Talk:In Soviet Russia

Point of this page

This is not even funny, so please make pages that make any sense. What the hell? For all I care this could be yank reversal. Stick to interesting topics instead of this crap.

In Soviet Russia, topic sticks to you! BeefontheBone 12:37, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

In Soviet Russia, reversal yanks YOU! Parsecboy 01:07, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

1. This is funny and 2. it really makes sense, in soviet russia the forums troll you!

Many of the jokes on this page aren't reversals. On of my faves:

An American says to a Russian: "In America, everyone is free to criticize the President of the United States."

The Russian replies: "In Soviet Union, same thing. everyone is free to criticize the President of the United States."

It's of the Smirnoff genre, but not of the reversal sub-genre. So I didn't list it, but there are some gags on the page that similarly don't belong. — Randall Bart 22:21, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

This is a legit topic, but the article is poorly referenced. --JianLi 16:54, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for pointing out this article isn't even funny. I'll remove it promptly, along with World War I and Industrial Revolution, as they aren't funny either. In Soviet Russia, common sense lacks you. --NEMT 00:30, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Cleanup

This article is currently an unsourced mess. — MichaelLinnear 01:17, 22 April 2007 (UTC)

As this article is about a non-notable internet meme, and there is no need for an article on a comedian's joke I redirected it to Yakov Smirnoff. The same content is already in that article. — MichaelLinnear 04:54, 22 April 2007 (UTC)

Please see Talk:Yakov Smirnoff#Split. The reason this article has it's own page was because it was proposed to be split. --AAA! ^(AAAA) 06:03, 22 April 2007 (UTC)

Examples

I removed the example section. A lot of those examples didn't make sense and strayed from the original format, and we already have an example at the top. I don't support this being a separate page, but if it is, it should at least have good examples instead of something that looks like it came from Uncyclopedia. --Piroteknix 22:08, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

I question the example about Big Brother - the TV show was invented after' the end of SU. Ziko (talk) 09:39, 9 July 2020 (UTC)

And what is the problem? This a joke, colleague, not a historical statement. Staszek Lem (talk) 17:10, 9 July 2020 (UTC)

Yakov Smirnoff did not use Russian reversals!

This is a tricky one, because you can find plenty of sources online that cite Yakov Smirnoff as the originator and/or popularizer of Russian reversals. On the other hand, I've looked through YouTube videos and transcripts of his act, and quotes from his books, and I can't find any actual evidence that he used them! The one exception is a 1985 Miller Lite ad ("in Russia, Party will always find you") - whose script Smirnoff probably didn't write. I think this is a case of a mass memory that's simply incorrect - like everyone "knowing" that Captain Kirk said "Beam me up, Scotty". The Russian reversals have been around for a long time, Yakov Smirnoff was the guy who told jokes about the Soviet Union, ergo - he told them (and maybe even invented them). As far as this article is concerned, I don't know what the best approach is - the notable sources say one thing, but the direct evidence all says the opposite. Korny O'Near (talk) 03:25, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

...and for exact this reason I deleted a ref to a dubious website of unknown authorship. Staszek Lem (talk) 03:42, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

This is WP:OR and comes close to being revisionist history. Smirnoff, as one can read on his bio page, told many jokes that are functionally (but not syntactically) equivalent to the "in Soviet Union..." meme. It was a famous part of his schtick and was associated pretty much uniquely with him and his act. The Miller Lite advertisement, if that is in fact the only time he used the meme format, is a memorable proxy for all the other times and other ways that he conveyed the same idea where something innocent in the West is "reversed" into something oppressive in the USSR, introduced by the words "In Soviet Union/Russia...". 73.89.25.252 (talk) 00:47, 16 December 2020 (UTC)

What is this even doing here?

This is a really poorly written article with no formatting whatsoever.

Is it really necessary to have a wiki page for this?

Orangewarning (talk) 14:02, 10 December 2014 (UTC)

Wikipedia

In America, you edit Wikipedia. In Soviet Russia, Wikipedia edits you!

--82.131.91.184 (talk) 14:21, 15 April 2017 (UTC)

That has a userbox form you know look Here Wkc19 :) (talk) 17:27, 11 December 2017 (UTC)

No example farm

Once again, Please do not collect examples from all over the internets here. Wikipedia is not a jokebook. In wikipedia, examples must come from reliable sources, i.e., sufficiently prominent. See WP:RS, WP:UNDUE, WP:TRIVIA. Staszek Lem (talk) 22:31, 7 June 2017 (UTC)

There is a disagreement about this edit with edit summary "You don't need sources for that type of thing"

Per major wikipedia content policy WP:Verifiability, in Wikipedia everything must be verifiable from published reliable sources. Period. Yes, in some cases references are not required, if the information is known to be readily verifiable form the sources. If some statement is contested, it is the job of the person who add it to rovide the reference. Unreferenced text may be deleted at any time. Please stop the revert war and find other examples, which are published in reliable sources. Staszek Lem (talk) 16:39, 5 June 2018 (UTC)

I already explained my revert in my edit summary, but I'm going to do it again here. What I added is not a statment nor a claim. In fact, it is not even a real sentence. It is an example of a joke, and on the three that were already there, only one was cited. I am not adding a claim or a historical fact. I am adding an example of a joke that anyone could come up in one minute. period. L293D (☎ • ✎) 17:35, 5 June 2018 (UTC)

The policy says "This means all material must be attributable to reliable, published sources" Therefore you argument is invalid. Moreover, by adding this text, you are making an implicit claim that this is an example of Russian reversal. In addition of being unreferenced, this example is in fact a piece of ignorance, because it is in Nineteen Eighty-Four where the telescreen watches you. Staszek Lem (talk) 19:45, 5 June 2018 (UTC)

I still think that did not need to be cited, but your end argument is right. L293D (☎ • ✎) 01:14, 6 June 2018 (UTC)

Please do not add nonnotable examples from the internets, per WP:TRIVIA.

@Staszek Lem: it's not "from the internets", I made it myself (based on a photo already on Commons) because most examples "from the internets" would have copyright issues. The example was used as an example to show how this joke is used in image macros. If you can provide a more notable alternative with a free license, be my guest. Alexis Jazz (talk) 22:53, 29 August 2018 (UTC)

@Alexis Jazz: Sorry, I was not aware of your image creation skills. Please notice that images in articles are used to illustrate verifiable (i.e., referenced) article content. the "how this joke is used in image macros" is not verifiable article content, neither is the "animal" joke, i.e., this is a piece of original research. Why don't you make "In Soviet Russia Big Brother watch you!" macro from, e.g., File:Tkachev_Putin.jpeg? Staszek Lem (talk) 23:08, 29 August 2018 (UTC)

 Done Alexis Jazz (talk) 01:48, 30 August 2018 (UTC)

InSovietRussia Wiki

This wiki, while basically an original research, but has a bunch of "In pop culture" refs. May be someone can trace them to reliable secondary sources, given the actual texts of the jokes. Staszek Lem (talk) 01:01, 12 August 2020 (UTC)

Requested move 14 December 2020

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: Consensus to move (non-admin closure) BegbertBiggs (talk) 00:38, 23 December 2020 (UTC)

---

Russian reversal → In Soviet Russia – formal, for IP, see below Lembit Staan (talk) 16:54, 14 December 2020 (UTC) Lembit Staan (talk) 16:54, 14 December 2020 (UTC)

Move to "In Soviet Russia"; no sources for the term "Russian reversal"

The lede cites only a post at Language Log, that does not use "Russia(n) reversal" at all. Searching does not turn up evidence of any credible sources.

Instead of presuming a possibly nonexistent term, the article could simply be called "In Soviet Russia", "In Soviet Russia (joke)" or "In Soviet Russia (meme)".

Not that it matters much, but my memory is that this construction was talked and written about as "Yakov Smirnoff jokes" when those were recent, and later as " 'In Soviet Russia' jokes". It's graduated from joke to widely recognized meme since then. 73.89.25.252 (talk) 16:25, 14 December 2020 (UTC)

• Support Quick google search does show a big number of hits, but most of them are for the literal meaning and shows no reliable independent sources for the current title. Lembit Staan (talk) 16:58, 14 December 2020 (UTC)
• Support, recognizable. There are some WP:RS that use this term [1], but possibly influenced by our article, no hits before its creation. – Thjarkur (talk) 18:19, 14 December 2020 (UTC)
• Support as proposer. Thanks to Lembit Staan for adding the formal move request. 73.89.25.252 (talk) 19:04, 14 December 2020 (UTC)
• No, instead Merge to Ethnic joke. A review of the sources, and searching for more for COMMONNAME evidence reveals that this is a very thin topic, barely more than a definition, and is merely an example of the Ethnic joke. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 02:57, 15 December 2020 (UTC)
  • This is not an ethnic joke, this is a political joke. Lembit Staan (talk) 16:32, 15 December 2020 (UTC)
• Support per non, but a parenthetical(joke), or (language game) would be warranted too — Preceding unsigned comment added by Blindlynx (talk • contribs) 22:38, 15 December 2020 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

"In Russia" vs "In Soviet Russia" and "In Soviet Union"

I'm not sure of the extent of sources on this, but the joke was told more as "In Russia" or "In Soviet Union" during its heyday in the Cold War. Smirnoff added the word "Soviet" after the USSR collapsed and online quotations of his jokes mostly have the "In Russia" form. 73.89.25.252 (talk) 08:46, 16 December 2020 (UTC)