7 Things That Russia Hates (Besides Gay People)
Everyone knows that Russia hates gay people. That’s the first rule of Russia, basically. That’s the first bullet point of the Russian constitution, I think, followed by “Be Way Aggressive No Matter What” and “Build Giant Stuff, Put Some of it in Space, #YOLO.” But Russia cannot be defined by the first bullet point of its constitution alone — “<3 H8, No Homo.” Check your gay privilege, Western World. Russia hates many, many things.
Here are 7 of the most culturally-defining things that Russia hates besides gay people:
1. YouTube videos of kittens softly mewing.
In the first place, Russia does not like YouTube. Why do you believe that you deserve your own tube? Russia has never understood this, but Russia digresses. While Russia does not mind cats so much, Russia utterly DESPISES kittens. Small, weak, and far too concerned with ‘being adorable’ for Russia’s taste, Russia rejects everything that kittens stand for. Why do kittens require such large, luminous eyes, for example? What are kittens looking at? What do kittens want from us? It seems suspiciously try-hard, if you ask Russia, and while Russia will not murder a kitten every time that Russia sees one, it is probably wise not to cross Russia or rub up against Russia’s ankles softly mewing if you are, in fact, a kitten.
2. Sunny weekend afternoons that make you go, “Oh, ah!”.
Russia is mad and shaking just THINKING about this. Sunshine is a bastard aberration of the spiritually pure Russian cold, and weekends are a fallacy — Russia would like to know why you are not working. The notion of special days right next to each other when you do not have to work is a fiction of Western propaganda. Every day is the same thing: a day. During the day, you work. There are not different kinds of days. Your body should ache at all times from your productivity, and that ache should bring you subtle pleasure. Let that subtle pleasure be your ‘weekend.’
3. The tentative, hopeful smile of a baby walking for the first time.
Why is the baby so happy? The baby is just walking. Russia is not impressed by walking. Walking is a normal thing to do, like breathing or working (which you should now be doing). Talk to Russia when you are seizing foreign, rebel nations for the motherland, when you have designed new crops with science-thinking to feed all of Russia’s children, when you have shattered Western imperialism with your iron fists and spit in the eye of Washington’s smug ghost. But for now? Sit down, baby. You will not be rewarded for mediocrity.
4. Hot, chocolate chip cookies that glisten all buttery and pull apart in such long, fudge ribbons that you ‘nom’ and you ‘nom’ and you ‘nom’.
Rampant American food fetishism. Russia is disgusted. Russia’s stomach is turning. Lick your greasy fingers, if you can still fit the chubby stumps into your mouth, take a look at yourself in the mirror, and count your chins. Your soft, bulbous form would be hilarious to Russia if Russia were not preoccupied with, literally, vomiting. Deriving pleasure from food is a despicable perversion of food’s purpose, which is to sustain the body at work and nothing else.
Excuse Russia, please, while it takes a quick shower and attempts to scrub away the thought of you eating.
5. Freshly-laundered sheets right out of the dryer that feel so soft and nice
While Russia does not hate every soft, warm thing that exists, Russia has noticed that soft, warm things tend to breed soft people who require warmth, which is shameful. Russia is cold and hard. Therefore, cold, hard things and people are the best kinds of things and people. Freshly-laundered sheets right out of the dryer that feel so soft and nice are a ‘slippery slope’ to plush, American living. To frivolity, to pastel colors, and to celebrities who are celebrities only because they are celebrities. Such a ‘slippery slope’ is intolerable. Will NOT be tolerated by Russia.
6. Telling ghost stories by a crackling campfire and being kind of scared but mostly in that happy way.
Fire offers relief from the cold, the need for which is, of course, a disgusting, Western affectation. Still, Russia does not hate fire. Fire can be used as a weapon, or to make steel, which can also be used as a weapon, and so seems generally good. However, Russia loathes fear and the afraid. If Russia could put all of the afraid people in one place and destroy that place with an atom bomb, Russia would do this. Russia has many atom bombs, do not forget. But what is really blowing Russia’s mind right now is the notion that one can be both happy and afraid at the same time. There is nothing to be happy about if you are afraid. To be afraid is to have lost at life. Is to have failed. Are you happy to have failed? This is not a rhetorical question. Russia would truly like to know whether or not you are happy to have failed because Russia is legitimately concerned that it is going out of its mind and this is all some great, strange dream. Tell Russia the truth.
Well?
Hello?
…please?
7. Driving with the windows down in the middle of the summer when your favorite song comes on and your hair goes ‘whoosh’ in the breeze, and you sing along at the top of your lungs so young and filled with joy.
Russia does not even know where to begin with this. Give Russia a second to stop pulling Russia’s own hair out with its purple-knuckled fists. Please give Russia a moment to stop screaming into Russia’s pillow, and rage sobbing.
Okay.
- Driving is not meant to be pleasant. It is an exercise in utility. Driving is for going TO work or moving things around FOR work.
- Why are you listening to music? You should be focused while driving. If your attention is so poor that you must listen to something while you are driving, the national broadcast is acceptable (barely). Russia may have important things to tell you, admittedly, so Russia would understand a slight distraction of this kind.
- Why is your hair so long that it can go ‘whoosh’? You should get a haircut. Also, what is a ‘whoosh,’ even? It seems carefree. Russia does not like the sound of this at all.
- ‘Young’ anything. Why? Youth are dumb. Youth are unaccomplished. Youth are filled with great potential, yes, but potential to what? To fail is what.
- The word ‘joy’
:: unintelligible moaning while Russia repeatedly bangs its head against the table ::
Russia is going for a walk and will talk to you later.