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Australian Prime Minister's Spoof "Apocalypse" Speech Goes Viral In China
brindafella writes "Australian Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, recorded a spoof speech about the Mayan calendar apocalypse several days ago, for radio station "Triple J". Gillard said in part, 'Whether the final blow comes from flesh eating zombies, demonic hell beasts or from the total triumph of K-pop, if you know one thing about me it is this: I will always fight for you to the very end.' The speech has been picked up in China on Sina Weibo (China's Twitter) and has achieved well over 23,000 repeats, without anyone picking up the irony." This comes on the heels of the online version of China's Communist Party newspaper picking up an Onion story about North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un being named the "Sexiest Man Alive."
it was also play on a different date, 7-12-12.
There was an unknown error in the submission.
Then the apocalypse is already upon us and I for one welcome our Korean overloads.
will believe anything on the interwebs.
Be seeing you...
Why did nobody tell me demonic hell beasts were an option. Why am I always last to get the memo? I'm all geared up for zombies, vampires, ice ages, meteorite strikes, pandemics and alien invasions. Now I have to go study Alice Cooper videos for vulnerabilities. Is salt good or is that just ghosts? Damn!
Just like a sufficiently advanced parody can't be distinguished from a zealot, sarcasm doesn't translate. I'm sure they thought it funny and entertaining, but for completely different reasons than intended.
Learn to love Alaska
This is on a different level from the Onion spoofs of world leaders like Obama or Kim Jung'Un. This is the real Australian Prime Minister doing the spoof. US presidents have been known to pardon Thanksgiving turkeys and part of running for public office in any democratic country is to show your "lighter side" in front of the media, but Gillard's "speech" goes beyond the realm of a simple practical joke. That or the producers of the show have done some nifty CGI work worthy of a Hollywood disaster movie.
Is it something lacking in Asia, or just in dictatorship?
Tomorrow is another day...
What I would like to know is how often we mistakenly take foreign news at face value.
It can be so hard to read the cues from a different culture.I wonder if that has been studied?
-- B.
This sig does in fact not have the property it claims not to have.
As an aussie. This was not funny the first time. And not funny the second on /.
Im just glad she listened to the right people when it comes to fiber.
...this isn't even remotely the craziest thing the witch has managed to convince people of as fact.
Smoke my peg.
23,000 repeats shouldn't mean much in China.
medvedev also recently trolled a bit, in a seemingly "i don't know i'm off camera" moment.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zHCSpm2kepo
it really depends. the czechs and slovaks used to be under a totalitarian russian regime and they have a very intelligent and subtle sense of humor and they pick up small humorous nuances, that lots of people from other countries wouldn't even get.
then there's the germans who, though having been free people for quite some time, basically have absolutely no subtleness in their humor. everything is outspoken and nothing is left unsaid. austria is directly next to germany and austrians have an extremely playful and ironic sense of humor but the overall mentality of the country is completely different to germany.
i think, that the regime plays a big role, but IMO the social environment is at least as important. people who are very organized and devoted to their leaders or their work tend not to develop a sense of humor, where irony and unsaid things are understood.
There's a good point there though about the radio bullshit even if the poster got nationalities mixed up. Imagine a far right beyond the point of insanity, gay (yes despite the far right bit), woman hating, xenophobic suspected pedophile (rumoured to be quietly kicked out of several jobs as a teacher for that reason) that deliberately stirs up race riots and you've got what the leading "shock jock" in Australia appears to be. The pedophilla is just a string of yet unproven rumours since they tended to just move teachers on in those days at the first sign of suspicion (such as naked locker room antics with the football team which may have been innocent and may have been all that happened), but what comes out of his mouth is bad enough, and his political connections would make him untouchable perhaps even if it is true. So the message is put out there that truly vile and evil sells (even if he isn't really so evil) and it gets copied by others that want good ratings. Do we really need enough of a "shock" to stir up race riots, or on that other station, drive somebody to suicide with a pointless prank (let alone truly vile stuff from Kyle Sandilands from that same station that could have driven two other women to suicide if they were as fragile - joking about an underage girl's rape experience in front of them is going too far IMHO).
Humor can be hard to translate. Maybe instead of the Chinese speakers missing the Aussie's sarcasm, it's visa-versa.
When I was a kid there were many articles about how the increased number of UFO sightings was due in part to the anxiety of the Cold War and the bomb.
These days it isn't enough to have a simple apocalyptic movie/show with almost everyone dead. It isn't enough to have survivors battling mutants. Now, the survivors have escape walking corpses.
It would be interesting to read something about the unconscious hook zombie apocalypses have on us.
May you enjoy a short article on the subject.
I have it on good authority that the preferred way of dealing with the Devil is to run him down. Getting a car might be a good idea.
Of course when dealing with the minions of hell in general I wouldn't have a healthier or more deeply-felt respect for any object in the universe than a shotgun. Or I'd just use a chaingun, the hell with respect! Whatever your approach is, you should have a good chance as long as your cause is just, your will is strong and your gun is very, very large.
USE HOT GRITS WITH STATUE OF NATALIE PORTMAN (NAKED AND PETRIFIED)