You know like:
A: I feel like eating a big bowl of soup
B: In Soviet Russa, the big bowl of soup eats YOU!
I’m pretty sure the origins were in Yakov Smirnoff’s (or whatever his name was) stand-up routine. But why has this suddenly become a meme right now? Are we in the middle of a Yakov Smirnoff revival?
Did they start the meme or just, like many message boards, help spread it?
Well, they certainly didn’t start it. Yakov Smirnoff is the perp, there. I think that Fark.com is largely responsible for it’s current vogue, though. Heck, even if people don’t participate in the comments threads, but merely use it as a news aggregate site, there’s no escaping Fark cliches.
I don’t know if The Dirk Engine at interconnected.org is a solid cite, (and I see it’s actually down at the moment), but according to the Google cache, “Yakov Smirnov” is only connected to two things, and one of them is Fark:
This, along with the tendency of so many people who use this annoying cliche to use other, less-annoying Fark cliches, would lead me to believe that Fark has done more to spread the “In Soviet Russia” meme than anyone else-- including Yakov Smirnov. Who remembers that guy, anyway?
Cheers.
I can’t even remember how to spell his name, most of the time.
Besides, that was only ONE of his jokes. His true tag line was about America – “What a country!”
Like the “All Your Base” fiasco, the new sport of “photoshopping” (including the twin towers guy), and the “God Kills a Kitten everytime you masturbate” image, this unfunny Yakov phrase originated in the www.somethingawful.com forums.
All of what is said is true, but I think the phrase made a comeback because they recently had Yakov (or at least someone impersonating him) on The Simpsons.
Sounds good. Thanks for the replies everyone. And I did do a search, I don’t know why I didn’t see the previous discussion… oh wait I know - I searched for “Soviet Russia” not “Soviet Union”.
God, that’s stupid, but it’s so damn funny. I don’t know why.
I’m going to be laughing about that all day.