Pop culture in translation How the Gaga-Cooper-Shayk drama, FaceApp, new roles for black actresses, and more shook up the RuNet in July

Meduza in English publishes stories about Russia, but much of what circulates in the Russian language — big names, TV shows, political news — isn’t Russian at all. This list is the third in our new series highlighting how viral phenomena that seem fundamentally Anglophone take on new and unexpected meanings in the Russian-speaking world.

Going Gaga

Online activism is nothing new for Russian social media users, but the targets of their criticism are typically located close to home. Not this month: After news broke that Russian model Irina Shayk and American actor Bradley Cooper had ended their relationship, hundreds of thousands of Russian commenters flooded Lady Gaga’s Instagram page, with many accusing her of triggering the split. Rumors of romantic ties between Cooper and the popular actress and singer first took off after the two played a couple on-screen in their 2018 remake of A Star Is Born.

What began as an effort to harrass Lady Gaga, however, quickly turned to more creative forms of insta-trolling. As Russian celebrities from pop musician Sergey Zhukov to actress Alla Mikheeva jumped into what Russian users quickly dubbed the “gagachat,” ordinary social media users began adding their favorite borscht recipies and pickling tips to the conversation. Memes, personal anecdotes, and spontaneous conversations flowed from there.

Lyovushka DiCaprio

What began with memes and anecdotes quickly turned to more serious forms of activism. On July 18, the Instagram account “All of Ulan Ude,” which typically posts local news from the capital of Russia’s Republic of Buryatia, uploaded a call for the gagachatters to take on a “new goal”: drawing international attention to the pollution and general ecological decline of Lake Baikal, which contains more than 20 percent of the world’s fresh surface water. This time, the designated target was actor and producer Leonardo DiCaprio, who has arguably had more luck making a difference through his environmental advocacy than winning Academy Awards.

For the most part, the Baikal Instagram activists were disappointed: despite their efforts to think up Russian pet names for DiCaprio and offer him vodka in return for “saving” the lake, their “dear Lyovushka” has remained silent on the issue. On July 31, however, the celebrated actor posted about the wildfires that have engulfed large portions of Siberia, drawing grateful comments from his Russian fans.

Climate rebels come to Moscow

Climate activism has been on the rise in Russia well beyond Instagram. Most recent protests have targeted specific facilities, especially landfills, but others have joined existing international movements to demand action on the climate and ecological crisis as a whole.

One of those movements is Extinction Rebellion, which demands democratically developed measures to bring greenhouse gas emissions to net zero by 2025. The movement’s reliance on creative, illegal nonviolent actions has drawn widespread attention, especially in the United Kingdom, as well as climate emergency declarations in major world cities. However, its grassroots activities in Russia appear to have been limited to occasional graffiti until July 17.

On that date, activists covered clocks on Moscow’s Pravda (Truth) Street with the movement’s hourglass symbol and pink signs that declared “THE CLOCK IS TICKING” and, in English, “ACT NOW.” In an Instagram post, the Moscow climate rebels explained that the action was intended to warn Russian media organizations, many of which are headquartered on Pravda Street, “that they must tell the truth about the climate crisis.” The post also detailed the dangers of climate collapse and drew media coverage in its own right.

The Little Mermaid

On July 3, film director Rob Marshall announced that R&B singer and television actress Halle Bailey will play the leading role in the company’s live-action remake of The Little Mermaid. The news sparked heated discussions in Russian-language social media communities: some users insisted that the film’s titular character, Ariel, should be played by a white woman because the original Disney cartoon portrayed her as such. A small number of public figures, such as Great Moscow Circus director Edgard Zapashny, also joined the fray. In an emotional Instagram rant, Zapashny implied that Bailey’s casting was a sign of excessive tolerance but refrained from explaining explicitly why he felt that tolerance was worthy of outrage. The circus director protested (too much, it seems) that he was “not a racist and not a homophobe,” only “surprised at all this.”

Other social media users came to the film’s defense, arguing that it is an adaptation of an already fictional tale or pointing to inequity in Hollywood film casting more broadly. One Facebook user noted that in Disney’s source material, a Hans Christian Andersen story, “the prince ends up happy with another woman” while “the Little Mermaid decides not to stab him, and then she kills herself.” The user joked that racists seem eager to add a happy ending (“хэппи-энд”) to the tale but unwilling let go of a white protagonist.

Russian media outlets also posted actively about Bailey’s casting. Some attempted to explain how the Little Mermaid would look “according to science,” while others speculated on who might play the film’s male lead or struggled to transliterate Bailey’s first name (one state-owned outlet landed on “Kholli,” apparently merging the actress with her sister, Chloe).

A new Agent 007

On July 13, the British tabloid Daily Mail reported that a new character played by British actress Lashana Lynch would take over the code name 007 in an upcoming addition to the James Bond film series. A number of Russian-language media outlets responded with reports that James Bond himself had “become a black woman,” prompting a clarifying article from Meduza. A second wave of the Little Mermaid phenomenon soon followed, complete with even more racist tirades. Online posts from state-owned news sources and even purported Donbas-based biker gang leaders actively tied Lynch’s casting to various other phenomena in Western politics and culture.

The FaceApp craze

As you may well have noticed, a photo modification program developed by Russian software developer Yaroslav Goncharov has shot to renewed popularity in recent weeks. Russian Internet users posted photos of their blond or bearded or prematurely elderly selves around the Web with gusto much like their peers around the world. Granted, the FaceApp craze took on extra dimensions for many Russians, but not for the reasons you might expect. While Anglophone commentators fretted about whether or not “Russia want[s] more than your old face,” Russian media outlets observed them with interest or simply publicized explainers about gaps in the service’s privacy policy. What truly gave people nightmares on the RuNet was seeing men’s rights activists predict who would be running their country in 10 years.

Men’s rights activists

Speaking of which, Russian patriarchal groups appear to have found a motivating force in the case against the Khachaturyan sisters, who killed their father after he physically and sexually assaulted them repeatedly for years on end. That disturbing fact has little to do with Anglophone popular culture in itself (though you can read more about it in English here). It did, however, prompt Russian journalists to dig into the history of the country’s violent men’s movements, where they found a number of ties to the English-speaking world.

The feminist lifestyle publication Wonderzine published a report in mid-July detailing the relationships and disconnects between Western patriarchal groups like the incel movement and Russian ones like the “Male State.” The report explained that while the label “incel” in itself has not taken off on the RuNet, some of that movement’s jargon has been adapted for Russian nationalistic purposes. For example, where Western incels use terms like “Chad” and “Stacy” to label and dehumanize those they perceive as sexually successful, Russian “Male State” supporters use “Vanka” and “Natashka” to refer to Russian men and women only. Many, Wonderzine reported, call non-Russian men by the Armenian name Vazgen (and accuse them of attracting Russian women away from a national gene pool). Extreme violence against women as well as the overthrow of a nonexistent matriarchal society are popular topics among both Anglophone and Russophone extremist groups.

Yuval Noah Harari vs. Russian post-truth

Finally, this July was the month when historian Yuval Noah Harari, who gained international fame with his nonfiction book Sapiens, admitted to allowing significant adaptations in the Russian edition of his most recent work, 21 Lessons for the 21st Century. Harari permitted a passage on lies told by Vladimir Putin during the Russian annexation of the Crimea to be replaced with a passage on Donald Trump in what was sold as a Russian translation of 21 Lessons. After the change came to light, the historian argued that he allows for adaptation when his books are released in authoritarian environments, but only in order to create a broader audience for his pro-democratic ideas. Meduza’s coverage of the incident is available in English here.