Russian teenage bloggers discover the wonders of Photoshop
These days everyone talks about how stupid and time-consuming blogs are, the wonderful and frightening days of commenting each other to death are gone. Any livejournal-bearing hipster will tell you it's ironic or she's just too lazy to delete it. Yet, it appeared that blogging got to the less advanced Russian masses relatively recently and the results are truly disturbing.
One particular site going by the name of li.ru has been a laughing stock of the entire internet for quite a while and certain minds behind a certain elitist website got to its very bottom. Which appeared to be a broad range of communities united by one single purpose - to make Russian boys and girls pretty. On the Internet at least.
The concept is simple - you post your photograph taken with a koresh's mobile phone (the picture should contain a wall carpet, lots of filthy pots and cups, a half-finished coca-cola bottle and someone uglier than you for the contrast) and ask for some hot photoshop action. Along with obvious request like removing blemish and red eyes, Russian bloggers have a rather curious list of reoccurring desires, such as:
1) Draw angel wings. While this is pretty common for underage girls, you can find lots of moms and creepy gopniks wishing for an angelic touch.
2) Change background to something romantic. That usually applies to drunken orgy shots, revealing yummy mayo tubes and bottles of Klinskoe. Then again, Russians are just discovering the horror of facebook tagging.
3) Write something fun. Here are some my favourite requests: "LADDI MADONNA", "Lesha-lightning bolt" and "MEGO POZITIFF".
The fine masters of photoshop don't get paid for all the pain. What's in it for them, you might ask. Well, no less then a shitload of "simpy" and "laffki" (Internet-adapted versions of love and affection). Apparently, users have a strictly limited amount of love, so they try not to waste it every now and then which sometimes provokes shocking dramas. First they give you a promised laffka, but take it back the next day and that is just one example of the abuse you can get.
Soon enough the whole miserable charade got into hands of Russian hipsters, who got sick of repeating gopnik jokes long ago. Ironic images plagued the pristine fields of li.ru and I thought that it must put an end of another short-lived Russian tradition, killed before getting a chance to bloom. But as I checked the communities later, I realised that no cynical elitist assholes can stop pure souls from asking for wings on their backs. So I lay back witnessing the birth of a new beautiful race - Winged Russians.
For the eXile magazine.