1 Comments

Remember foreign language class, when you'd trace words back to Latin roots or what-have-you? On the internet, an oddly robust form of Russian originated with the inane, vulgar watercolor Bear Surprise by American artist John Lurie. Boy, did language class suck.

But now you can turn the tables on your condescending, well-traveled friends by spouting Preved, a meme named after a misspelling of privet, the Russian word for "hello," translated to "surprise!" in the bear's word bubble over there (makes sense in the, um, exposed context). The alternate spellings, pronunciations and grammar of Preved and other movements like Padonki or Olbanian have morphed into complex languages, all of which developed on Russian web sites and forums. We'd break down the linguistics of this further, but, um, see above re: language class sucking.

How pervasive is Preved in its mother country? Imagine Newsweek advertising by posting pictures of its editor with a lolcat word bubble, President Bush admitting his fluency in leet (shudder) and pondering teaching it in US schools, or American citizens suspecting the government of creating web memes to better manage protesters -- these things have happened in Russia behind the Preved wave.

And what does this mean for your various web interactions? There is a whole confounding language of possibilities (not to mention weird images and videos), but the straightforward translations from this backlash article are a good place to get started:

  • bl = lol
  • pervyj nax = First! or I'm first, so screw you.
  • imxo = imho (omg!)
  • dro?er = a porn addict
  • bljapašlifsjenaxujmudaki = in the author's words, "a perjorative that you can conveniently utter on Russian message boards when you have contempt for everybody in the room." Awesome.

Bljapašlifsjenaxujmudaki, meme-haters. We defy you to get all Preved on us in the comments.