    Or it could be a social experiment or viral marketing of her manager or her. It has now generated a large part of her clicks, so it is a very clever clickbait.

    But I can’t find Russian background to her record company. The owner of her record label is just Uruguayan Jewish hipster, who would not be clever enough for that.
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gabe_Saporta

    Tessa sent to Moscow, after this “Russian thing” slip, as a coverup

    It definitely shows her managers wanted to profit from it, afterwards. This Twitter message that she opposes MAGA is a coverup about that.

    None of her songs are popular apart from Crush. Much of her YouTube subscriptions are ancient, inactive subscriptions, from when she was a YouTuber ten years ago.

    In the initial meme in January, it looks she received around 45,000 subscribers from Russia.

    I can’t believe she has more than a few thousands subscribers in Russia, before she became a meme. (She was only getting subscribers for music, for 6 months before she became a meme in Russia).

    https://i.imgur.com/q66yeUG.jpg

  86. Daniel Chieh says

    A good example of an actual(and of course, typically hamfisted) effort at mental programming:

    https://www.rt.com/news/460725-modern-warfare-white-helmets-propaganda/

    In one flashback mission we learn that Karim’s home town was destroyed by evil, apparently Russian, drone strikes. Rescuers attempt to free our protagonist from the rubble using power tools and eventually succeed before the merciless baddies (Russians) proceed to airstrike the same location a second time.

    The little girl and her father flee the carnage but a truckload of Russian soldiers then arrive on scene and begin indiscriminately firing at everyone in sight while using nerve gas. Seriously. Audible screams of women and children are heard over the din of gunfire and explosions as our protagonist flees with her father to find her brother.

  87. I don’t think it’s rusophobia?

    Not this time, but it was a mistake – accidental switch to Russophilia. If they are turning out a thousand songs, it is bound to happen once.

  88. Is a Russian

    I’m a Serb you moron, do you even check who you reply to before posting?

    I am Romanian.

    Sorry, I thought only Americans were capable of making statements that are that stupid

    Our lunch, as little as it was, has been long eaten by the Russian

    Your country was created to act as a roadblock for Russia, your language was purged of Slavic words and your alphabet was switched from Cyrillic to Latin

    I’m getting real tired of people who don’t even bother to lurk in forums anymore before typing out their room temperature IQ takes

  89. for Americans, which have boycotted the 1980 Moscow Olympics

    Not to mention all the passive-aggressive fake and gayness of current international championships. No no no, Svetlana, you can only compete as ‘neutrals’ because we in the International Community are petty mf:ers. On the other hand, we of course won’t disqualify you outright. We’re not animals! I mean, that would require a lot of tedious court appearances. And the championships would get a bit watered down too.

  90. Tatu is not modelled for Britney Spears, although they were both emerging to popularity in 1999-2000.

    Their schoolgirl and aesthetics was designed from Japanese anime – especially Yulia looks like cosplay. Yulia is also modelled as non-binary.

    Britney “Baby one more time” – this is a heterosexual American highschool. Tatu were quite extremist gay Japanese anime/manga fantasy. (Although when they release Japanese songs, they can only in English).

    Tatu were about 20 years “futuristic” to their epoch. They have all the most extreme characteristics of Generation Z, when they are performing songs before Generation Z was born.

    For example, their “gay boy” performances – it is something that which will be too much gay propaganda even for Generation Z today.

    In their concerts in Russia, they make “gays” (some fake actors hired) kiss , and their dance is pretending sex with each other. It’s incredible cynicism, but they became extremely rich from this clickbait.

  91. Daniel Chieh says

    you do realize that drunk faux girlkissing has been a thing since 1990s right?

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Girls_Gone_Wild_(franchise)

    There’s even a trope about this.

    https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/GirlOnGirlIsHot

    In fact given that this is a common theme in Victorian erotica such as The Way of a Man with a Maid, this is a trope Older than Gas Combustion.

  92. Bardon Kaldian says

    I am not trying to disparage popular culture; just, I’m still not certain re its influence. Certainly, it is hugely influential in one’s own times. Just:

    • it mostly vanishes with time. One need only think of Rudolf Valentino or Shirley Temple or most jazz. Now, virtually all of them look comical. True, something has remained from rock in the 1970s or so – but …
    • I doubt it can directly change anything. Just consider all those entertainers with anti-Trump rhetoric & “threats” of moving to Paris. Did they, all these singers, actors, … change anyone’s mind on voting? Doubt it.

    As I see it, entertainers preach to the converted; only those who are of the like mind will listen to them.

    But, equally- they should not be underestimated.

    I guess they set the trends which are, so to speak, “in the air”, but they- influential entertainers- articulate them or give them more force. Never in history, as far as I can tell, did these people exert such an influence (however limited it may be).

    And they dabble in everything.

    Old school Hollywood people kept their politics (if they had it at all) to themselves, mostly: Gary Cooper, Mae West, Clark Gable, Bette Davis, Joan Crawford,…. Now – De Niro, Clooney, Di Caprio, Hanks, Streep … are giving “advice” to people how to vote & for whom.

  93. Philip Owen says

    I disagree. The real talent is to write inside the everyday vocabulary of less educated speakers. 5000 words for the US and 7000 for the UK according to some such study. (Educated people in the UK were said to use 30,000 words and know 50,000). I am not sure how relaible these figures are. I do know that writing clearly with a limited vocabulary is the height of good writing. If the intelligent 12 year old cannot read it, you are to complicated. (Intelligent 12 year olds can give many adulats a run for their money).

  94. Dacian Julien Soros says

    Although you may think Romania was created by the Reptilians, the fact is what Romanians call their War of Independence, everybody else calls the Russo-Turkish War. I’ll let you guess which side the Russians were on.

  95. Girls gone wild is a type of porn film.

    On the other hand, Tatu is the most bestselling pop group ever in Russia, which half of people listened to when they were 10 years old.

    In this song, they sing they want to fuck a gay boy, while they are modelling gay male sex (wtf) on stage as two heterosexual girls. In other words, they had already more confused gay propaganda, than anything we see today, with Generation Z, 20 years later.

    They are extremely cynical, but also I will give them (or their manager) some respect as visionaries of the future – they are like a more vulgar (less asexual) parody of Generation Z and even its Japanese aesthetics.

    It’s funny by the way, there was no scandal in 2001 – and they can later perform in the Sochi Olympics or with the Ensemble Aleksandrova in Eurovision; as, today this could create a scandal for propaganda for homosexuality.

  96. In the causal direction, the content of the successful pop music probably has a greater proportion which is a symptoms of their fans’ views, than exogenous material which is programming them.

    Teenage fans of pop music are not just passively manipulated – they also have endogenous views which are not necessarily understood or predicted by later generations, and the pop music is partly operating as a receiver for that .

    For example, music today is becoming less about sex, and now more about selfies, social media, technology. (Generation Z is already living quite a different childhood).

    10 years ago, Katy Perry was singing about sex for millennials.

    And today her songs – assuming she is partly operating as a receiver for her fan’s views – the songs about alienation of internet and social media:

  97. Well, this was so soon after the wild Russian 90s, what would one expect?

  98. Russian teenagers were listening to this stuff in the 90s, so Tatu was progress and moral regeneration:

  99. Kevin O'Keeffe says

    What are those little crumpled red packages/cans a-strewn all over the Æternal Virgin’s desk?

  100. reiner Tor says

    What are they singing about?

  101. First song:

    https://lyricstranslate.com/en/chastushki-%D1%87%D0%B0%D1%81%D1%82%D1%83%D1%88%D0%BA%D0%B8-limericks.html

    English translation doesn’t really capture it fully or do it justice.

    Second song:

    http://russmus.net/song/6942

    It’s a taste of Russian 90s culture. School kids were smoking, drinking, engaging in debauchery, this was the soundtrack. Seventy years of Bolshevism bore this fruit.

    So Tatu (early 2000s) was some sort of improvement in values.

  102. Bardon Kaldian says

    Why does everyone seem to think that pop music is something formidably formative? Especially with regard to “ideological profile” of singers & other entertainers?

    Not judging solely from my own experiences, I can say about people whom I know & who are now in, say, 25 to 45 years age range – they listened to various rock, pop etc. music types & it didn’t affect their socio-cultural-ideological orientation a whiff. It was just an entertainment & nothing more. When that sorry cartoon Michael Jackson died- barely anyone noticed.

    Then again- perhaps it is different with Americans or some Western Europeans or other ethnic-cultural groups…

  103. this stuff

    This is socially critical punk songs, which is influenced also by English/London punk of the 1970s-80s. They are not being normative, but rather part of an old folk tradition of saying the truth or criticism of conditions of village/city life – these guys also have a humour.

    This is an old content or material even of European art history.

    Hogarth
    https://i.imgur.com/DYeHM9P.jpg

    Bruegel
    https://i.imgur.com/DDP2D4i.jpg

    Russian teenagers were listening to this stuff in the 90s

    Mainly just American/European pop music – exactly the same as teenagers in America and Europe.

    In general, 1990s pop/rock music is still a lot better than today, whether in America, Europe and Russia (although I think in 1990s Japanese music is worse than today).

    Typical 1990s European pop sound is like Bomfunk MC

    In terms of better quality local music industry, maybe something like Zemfira was cool

    Tatu was progress and moral regeneration:

    Tatu was not competing with “more serious” music genres (like punk or rock which you posted for connoisseurs), but displacing imported pop music, and then (only ever time for Russian pop music) massively and successfully exporting around the world.

    The weird thing is it is very futurist “progress” in a sense it was bourgeois music, with Japanese aesthetics, that would be suitable for Generation Z “snowflakes” of the 2020s, where they can listen in their “safe spaces”, which have access to non-binary toilets and anime films streaming on a notebook.

  104. engaging in debauchery, this was the soundtrack.

    This is very clever/witty punk music. It’s not what you when “engaging in debauchery” are listening to.

    School kids were… engaging in debauchery,

    Teenage behaviour has not changed so much. Just according to global and class trends.

    • In Russia, in terms of media reported statistics, which I cannot say if they are reliable. For example, in terms of average age of beginning sexual relationships. It is reported that on average first sexual relations begin at a lower age now (on average age 15-16) than it was in the 1990s (on average age 17-18).

    However, in terms of age of first pregnancy – this is much higher now than in the 1990s (in the 1990s average age of first pregnancy was age 21, and today average age of first pregnancy 26-27). So perhaps there is some contradiction indicated in the pregnancy ages to first sexual relationship ages.

  105. Philip Owen says

    Yes. Russian Death Metal Bands I knew had names like ‘flushed fetus’.

  106. engaging in debauchery, this was the soundtrack.

    This is very clever/witty punk music. It’s not what you when “engaging in debauchery” are listening to.

    It’s vulgar and disgusting compared to 80s Russian rock classics.

    I visited Russia in the late 90s for the first time so I missed the peak debauchery. But even then there were prostitutes in the open, kids that looked like they were 10 years old smoking cigarettes on the streets, etc. Russia has cleaned itself up considerably as it moved away form the Sovok legacy.

    In the beginning of the 90s I knew a lot of Russians students in the USA (and married one). They were all from relatively elite circumstances, who could study abroad. There was a generation gap between those who were around 20 and older, and those who were 17-18. The former didn’t swear or did so rarely (I have actually never heard my wife saying a mat word in Russian, ever), didn’t steal, and listened to stuff like DDT or Krematoriy or Tsoi. The latter shoplifted (pizdyt) a lot and stole from one another, loved Sektor Gaza when not listening to cheesy pop music, every other word was mat, sampled blacks for sexual purposes, etc. Even the smart ones who for example discovered and enjoyed Schopenhauer. TBH, they were kind of amusing.

    I can only imagine what Russia itself must have been like in the early 90s with the country full of young people like that running wild. Have you read the exile in Moscow?

  107. Is Nena responsible for the modern state of Germany? I tend to think not, but…

    The trouble with modern music is its ubiquity. It seems so quaint that Chesterton feared concert music being played over the radio. I have heard Germans rap and seen Hungarians with dreadlocks, welcoming “refugees.” Would the worship of blacks be possible without black music being played 24/7? I tend to think not.

    Then there is the popularization of the English language itself, which is facilitated by modern music more than any other medium. More than Hollywood. It is the major tool of globalization.

    It is interesting though how in the days of radio not many people realized Freddy Mercury was gay. In fact two of his songs are really associated with jocks and hyper-masculinity.

  108. vulgar and disgusting compared to 80s

    I am not a fan, so I won’t justify their value. But vulgarity is part of a rebellious and political message of these alternative punk rock groups (they are alternative, political and independent groups).

    This is particular gimmick song of an avantgarde group, and of a specific genre (punk rock). It’s not played in television or radio – it’s music for fans who buy a cassette or pirate a album.

    It’s not representative of Russian pop music or some hit song, and they are not a group which was ever played in television or radio, and never have large concerts, and are not popular outside people who know this music genre.

    By the way, the “most vulgar and disgusting” punk rock in the world, is produced in the Basque Country in Spain – this is the safest and most economically developed part of Spain. But Norwegian Death Metal will tell us of Norwegian’s collapse?

    From their perspective (punk rock music scene), vulgarity can be signal or their authenticity and artistic engagement.

    Russian rock classics.

    Punk and rock classics – different genres.

    Just as “Sex Pistols”, is not “Bon Jovi”.

    The latter shoplifted (pizdyt) a lot and stole from one another, loved Sektor Gaza when not listening to cheesy pop music,

    The kind of people who will collect albums of this group: e.g. punk rockers; fans of independent hard rock music; and perhaps male university students, some of which are studying in America, including some fans of Schopenhauer (who you should invite to post here, as we do not talk about Schopenhauer enough).

    early 90s with the country full of young people like that running wild.

    There’s no special difference of behaviour in teenagers. I never heard any teachers say in the 000s, that teenagers were worse in the 90s than in the 000s. Proportion of youth in poverty is much higher in the 1990s, proportion of gopniks is higher, but I never heard that there was some collapse of school discipline.

    . But even then there were prostitutes in the open, kids that looked like they were 10 years old smoking cigarettes on the streets,

    Smoking has declined as everywhere. In terms of prostitutes, there will be more employed today, as there is much more disposable income than in the 1990s. But they can be in apartments.

  109. Bardon Kaldian says

    It seems so quaint that Chesterton feared concert music being played over the radio. I have heard Germans rap and seen Hungarians with dreadlocks, welcoming “refugees.” Would the worship of blacks be possible without black music being played 24/7? I tend to think not.

    It depends. I can’t determine which percentage of people are truly influenced by pop music (there is no way to do this). Just, your selection seems to me a bit…selective. Germans have been, certainly, “culturally transitioning” for a long time, but I don’t think pop/rock is the cause of their suicidal behavior we are witnessing now; it was the whole package of education, culture, material success …from 1968 on. Then, what was most “German” in popular music has nothing to do with blacks & similar species- it is techno & other electric noise, which is, possibly, archetypally/stereotypically German (machines, dehumanizing mechanization, aggressive, yet controlled noise,..).

    If you want a cartoon: blacks are beasts & Germans are machines.

    I don’t see that black animalism (hip-hop, rap,..) has had more than superficial effect on these cultures (just- perhaps it wouldn’t be bad to see the sales or popularity of that type of “music”). What was, I’d say, truly influential, was Romanticism of youth, associated more with early British pop/rock music as the promise of a more emotional, richer & fulfilled life.

    Black fetish was probably more a combination of at least two different elements: movies, sports (NBA), black athletes popularized by TV… & hypertrophied guilt over WW 2, blacks being the race at the lowest rung of Nazi racial hierarchy, hence the sharpest sting in German self-flagellation over WW 2 guilt.

    Anyway, this is just a speculation.

  110. Another change is that pop music became definitely less important today, than in the past, before the internet.

    I wonder if the reason is because the quality of the music has fallen, because people have more alternative ways of entertainment even on the plane or train,* or because there is a greater “back catalog” of old music for choice?

    For example, in my parents’, pop music was much more important than in my time. Pop music was like a religion for them and their generation.

    • A few months ago I travelled in a plane from Saint-Petersburg to London, I was sitting randomly next to a girl about 13 years old. This is a lowcoster plane flight, no entertainment. I was jealous at the girl when they open a laptop, and start to watch pre-downloaded television shows they had organized before.

    From 1990s-2009 (?), children would only listen to songs on a walkman/ipod in this situation in the plane.

    I remember a plane flight when I was that age, and the only entertainment was listening to the same Robbie Williams album about 3 times.

    But today, children carefully prepare their entertainment, and different drama series they will watch, before they fly.

  111. The peak for the influence of pop/rock music was in the 1980s-1990s, after the invention of the cassette and walkman/portable players.

    Young people in that time, used to make their own tapes of pop music, and give them to friends, or to their girlfriend. They listen to the pop music with headphones. They close their eyes and dream for hours.

    For young people of that time, it was like a religion. They can take the music also with them in the walkman or portable cassette players, and it was the only personally customizable and/or portable form of entertainment apart from books.

    • Influence of pop music on youth starts to decline with the introduction of the internet and more advanced video games. Also pop music is nowadays used more like a generic background noise for use in supermarkets (whereas before it was listened to like it was serious art).

  112. Philip Owen says

    I was watching Rammstein videos tonight also Tatu. Rammstein are very popular in Russia. Most of their ideos have Russian subtitles. Although they explore depravity there is something very Christian about their ideas, at least on video. Was religion a way to rebel against East German communism?

    Tatu were created by their producer. They were a commercial construction. Live Manga girls. I cannot imagine Tatu would be allowed to become famous in today’s Russia. They would be arrested for spreading gay propaganda.

    Meanwhile, British ’70’s rock bands have a second life touring Russia.

  113. She has autism.

  114. there was no scandal in 2001

    Actually, Tatu did cause multiple scandals, they were just outside of Russia. For example, when they performed on the Conan O’Brien show wearing t-shirts with the epithet “хуй войне”. Iirc, they were also banned from performing in the UK due to their promotion of homosexuality and pedophilia.

    How times have changed and how quickly. But, of course, the Russian 90s were pretty extreme in terms of degeneracy. I remember walking through a central underground passageway on Tverskaya by the now-destroyed Intourist hotel in 1994 and asking my Russian acquaintance why there were pre-pubescent boys hanging out with the prostitutes down there. My acquaintance snorted in contempt at my naiveté. “Because they’re prostitutes, too” she answered.

    Btw, it’s really funny you posted that Bruegel painting. I was just in the Kunsthistorisches Museum a few days ago, and found myself captivated by it, along with Children’s Games. I feel like one could spend literally hours, days perhaps, studying just those two paintings.

  115. No doubt, there’s an analogy that can be made between pop and the legacy news media, where the internet really has had this disruptive effect on what was packaged by the top companies.

    For instance, albums used to be pretty big. Even the best bands put what should be called “filler songs” on them – essentially stuff that would never sell by itself. Then the mp3 facilitated piracy, and even as a sales unit altered things.

    Still, it is strange how, with supposedly more competition, pop songs seem worse now. And I believe many are a direct attempt to hijack the brain, at least acoustically – they are more based on the acoustic hard-wiring of the brain. You would think that now that we can see into the brain better, art would be better, but maybe we are looking into the brains of idiots. Or maybe it is that there is still a monopolistic core, even as the periphery has become more competitive.

    I’m not sure if the news-music analogy is perfect either. In terms of pure numbers and recognition, some things are probably bigger hits today than ever, like “Gangham Style” with several billion hits on Youtube.

  116. Germans have been, certainly, “culturally transitioning” for a long time, but I don’t think pop/rock is the cause of their suicidal behavior we are witnessing now; it was the whole package of education

    This is an interesting point. Which is the cause and which the effect? Did modern art really have any effect on the 20th century or was it just a symptom of the disease? It is a difficult question to answer.

    But, from my experience (which is quite limited), I’ve made some observations. I have sat inside an English class in a gymnasium in Germany – just one class, out of curiosity. It seemed to me that the majority of the girls were struggling, but outside the class, these same girls would sing along, in English, to music being played, or sometimes even without it. And a lot of girls, who I didn’t even know, were friendly to me, I think probably because they recognized me as an American – there was a certain amount of prestige from being from that cultural sphere.

  117. Daniel Chieh says

    The word you are looking for is “emergent”, not “endogenous.”

  118. banned from performing in the UK due to their promotion of homosexuality

    It is wtf. Tatu are maybe the only successful pop culture export to the West (apart from Masha and Bear, which is consumed by children sadly too young to know it is from Russia). And in the UK in the early 2000s, they were protesting Tatu for promotion of homosexuality with schoolgirls.

    Tatu is then opening the Sochi Olympics in 2014, and the UK is protesting against Sochi Olympics for supposed discrimination against homosexuality.

    There is the characteristic pattern of Russia-American/European arguments. In a “progressive model”, Russia’s position always has to be either one step too ahead or too behind the West.

  119. Offtopic, but I was just wondering a bit today has anyone… who could Greta could be re-incarnating the soul of,
    or perhaps great-great-great granddaughter…

    https://newsone.ua/img/article/1214/21_original.jpg

    https://i.imgur.com/aO5PdxH.jpg

    https://i.imgur.com/xw86IBW.jpg

    https://i.imgur.com/U2J5aRb.jpg

  120. British ’70’s rock bands have a second life touring Russia.

    Nu-metal and Marilyn Manson are also beloved there too. I remember telling people back home that Russia had been invaded and colonized by the dark forces of 7th grade.

    https://i.imgur.com/e2pw6Fp.jpg

  121. Tatu were pretty funny, and not terrible pop music. I have the Russian edition of their first (only?) CD.

    Their Svemgali (the songwriter) was an Israeli psychiatrist (or psychologist, IIRC, the former) who also has Russian citizenship and residence.

    However, they were banned from doing a show in Israel.

    Their one big world-wide hit single was produced by the Englishman (i think) Trevor Horne, who, probably not coincidentally, had somewhat earlier produced Relax! When You Wanna Cum (and the first and probably only album) for the forgettable Frankie Goes to Holllywood.

    Before pressure of work recently became crushing, I used to cycle to Tokyo Dome, at random. I heard Madonna and others from outside, also was there at random for Tatu, that was funny, there were many girls outside wearing white panties and t-shirts.. That must have been their idea of Tatu style. Lol. They would all have had other clothes in their hags for the trips home.

    I will say, when I feel like singing How Soon is Now at karaoke, i usually pick the Tatu version instead of the original by the Smiths, just because it is much easier to sing.

  122. RadicalCenter says

    What would be useful are statistics on the mean and/or median age of Muslim legal residents versus NONMuslim legal residents of Moscow.

    And the same stats for Russia as a whole.

    That would let us take “an educated guess” as to the likely Muslim proportion of the population in ten or twenty years (with different estimates based on different assumption about the number of additional muslims (presumably mostly from the Central Asian -stans) who will be granted permanent residency in Russia over those years).

  123. RadicalCenter says

    Practically speaking, it seems that you are right about the need to write well at that level in order to have a major market or influence.

    As an aside, though, our young children already speak better English than most African-“Americans.” Might have a larger vocabulary soon too.

    As with almost every other damn statistic for “the USA”, we are two very different peoples and effectively nations, and we are tired of our measured performance and attributes being dragged down by their dead weight.

    What’s the typical vocabulary known and used by white Americans, or even by native-born non-Africans here? That I’d like to know. Doubt that our vocabulary is as limited as stated by that non-race-specific stat.

  124. RadicalCenter says

    It’s not “funny” to glorify or play act at sexual perversion and psychological disorder, such as homosexuality, especially when they know that they’re influencing youngsters.

    We don’t need to allow “acts” that influence children towards such a life of moral confusion, barrenness, and often disease and loneliness.

    Russia and the USA should both ban this kind of thing and seriously enforce the ban. Well, at least in Russia it’s (barely) possible.

  125. RadicalCenter says

    That is, if their parents are too shortsighted or lazy to prevent it. We let our kids watch limited media on flights, bringing actual BOOKS (and drawing material for the youngest ones) to occupy the rest of their time.

    This makes them less passive, allows less cultural indoctrination by movies and tv shows, improves their attention span, and reinforces the importance and enjoyment of reading. All that, in addition to whatever substantive content they learn from some of the books,

  126. RadicalCenter says

    “Exploring” depravity or simply enjoying and glorifying depravity?

    How about the two songs about incest?

    Sometimes people who seem like sick bastards are just that, sick bastards who make money peddling evil as fun or funny. No need to over-analyze these misfits.

  127. RadicalCenter says

    Please tell those of us who do not know Russian, what the t-shirt phrase means.

  128. Your telling me off is nonsense.

    So, are you Russiam?

    Tatu were a mess, and it was amusing. .. . and the Russian initial CD was not bad pop music, it was a fantasy by their Svengali.

    You seem to be an imperceptive person.

    In my initial post, did you not notice that I was mentioning Tatu’s ban on perorming Israel? Since the whole farce was made by a dual citizen, you are very dull if you never noticed.

    You should also become more aware of the difference between

    laughing at, and

    laughing with.

    If you have a logical mind (whch seems not to be the case), you may understand it.

    All of the stupid teens and possibly preteens, wearing the uniform of T-shirt and white panties, it was nonsenrical, and, as I said in the earlier post, they would all have been carrying skirts and bkouses to use after the show.

    So excuse me, but I still Lol at, not with, them.

  129. Translating Russian swear words is a difficult and sophisticated exercise, so this is really just an approximation, but what the phrase basically means is: “Fuck war”.

  130. Manager/inventor of Tatu (Ivan Shapovalov) has no relation to Israel.

    A part of the comment which was accurate was that he was studying to be a psychiatrist. He studying as a child psychiatrist working in a hospital.

    Another thing true is that Tatu could not receive visas in 2003 to tour in Israel, and also there was some protests by religious groups against them in Israel’s parliament.
    https://www.newsru.com/cinema/17jun2003/tatu.html

    Here is a question of their “futuristic” timing. Today, Israel is one of the world’s most gay countries (although religious groups still oppose homosexual). However, in 2003, Tatu were considered a scandal in countries like UK and Israel.

    There also seems to be some scandal in the UK against Tatu. Although I could not find that they had ever been banned from the UK.

    By 2014, the “scandal” has reversed, and people in Western countries are protesting against the Sochi Olympics because of supposed discrimination against sexual minorities, while Tatu is the performing there.

  131. The context is they have opposed the American preparations for the Iraq war, so when they tour in America in 2003, they protesting against war in Russian.

    Lol there is a Wikipedia article about this whole topic (in the Russian Wikipedia article it is also explained how Tatu’s protest was celebrated a lot in the local media). Tatu have always been reported like they are Russian patriots in the media, so again this is how strange the topic of homosexuality in the media seems to be different when we look back to 2003, and there was no local scandal about them (while they created scandals only in Western countries).

  132. RadicalCenter says

    I’m not Russian, and if you weren’t dull yourself, you’d readily ascertain that.

    I’m not concerned with your assessment of my intelligence, and you could make your point without the insult.

    You are, apparently, in “violent agreement” with my assessment of the morality of glorifying homosexuality and related perversions. Hate to see how you’d write if you did NOT agree.

  133. Philip Owen says

    He was born and lived in Saratov before moving to Moscow to start Tatu. He was deliberatelly aiming for the boundaries of taste at the time.