The cultural products of war Russian in the war have not been heavily shouted since Russia attacked Ukraine in 2022.
Until the Russian girl’s song Sigma Boy blew social media.
The viral song brought the cultural and ideological tensions between the West and Russia to the surface.
It is easy to hate Russia because of its power ideology and bloody warfare.
However, Sigma Boy temporarily united the youth of the West and Russia into one dancing camp. It made me ask if the Russian hit was a suitable fan.
Sigma Boy became a viral phenomenon
In October 11 years old Svetlana chartšchevaan artist called Betsy, and 12 years old Maria Jankovskaja Downloaded the song Sigma Boy to YouTube, which quickly became a viral.
By February, the song had been listened to more than 75 million times on YouTube.
In January, Sigma Boy finished seventh in the Billboard listing in Dance and Pop. A song of almost unknown Russian girls wedged, among other things, world -famous artists such as Ariana Granden and Billie Eilish past.
The music service on Spotify Sigma Boy temporarily rose to the top of the worldwide Viral 50 Global list. For example, the song also became popular In Germany and Sweden.
Sigma Boy became a phenomenon that also revealed Railo between the new generation and previous generations of values.
Intergenerational gap
Above all, the song sank into the so-called Alpha generation, born in the 2010s, whose worldview is the real mystery for adults so far.
As young people around the world made dance videos on Instagram and Tiktok with the Russian -speaking song, adults analyzed problems with the song’s lyrics.
In online culture, Sigma usually refers to a man who does not seek a position in society or social hierarchy, but lives according to his own values and seeks to be independent of society’s expectations.
So Sigma is a kind of opposite to the traditional alpha male that builds its identity around success and influence.
The Sigma man is not a new concept in itself.
The extreme example is Christian Balen Presented by Patrick Bateman’s character in America (2000). On the online forums Batemania kept As a typical sigma. Although Bateman is a self -centered psychopath, he chooses to live according to his own rules, regardless of the opinions of others.
In December 2024 German Left Magazine Die tageszeitung wrote that Sigma Boy may incite young people in sexism and violence.
A member of the European Parliament, a German The nela rush Volt of the Europa party claimed at the end of January that Sigma Boy spread patriarchal values and demanded a prohibition of the song.
Russia, on the other hand, a radical orthodox movement required the Chief Prosecutor’s Office To investigate whether the dance performance of underage girls meet the characteristics of pedophile content.
The father of the 11-year-old Certheshcheva, the composer Mikhail chartšchev suggested, That the police would rather focus on an organization that sees the dancing of pre -tongues as sexual.
The turmoil around Sigma Boy tells us, above all, how young people and adults’ views and values differ and how these differences are dealt with in public debate.
The same phenomenon was visible at the reception of the song.
Brainstone is interested in young people
The song is part of the Cute Pop Rock genre or Brainrot content category. Brainrot could be freely translated into a brain, or brain -degenerating content.
One of the most well -known content of the brain is, for example, a Georgian Alexei Gerasimov Skibidi Toilet series. Videos are absurd humor.
In the video of Mixin Jasmin Beloued explains where Skibidi toilet It’s all about:
Editors who have written about the brain have described the content strange and even Scary.
However, representatives of the Alpha generation, born in the 2010s, prefer a strange brain. For example, Skibidi Toilet has billions of impressions on YouTube.
Whatever the adult opinion of the brain, phenomena like Skibidi Toilet and Sigma Boy are becoming a shared, shared experience of the Alpha generation.
The fact that what makes adults who do not understand what great in the videos where toilet bowls fight against cyborgs.
There is nothing new that adults are terrifying the interests of young people. In public debate, people are also delicately condemning things that they do not understand.
It is usually a sense of fear of the unknown.
Alfat is the first generation to live in the digital world since birth. They are just the children for whom the exhausted parents pushed the iPad at the age of 2.
These kids and young people learn to use YouTube and adventure in Roblox even before they learn to read.
The oldest alpha representatives are currently 15 years old, and no one knows exactly what kind of citizens of these children and adolescents raised on the “brainpan”.
Therefore, the content or technology consumed by young people is easy to label as a weapon used by a political opponent.
For example, public debate often speculates what China is aiming for by setting the strict boundaries for its young people, but by allowing Western young people to use the unfiltered version of the Chinese Tiktok.
West launched a propaganda dispute on Sigma
As such, listening to the song of the Russian girls does not automatically mean that you support Russian politics.
However, the Sigma Boy case shows that people who believe that individual content is the secret weapon of the Russian administration will easily play in the Russian bag.
For example, Rilh, a member of the European Parliament, claimed that Sigma Boy is spreading a Russian-like worldview.
However, Sigma Boy represents the Kremlin Kammumpo individuality rather than a Russian-minded patriotic worldview.
For many years, Russia’s powerful people have been trying to eradicate the thoughts of individuality and replace them with patriotic thoughts.
In addition, the Sigma Boy represents a “brainpick”, or genre, which is usually united in their speech to the West in their speech. In Kremlin’s superpower thinking, Western culture is vulgar and in a state of discount, while Russian culture is patriotic, moral and thriving.
In Russia, mainly the Orthodox Church was terrifying Sigma Boy, until the criticism of the song fell to the west.
After Riehl’s exit, Kremlin’s leading party uniform Russia and its support parties began to praise Cerentišcheva and Jankovskaja. Congressman Leonid Slutski stamp A European Parliament’s criticism of Sigma Boy’s “typical European Cancel culture”.
The Kreml was on its way in his anti -Western propaganda, but the main architecture of Russia’s online censorship put a point for the Sigma Boy discussion.
The leader of a safe internet league Jekaterina Mizulina gave a conversation Sigma boyn useless.
He scolded Russian MPs and urged representatives of Parliament to use his working hours to deal with more important issues.
In the video, program director Anna Sidorova and translator Pauli Tapio discuss their attitude towards Russian culture in the midst of war.