as a person coming from a totalitarian country, I would still prefer dealing with a single gang which also has its own welfare obligations can be corrected or overthrown when needed, than several mafia-like cartels which only care about extorting money from me providing nothing to both me and the society as a whole.
governments have responsibility, too, it’s just some don’t accept it
tbh, in this interpretation, it sounds like extortion, sort of what gangs usually do to minor business owners
tax is tax, it’s a mandatory contribution to society you morally and legally obliged to do, not a payment for not being killed
Which carries a spoon and looks French
“you are so smart, just a bit lazy”
Come to think of it, yeah, sounds also like a Korean drama about bullying or social inequality :)
On a more serious note, there is only one public person I could think of who has enrolled into MGIMO through the game show, that’s Alexey Navalny’s aide Kira Yarmysh (there is even an episode of the game with her on YouTube; she lost that year and won a year later). I don’t remember her mentioning any animosity towards her because of her participation.
There was a game show in Russia in 2000s where high schoolers had to answer ridiculously hard questions about Ancient Greece in order to enroll into MGIMO, a prestigious state university of foreign affairs, which was near-impossible to enroll in any other way (e.g. entrance exams) if you weren’t a child of a top-level government official.
The contestants had to sit as the audience first and answer some pop-up questions before even having a chance to actually participate in the game show, and then win in a series of games (like quarter-finals, semifinals, finals…)
It really does look like modern job application process where you have to participate in a series of never-ending interviews and test tasks
Couldn’t agree more. Medvedev is just a miserable ex-“liberal” (and is probably now-an-alcoholic) trying to find his place in the Putin’s wartime system after his reputation was killed by Putin’s “castling” in 2012 and the film “He Is Not Dimon to You” in 2017. Nobody takes him seriously anymore in Russia.
After a long-running blogpost holywar between Telegram and Signal, I perceive these “security experts” as Signal/Telegram shills depending on their stance
draw a Hatsune Miku
I understand what you mean! What I (and probably most of us) want is the balance between “treat me like a normal person” (as in, with the same dignity and less condescension) and “don’t set expectations too high”. I believe portraying persons on the spectre as savant geniuses as in “Rain Man” or ADHD as a “superpower” skews the balance to one side and we just need some disclaimers to even it out.
Even ADHD-oriented media is often being dishonest with people who suspect themselves to have this condition, being toxicly positive and showing ADHD as a “superpower” as if you can hyperfocus your way to success. It is neither a gift nor even an equal exchange between advantages and drawbacks like “you’ll be always late but also always creative!” It’s a crippling thing that may ruin career or end a relationship. There is nothing good with ADHD.
To be serious, nobody would use that platform even there hadn’t been any ads, because competing with YouTube is not an easy feat.
I should probably be happy that Rutube and VK Video gain popularity as the regional alternatives to the monopolist which gets more aggressive each day… if not that popularity has just been inflated by bought-out bloggers and comics from Putin’s oligarch owned channels like TNT being directed to cease their YouTube presence, just so the government could have their own “YouTube without team Navalny”.
but yeah, being more shitty than YouTube at delivering ads is not an easy feat, too!
Humans: ooh, a new MacOS wallpaper
A Russian video hosting Rutube (which was totally dead until the govt decided to detract Russians from using YouTube, which made the platform semi-dead) actually tried to do that, having a quiz after each ad break, asking questions such as “what TV channel has been advertised in this ad?” and repeating the ad video if answered wrong
Thunder, rain and lightng
Danger, water rising
Clamor, sirens wailing
It’s such a bad sign
Should be more than baby grapes!
Not sure about other countries, but the Russian branch of Burger King had some uniquely bad sense of humor when it came to their ads. The most known as was a wordplay between “Don’t get too spicy” and “Don’t shit yourself”, but there was another ad of chicken nuggets with a little chick in the corner saying something like “6 nuggets for 99 rubles!”. I found it hilarious to see a chick advertising their mom.
…and refrain from drinking Kool-Aid and punch, just in case
Local 58 “Contingency” flashbacks
Russians having their flashbacks of the main war propaganda network in their homeland
This may be a “loanword” from the student’s native language. In Swedish, they use “1900-talet” (1900s) instead of “twentieth century”