Russians Are Hacking Your Beloved Fairy Tales. (LOL.)

There’s a new Internet meme in Russia, and there’s a good chance you won’t like it. At least two good reasons you won’t like this new meme: it requires bilingualism to understand, and it’s as salty as sailors’ speech.

But if you’ve got Russian and English under your belt, and you don’t mind a little obscenity, you’re liable to fall in love with this meme, which doesn’t have a proper name yet, apparently having emerged just last week.

The new meme is this: fairy tales retold in captions mixing vulgar English and Russian. If you’re wondering how this works, feast your eyes on the example ^[2] below:

In this version of “The Wolf and the Seven Young Goats ^[4]” — a story that basically combines elements of “The Three Little Pigs” and “Little Red Riding Hood” — the wolf addresses the goats as “kozlatkis” — adding an English “s” to pluralize the already-plural Russian word “kozlyatki.” When the goats refuse to believe that he’s their mother, they say, “We think that you ne nasha mother,” meaning “not our mother.” Later, they explain, “Because you sounds like spidozniy sobaka,” meaning “like an AIDS-infected dog.”

The wolf then pauses dramatically and screams, “Are you ahueli tam?!” meaning “are you out of your fucking minds over there?!” The goats then respond, “Go and fuck yourself, tupoi volchara,” calling him a “stupid self-centered prick,” where “volchara” is an Internet slang word based on the Russian word for wolf, “volk.” Finally, the wolf says to himself, “Oh Jesus, what’s wrong with this rebatishki?” meaning, “What’s wrong with these little guys?”

Several other adaptations of the meme first appeared in the past week on the Vkontakte community “Degradach ^[5],” which translates loosely to “Degradation Channel.” Also known as “Let Me Explain,” the community is run by a man who calls himself “Babai Velikolepnyi ^[6]” (“Bogeyman the Magnificent”), a young man apparently in his 20s who runs a YouTube channel ^[7] with more than 25,000 subscribers that’s attracted more than 1.3 million views.

A lot of Babai's videos, like many of the memes and cartoons published on Vkontakte, are pure Internet trash — the kind of hateful, regressive humor that got the alt-right show “Million Dollar Extreme” booted off Adult Swim after one season.

For all his joking, though, Babai seems to take his work very seriously. On Monday, he wrote ^[8] on Vkontakte, complaining about how Russian Internet users have stolen his bilingual meme, adapting it in ways he says are beneath the quality of his humor.

Here’s one version ^[9] of the meme that failed to impress him:

In this version of Cinderella, the Evil Stepmother addresses her as “Zolupka,” mispronouncing her Russian name, Zolushka, instead calling her a “little dickhead.” Cinderella (Zolushka) then responds, “Blyad’ you starya. Tolchok posle tebya washing” — “Fuck, you old woman. I’m washing the toilet after you [used it].” The stepmother then says, “Mne pohuy what’s your name. Ya and moi daughters going na vpison na hatu to king,” meaning, “I don’t give a fuck what your name is. My daughters and I are going to a party at the king’s crib.” She then adds, “Clean our zamok, chto by on shine bright like a diamond,” meaning, “Clean our castle, so that it shines as bright as a diamond.” Cinderella answers, “Bitch tuporulaya, I too want buhnut’ and ebat‘sya with prince,” meaning “Dumb ugly bitch, I want to get wasted and screw the prince, too.” The stepmother then says, “Huins! We are popizdovali, a tu zhopoy nyuhaesh’ flowers. AZAZA,” meaning, “Horseshit! We are fucking bouncing, and you’ll be snorting flowers up your ass. AHAHA.” Cinderella then says, “Blyat’ gde moya god mother” — “Fuck! Where’s my godmother?”

We’re then treated to an appearance by the “I’m Fat, Let’s Party” Internet cat ^[11], who was recently reborn on the RuNet ^[12] as “Vzhukh” — a magical feline who clumsily grants wishes. (The word “vzhukh” is meant to capture the sound of a wand waving around.)

Next, Cinderella emerges in her beautiful evening gown, saying, “AZAZAZA. Naebala old pizdu,” meaning, “AHAHAHA. Now I’ve fucked over that old cunt.” She then adds, “Need to lost my tufel’ka and dat’ yobucha and live with prince,” meaning, “I need to lose my little shoe and get to some fucking and live with the prince.”

“I used to have the hope that neo-memeology [what Babai calls his online activity] would be the reason for raising content on Vkontakte. But now I see that nothing is going to work. […] If they think that Vzhukh is the pinnacle of modern-day humor, then there’s nothing I can do for these people,” Babai wrote, condemning the spread of the very meme he created.