#14
Wall Street Journal
March 20, 2002
Foul Cartoon Slacker Masyanya Takes Young Russians by
Storm
By GUY CHAZAN
Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
For years, Russia's corporate elite was haunted by fears of devaluation, default and raids by the tax police. Now, they have something else to worry about: "Masyanya," an Internet cartoon that is the distraction of choice for millions of bored young office workers.
A foul-mouthed, pot-smoking slacker living in St. Petersburg, Masyanya has become Russia's answer to "Beavis and Butthead." The cartoon, or multfilm, is a big hit on the Net: Less than five months after the two-minute episodes started appearing online, the creator's Web site, Mult.ru, has been getting 22,000 hits a day.
Crudely drawn, with fruity teenage slang, a maniacal giggle and a penchant for drink, drugs and sex, Masyanya commands a large following among Russia's version of Generation X, the 20- and 30-somethings known for their free-wheeling cynicism and total alienation from politics. "They're mainly white-collar workers in Moscow illicitly surfing the Net during office hours," says Oleg Kuvayev, Masyanya's 35-year-old creator.
"She reflects the spirit of the times," says Alexander Pliushchev, a newspaper columnist who writes about the Internet. "It's this couldn't-care-less attitude. Like when Masyanya and her boyfriend are stuck in a lift at midnight on New Year's Eve, and the boyfriend says: 'Well, at least let's have sex, then.' That just about sums it up."
Masyanya's best lines -- like "Barman, a pint of cognac!" or "Who's this? The boss? Go to hell, boss, I can't deal with you right now" -- are now bandied about in bars and at water coolers. The appearance of a new episode, usually on a Monday morning, can bring office work to a grinding halt. "We all gather round my computer and have a good laugh," says graphic designer Anastasia Samokhina. "We call the bosses, too, but they don't seem to get it. They don't speak her language."
That's for sure. Mr. Kuvayev says the director of one St. Petersburg television station will fine any of his staff he catches watching Masyanya at work.
For people like Ms. Samokhina, 32, the appeal is simple. "Her slang, her lifestyle, her stupid habits -- she's like a caricature of me, or at least a part of me," she says. Masyanya also symbolizes a lot of what has taken place in Russia since the end of communism, especially the blossoming of youth culture. "Ten years ago, all we did was go to friends' houses and drink tea or vodka," Ms. Samokhina says. "Now we have money to spend, places to go -- like Masyanya."
Others have been quick to pick up on the character's commercial potential. Political candidates with an eye on the youth vote have asked to use Masyanya in their campaign videos. Businessmen want her to sell condoms. With a video miniseries tentatively planned for Russian MTV in April, Masyanya looks well positioned to arrive in the mainstream.
But the character is likely to meet with disapproval from Russia's political establishment. The country has a long tradition of state censorship, and leaders are quick to condemn things they view as corrupting the nation's youth. Earlier this month, President Vladimir Putin, bemoaning the lack of educational programs on children's television, called on the cultural elite to create role models that would "squeeze out squalid characters from the media." (Mr. Putin couldn't immediately be reached for comment about his views, if any, on Masyanya.) Guests on TV talk shows already have condemned Mr. Kuvayev for "promoting drug use" among Russia's youth.
Even some other Web designers are critical of Masyanya. "It has no artistic value whatsoever," says Sergei Ledokolov, director of VDLabs, a Moscow Web-design firm. "The fact so much fuss is being made about her just shows how primitive the Russian Internet is."
With her matchstick body, oversized blob head, bulging eyes and crooked grin, Masyanya is certainly no work of art. She doesn't really walk, but just jerks across the computer screen like a child's paper cutout. The St. Petersburg where she lives is a wasteland of flyblown, cockroach-infested apartments, rain-swept streets, smashed windowpanes and low-life dives full of drunks. When she meets her Prince Charming on a deserted tropical beach, his first words are: "Give me 100 bucks till the weekend."
But it's this dark humor that has made Masyanya a hit. In one cartoon, she calls up a friend to make plans for her birthday party, and reels off a list of controlled substances such as cocaine, Ecstasy and "magic mushrooms" that she procured for the event. Her friend asks if she wants beer. "Oh no," Masyanya says. "Everyone'll get drunk, turn the place upside down. No, don't bring beer, I'm a respectable girl."
Mr. Kuvayev says creating Masyanya was an "act of hooliganism." He dreamed her up last year to relieve the boredom of work at a St. Petersburg Web-design studio, Totem, where his clients included a mail-order bride firm called "Russian Beauty." He created her on a regular PC with cheap, off-the-shelf software such as Macromedia Flash, modeling the characters on himself and his friends, and taking plots and dialogue from life. "I just wanted to give my friends a laugh," he says with an eerily familiar giggle.
The cartoon has good timing, tapping into the tremendous popularity of entertainment Web sites in Russian workplaces. In homes, dial-up connections are hostage to the poor quality and capacity constraints of Russia's creaky public-phone network. In offices, cable systems allow around-the-clock, high-speed Internet access. Besides, it's free.
Masyanya isn't the only thing people watch at work. Anekdot.ru, an anthology of jokes, and Krovatka.ru, a chat room, are almost as hot as the search engine Aport and news site Gazeta.ru. "I'm horrified at how Russian office workers use the Internet," Mr. Pliushchev, the writer, says. "Only 50% of the time it's work-related. The rest is chat, e-mail and cartoons."
At first, Masyanya's popularity came as a shock. "Every Monday, when a new cartoon appeared, the server would crash," Mr. Kuvayev says. He had to switch his host server four times, and now pays around €1,200 a month for more reliable hosting, compared with about €70 when the project kicked off.
Now, Mult.ru is beginning to pay for itself. Mr. Kuvayev is earning money from banner ads, and orders for multimedia presentations using Flash -- the software with which he created Masyanya -- are trickling in from companies such as cellular operator OAO Mobile TeleSystems. He has hired a manager and an extra animator; in Moscow, a two-man team handles merchandising and other commercial spinoffs.
The MTV deal will vastly increase Masyanya's audience. Russia , a country of 144 million, has only around four million Internet users. Already, plans are afoot for a talking Masyanya doll -- something sure to offend the nation's youth guardians.
But Mr. Kuvayev dismisses claims that Masyanya is a bad influence. She's the latest in a long line of Russian literary heroines, he says. "OK, she's a freak," he adds. "But she's not as stupid as she looks."
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