chaos theory

with Antonina Mamzenko

Hey,

In internet culture, shitposting refers to creating any content whose humour derives from its surreal nature, lack of clear context, and an unexpected treatment of an existing form. Originating on underground internet forums like 4chan, shitposting evolved into its own form of content creation - and sometimes it even becomes art in itself.

Before I continue, a quick reminder that Words+Pictures starts on 16th of April and I still have a couple of spaces left. If you're interested but the current schedule doesn't work for you, please let me know.

***

Let me take you to the 1990s Russia, a surreal time and place.

The Soviet Union has fallen, and so has the curtain keeping "Western" popular culture from the bulk of the population.

The sheer volume of American movies that suddenly flooded the market meant there were simply no resources to dub them properly. Translation was usually done by a guy with monotone voice doing it pretty much on the fly, and anyone with any grasp of English language (which you could hear in the background) could often tell that the translation was… shall we say… lacking. If you wanted to be less polite, you’d say it was pretty shit: translations often had little to do with what was actually being said.

Enter Dmitry Puchkov, aka Goblin. A former policeman turned translator, he became well known after releasing a purposefully “shit translation” of the Lord of the Rings movie trilogy where everything becomes absurd - and therefore, hilarious. I recently rediscovered the videos and I have not laughed so much in a long time.

These “translations” are impossible to translate back, chock-full of cultural references only a person who grew up in Soviet Union and lived through its collapse would understand.

Everything is changed (and I mean EVERYTHING - no single line of dialogue remains intact): Frodo becomes Fyodor (like Dostoevsky), Balrog is “the ghost of communism” and Elrond is Agent Smith who explains why such an evil device as the Ring must be melted by referring to Terminator 2. Even the soundtrack and the soundscape is changed: arrows fly to the stock sound of bullets from a typical western, and t.A.T.u.’s “Not Gonna Get Us” accompanies the fellowship’s escape from the mines of Moria.

It’s the surrealist art of shitposting of the highest order, and it’s glorious in its absurdity.

***

Back to the present day now, also a surreal time and place.

Last year Dropout TV released a two minute clip of Dimension 20: On A Bus, a humorous take on a very popular Dungeons & Dragons role playing show with dedicated fandom.

It's hilarious: the “dragon master” Katie Marovitch doesn’t play D&D and has no idea what she is doing - and that’s the joke. Her ability to keep a straight face while delivering the most insane lines is matched probably only by Diane Morgan (aka Philomena Cunk). Katie’s players? Professional game masters (the kind that sell out Madison Square Garden) who are visibly frustrated but try their hardest to “yes, and” it to the very end.

This two minute clip done with zero preparation (as opposed to the weeks if not months it would usually take to produce a season of the actual show) becomes the highest rated episode of Dimension 20 on IMDb, and is watched millions of times.

But they weren’t done just yet. A year later, on April 1^st of all days, Dropout does what no one saw coming and commits to the bit, hard, by releasing an hour long “season two” of Dimension 20: On A Bus.

This is where things go from a funny sketch to the art of shitposting. There’s the Monopoly hat that quit the game to became a social media influencer and is now sad because of capitalism. There’s a piece of lint who was a child actor, and there’s a blue M&M who is going to a wedding when the bus explodes because an army man rolled "a perfect six" on a dice.

Same clueless “dragon master”, same players who know more than the person who is supposed to guide them. It plays with all the tropes, making it so ridiculous that the players themselves start wondering if doing what they do for a living has any legitimacy at all. It’s a fever dream where nothing makes any sense but this is exactly what it is needed at this moment in time.

It becomes the highest rated episode of the show on IMDb within hours of release.

***

Surrealism as a cultural movement evolved in Europe in the aftermath of World War I, and one of it’s co-founders André Breton explicitly talked about surrealism as first and foremost as a revolutionary movement. One of its goals was liberating imagination and freeing people from "false rationality, restrictive customs and structures" that didn’t serve them anymore.

Is modern shitposting a new surrealist movement of the 21^st century, where our very reality is absurd, yet everyone pretends to take it seriously? When there’s nothing left but to reject the restrictive customs and structures that no longer serve us - and treat everything we do a little less seriously?

My internet culture child tells me I'm overthinking this, but I think maybe we are half way there.

Antonina x

You might be interested in...

​Words+Pictures: Go beyond photography in this interactive, hands-on online workshop centred around creative play and experimentation. Starts 16th April, a couple of spots left.

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