Russian teen on 'how-to impersonate an American' at a protest

Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2021/01/21/russian-teen-on-how-to-impersonate-an-american-at-a-protest.html

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This is delightful, and, um… I’ll just stick with delightful.

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That first run through of “I’m American” is dead on by the end. The rest just needs a little more righteous indignation and she’s got it.

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Wow, she nails the attitude 100% and gets the accent about 98% right (“violating” is still coming too much from the back of the throat.)

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I can’t help but think that she knows how to do this by directly witnessing it.

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It’s just missing the “I want to speak to your manager!”

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Adding “Fuck you” before “I’m American” would add an authentic touch.

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Works right up to the point where they say “Your papers!”

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Russian riot cops are particularly scary thugs, but I do wonder how they’re trained to deal with foreigners in these situations.

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Would not like to find out.

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Nor would I. I saw these heavily armoured goons in Moscow back when they were called OMON (Interior Ministry troops) and got a definite shiver down my spine when their gazes tracked over me.

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They still are called OMON.

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If it were still the trump admin? I wouldn’t expect them to treat americans any better than russians. They know trump will always side with dictators even when they kill americans.

With the biden admin? I couldn’t say.

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I mean, yeah. Definitely. I can also safely say, whomever she was watching was probably wearing sunglasses.

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I was momentarily confused because I initially assumed this was about Russians impersonating Americans at American protests. The last four years have done something to my brain.

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Me too - I thought it would be a Russian piss-take of entitled American protestors.

It was MUCH more useful and publicly-minded than that!

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“thuh hotel” not “thee hotel”

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From personally experience, this isn’t going to work in Moscow. Moscow police don’t care who you are. They didn’t even care about my “partial diplomatic status” visa when they would stop and harass me. Fortunately I never interacted with riot police.

This could totally work in Ekatarinburg, Novosibirsk, or some other location. Outside Moscow, the local police wanted nothing to do with Western foreigners unless you were committing an actual crime.

Pro tip: don’t attend protests in a country that isn’t your own. Things can go south really quick, and you’re an easy target for someone to take out their aggression on.

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I left my passport in thee hótel!

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Thankfully!

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