It’s not news to anyone that Russia is one of the stricter countries to reside in the modern era, which makes it the perfect target for jokes. The classic “In Soviet Russia…” jokes can be made after just about any new form of legislation is passed, and Vladimir Putin has become the butt of many jokes in the past few years.
Recently, the reins have been tightened even further with the passing of new laws that make it illegal to “depict a public figure in a way that has nothing to do with his ‘personality,’” according to the Washington Post.
In essence, Russia banned parody accounts concerning any public figure, which includes the plethora of memes that are circulating around the Internet.
For those in the United States, this kind of Internet policing is unthinkable. Just a whisper of infringing on a person’s freedom of speech sends shivers up our spines and makes us want to draft a strongly worded letter to our government officials.
Internet censorship in Russia and many other countries, however, is by no means new. According to Roskomnadzor, Russia’s media agency and Internet censor, any blog with more than 3,000 readers must register with the agency and may be shut down if they critique the government (i.e. Putin).
What is interesting about this law is how dystopian it is when it’s viewed from a macro lens. If you watch any comedian through any era, you’ll see that one of the main ways a society is able to cope with hard times is through laughter.
That’s why the film industry boomed during the depression, and that’s why Saturday Night Live continued immediately after the tragedy of 9/11—people needed some form of relief from the hell they were living in.
Now, this is not comparable to 9/11 by any means. But in the grand scheme of things, life in Russia is tough if you stray from any form of the Russian government’s ideal, and these forms of comic relief are just small tokens of laughing together through a hard governmental administration.
This probably comes as more of a shock to us because we’ve had presidents and other government officials who openly acknowledge their Internet “memedom” and take in the humor it offers.
It looks like the only outlet available for Russians to relax now is excessive vodka drinking.
