Look, not to put too fine a point on it, Russia is a scary, scary place politically. They’ve got lots of fossil fuels, lots of guns, and it’s under the control of Vladimir Putin, who seems to want to combine the spirit of Stalin and Chuck Norris into one human being.
This results in, not to put too fine a point on it, some weird $#!t. For example, the image at right, which is not photoshopped. For another example, there’s Russia Today, the government owned and operated news arm. They have an American branch, mostly as a cover for the FSB agents that everybody knows are over here, whose job is to basically parrot what the state is saying about Russia. The problem is, they mostly just want to project the image that everything is fine in Russia and the people are not drinking cologne because they can’t afford vodka (no, seriously, that happens), and that takes maybe five minutes, so they’ve got to fill air and pretend to be relevant to anybody other than CIA analysts looking for a laugh.
Apparently, they fill it with some crazy lady. Let’s hear what she has to say about cosplayers!
“Why are these bourgeoisie clowns spending money when they could be working for the strength of the state?”
I feel bad for the woman interviewed: she got ambushed, and that’s lousy. But, really, beyond that, this is just comedy, and proof the Russians don’t get this whole “free market” thing. The very premise is flawed: cosplayers are actually doing more to support the economy by spending lots of money. Consumer spending is key to any free market economy. If a cosplayer goes and drops a thousand dollars he doesn’t really have on a bunch of stuff he doesn’t need, economically speaking, he’s a real American hero.
Maybe the leadership at RT should ponder this over a nice glass of cologne.
[ via Megan Marie ]