Australian Prime Minister's Spoof "Apocalypse" Speech Goes Viral In China 225
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."
stupid people (Score:3)
it was also play on a different date, 7-12-12.
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No – it was 2005 years ago – give or take a few days for the Georgian calendar conversion.
K-pop? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:K-pop? (Score:5, Funny)
Op, op op, OP is correct.
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I for one would rather have the hell beasts. After all, every once in a while you get a succubus.
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Don't you dare talk about our Prime Minister that way!
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I for one welcome our Korean overloads.
... Gundam style.
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You mean big japanese robots prancing around as if they were riding a horse? That I would like to see.
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Re:K-pop? (Score:5, Informative)
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Is there such a thing as S-pop, and if so, where does it come from?
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Stupid People (Score:5, Insightful)
will believe anything on the interwebs.
Re:Stupid People (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Stupid People (Score:4, Informative)
I believe you.
And you should because I posted it on the interwebs.
but you shouldn't (Score:2)
You shouldn't believe him, he is lying.
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I read that most of the stuff on the web'z is absolute garbage, but I didn't believe it.
Shit (Score:5, Funny)
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!
Re:Shit (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Shit (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Shit (Score:5, Funny)
Wait, don't you have at least one M82 for anti-alien action?? I thought you were prepared...
Please, my shit is next gen. I've got a powerbook running windows 95 on a virtual PC that I left exposed to the internet for a couple of days.
Welcome to earth!
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Indeed. Shotguns vs. demons, shotguns win.
Re:Shit (Score:5, Funny)
But you're completely ignoring the variety of special strengths and weaknesses demons have. You can't just treat them like a subtype of zombie.
For instance, zombies are generally flammable, and can be dispatched en masse with a flamethrower. Demonic hellbeasts, however, regularly withstand immense temperatures (theologians agree that Hell normally maintains a temperature of 666 degrees, although there is disagreement as to whether this is Celsius or Fahrenheit). Likewise, you should avoid incendiary ammunition, WP grenades, napalm, etc. for similar reasons.
However, they also have certain vulnerabilities. Like vampires, they are vulnerable to religious symbols and holy water (although contrary to popular belief, demons have a non-denominational hatred of religion - even your Pastafarian symbols should work). And like lawyers, they can be bound by contracts, although (like lawyers) they generally get the better end of the deal.
444c (Score:2)
No, Hell's tempure is 444c. Let’s try to be scientific here.
http://www.lhup.edu/~dsimanek/hell.htm [lhup.edu]
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Salt is good for setting up a barrier against evil spirits.
However, I have found a BFG 9000 a better offensive weapon.
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*Salt*?? Everyone knows you destroy ghosts with root beer.
Get a car. (Score:3)
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.
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What makes you think Intrepid imaginaut is not a cute schoolgirl.
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Pentagrams or other religious symbols tend to work against demonic hell beasts. I advice against using Alice Cooper videos as a reference, go for Ghostbusters or Buffy if you are desperate.
<hng mode="desperate">I'd go for Buffy any time!</hng>
Sarcasm (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Sarcasm (Score:5, Interesting)
From my experience working with Chinese people, and I don't mean people of Chinese decent, but actually born, raised and lived in China most of their lives; they don't get sarcasm. Most of them, anyway. They don't.
My boss is Chinese, and will stare blankly when I make a sarcastic remark about something, and most of the Chinese people around me are the same. They just have a different sense of humor, I guess it's a cultural thing. ...and it's not like I can write [SARCASM] on a notebook and hold it up like a sign. They won't get the reference either.
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Yeah, the usual sense of humor revolves around stuff like slapstick and wordplay. Sarcasm and satire aren't understood.
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Humor in general doesn't translate very well. Even between Americans and Brits and we speak the same language (more or less) and have similar cultural roots. Yes, we have a lot of common humor, but we still find different things funny. Simply look at how British TV shows are modified when ported to the US.
Asians and Americans have entirely different cultural roots and languages that aren't related in the slightest. I'm sure there are tons of stuff they think is hysterical and we just don't get it.
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Not so sure about that. Perhaps they just weren't sufficiently comfortable with English. I met a girl from Hong Kong once, that was essentially the master of sarcasm. She had lived a few years in the US though. Another one living all her life Guangzhou also understood it well.
But in my experience people with an intermediate English level mostly seems to reacts they way you mentioned. Not just sarcasm but with most humour.
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I've worked with people like that, and some of my relatives don't understand satire. They can understand something like "given how crowded our trains already are, introduction of third class tickets could only involve passengers hanging off the sides or sitting on the roof". But something like, "One day, Alice was walking back through the forest with a picnic basket full of sugar cubes for Dougal, when she met a couple of soldiers standing guard by the bridge. He said 'The king had instructed us to stand gu
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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.
Yes, much like a sufficiently advanced ploy to discredit the intelect of the western world can't be distinguished from clueless Chinese reporters...
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>sarcasm doesn't translate
In this case there was nothing to translate. TIL that you can be goofy without being funny.
because... (Score:2)
when they assume a certain level of stupidity for their non-asian counterparts...sarcasm is not the their first conclusion.
A spoof by, not of, the leader (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Re:A spoof by, not of, the leader (Score:4, Informative)
No - it was definitely her. I mean, "Brave" was pretty good, but I've yet to see a female ranga with a broad Aussie accent successfully rendered on a computer.
And Gillard's got enough of a sense of humour to do this. Actually, some of our other PMs have said/done some funny things - Hawke's "bum" comment when we won the America's Cup, Howard's ability to take "The Chaser" on the chin - whatever else you thought of him, he kept on going for his morning jog, knowing they'd be waiting for him.
Re:A spoof by, not of, the leader (Score:5, Funny)
Don't forget Julie Bishop's effort in outstaring a garden gnome [youtube.com].
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Oh god yes - she's such a national treasure. Any politician, no matter what else I think of them, gets a bonus point for being prepared to look silly on national TV. Intentionally silly, that is. Not when spouting party policies. And Barnaby Joyce just makes my day whenever I see him giving a sound bite. I can't tell whether he's a master troll or just an idiot, and that's not sarcasm - I've actually heard some well-reasoned words escape his lips.
Offtopic - anyone surprised about the outcome of the
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To me Joyce seems like the broken watch of politics: for two seconds a day he's spot on, for the other 84,398 he's wrong in so many ways. Whether it's deliberate or just a result of living in rural Queensland too long is hard to say.
No surprise with the Slipper case, and we're going to hear a lot about press releases and timestamps over the next few days.
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Fair call, typo on my part.
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If the end of the world involves the Weeping Angels, I want her with me.
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Me too. I'm pretty sure I can run faster than she can.
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I take it that you've never seen an episode of Saturday Night Live? They've had several prominent politicians on that show including several presidential candidates and I believe a sitting U.S. President.
That doesn't even get into movies like Contact that featured Bill Clinton announcing the discovery of an extra-terrestrial radio signal coming from the Vega star system. Yes, I do know what the press conference that Bill Clinton was responding to was actually about (and just as nuts) but that doesn't stop
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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.
Not in Australia.
Gillard has something of a public image problem and in the election comming up next year she was trying to show her "larrikin" side to win hearts and minds. People in Australia have seen this as nothing more than a joke but that does require _some_ understanding of Gillards character (typically very dry) and a sense of humour... arguably something many nations lack.
Humour and irony (Score:3, Interesting)
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Is it something lacking in Asia, or just in dictatorship?
This was on the Chinese version of Twitter. Do you think the western version is any less credulous and ready to fall for hoaxes and rumours?
Also, China isn't really a dictatorship any more, though it's also along way from democracy.
Kea So Joo (Score:2)
http://joeyskaggs.com/html/dog.html [joeyskaggs.com]
Re:Humour and irony (Score:4, Funny)
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Thank you for your enlightning answer.
Shocking. On a brighter note: All hail Cthulu, lord of the netherdark.
Re:Humour and irony (Score:5, Funny)
Living in China, I found that people here really don't seem to know about irony. They just don't use it and therefore don't notice it. At least that's what I got from the various misunderstandings I've expererienced. I found that being true for Koreans and Malaysians as well, so it might be applicable to whole East Asia.
I hate to tell you this, but all over Europe it is well known that Americans don't understand irony.
No, it isn't anything like silvery or coppery....
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No, it isn't anything like silvery or coppery....
British humor at its best. Love it. :-)
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so not understanding your culture's particular brand of humor is now seen as a way to look down on other people's culture
here we have mostly americans snickering that the chinese don't get australian irony, and along comes a european saying the same about americans not getting british irony
what a pointless circlejerk
i await the chinese guy to show up and snicker that those silly europeans just don't get irony
in other words, this entire thread is a crapfest of snugness and superiority
an example of chinese su
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so not understanding your culture's particular brand of humor is now seen as a way to look down on other people's culture
...
seriously, this entire thread pisses me off. it's blind stupid ethnocentric condescension. you all suck, you're a bunch of useless western douchebags, seriously..../p
ummm dude the video of Australia PM ... it's meant to be funny.
In fact it's absolutely hilarious.
The stuff about "ethnocentric condescension" have you been taking your "medication" lately?
Maybe you need to talk to your "doctor" about that seriously.
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Homophones and plays on words are hardly unique to China. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kAG39jKi0lI [youtube.com]
Of course people who don't know Chinese or have the context of internet censorship aren't going to get the joke.
You're making up the looking down and condescension, it'd just a discussion of how people from different cultures are different. It might be incorrect, people could have the wrong impressions entirely, but it isn't condescending. But of course you will see it that way, it's your normal bias.
Re:Humour and irony (Score:5, Funny)
I hate to tell you this, but all over Europe it is well known that Americans don't understand irony.
No, it isn't anything like silvery or coppery....
I hate to tell you this, but all over the U.S.A. it is well known that Europeans are prone to over-generalizing when it comes to Americans.
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Parent post was apparently moderated by people in Asia ;-)
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I hate to tell you this, but all over Europe it is well known that Americans don't understand irony.
No, it isn't anything like silvery or coppery....
I hate to tell you this, but all over the U.S.A. it is well known that Europeans are prone to over-generalizing when it comes to Americans.
Sounds fair, since all over the world it is well known that Americans are prone to over-generalizing when it comes to non-Americans...
(Wait, were we going for sarcasm, irony, or serious?)
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No, it isn't anything like silvery or coppery....
Of course, even the most ignorant dung gatherer knows it's more like like goldy and bronzy.
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a) Chinese generally don't get sarcasm, except those brought up abroad
b) Indonesians sometimes understand it, but seem to think more about the next meal
c) Thais live for Sarcasm. They do it so well, you can't tell sometimes.
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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 playfu
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What I would like to know... (Score:4, Interesting)
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?
Re:What I would like to know... (Score:5, Interesting)
Hmm.. could be that all that stuff about the Great Firewall is just a practical joke. And North Korea is actually a real paradise with real unicorns. They just pretend to be a horrible, insane dictatorship to keep us out..
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So the mine field and walls are to prevent poachers from getting to the unicorns? Like jurassic park should have been defended?
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Sure.. poachers, tourists, IP lawyers, that kind of thing.
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What I would like to know is how often we mistakenly take foreign news at face value.
I know plenty of people who are still treating thousands years old news in Aramaic at face value.
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Erm.. (Score:5, Funny)
Im just glad she listened to the right people when it comes to fiber.
Re:Erm.. (Score:5, Funny)
Im just glad she listened to the right people when it comes to fiber.
Indeed, the last thing you want is a constipated PM.
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There's a current politician who isn't?
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And the scariest part is... (Score:2)
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23,000 repeats (Score:5, Insightful)
23,000 repeats shouldn't mean much in China.
aussie pm isn't the only one (Score:4, Funny)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zHCSpm2kepo [youtube.com]
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I bet what happened is some aussie DJs calledd the country that Kim Jong was staying at and after learning of the spoof the whole country committed suicide.
I bet that's what you wanted to happen.
Copying without thinking (Score:2)
Great wall of (Score:2)
So basically, when it comes to the internet, China is like my nan?
Who is missing whose sarcasm? (Score:5, Insightful)
Humor can be hard to translate. Maybe instead of the Chinese speakers missing the Aussie's sarcasm, it's visa-versa.
Don't make fun of China - Fox depends on this, too (Score:2)
When your government lets you down, you're a prime candidate to join the march of the lemmings.
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Quite obviously they've honed playing the greed of the West's few to a fine art, and so are far, far ahead on the industrial infrastructure/defense arsenal and financial fronts.
It's been sad to watch, really...
Our Monsters Over Time (Score:3)
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.
It may be cultural (Score:2)
I had a Chinese friend, but she never understood my satire. While traveling on business I commented on how nice the pillows were. She agreed they were nice. Then I told her that's why I packed one into my luggage to take home. She really thought I was serious. I had to explain I was joking.
Culture plays a big role in how people react to things. For instance, don't pull a prank on a total stranger, like a random nurse in a hospital. Depending on their cultural background you might prompt them to kill
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without anyone picking up the irony
You are either:
(1) a dumb ass fuck, and thinks this is actually true.
(2) a condescending dumb ass fuck, that thinks people can't see through your feeble attempt at waving your obviously tiny penis.
...
or (3) His Dick is so huge that you can only see a tiny fraction of it.