Oops I blew it up again

September 24, 2004 1:58 PM

Black widow pop. "With tATu, Ivan Shapovalov took the media's obsession with paedophilia, and spun it into a chart-topping lesbo-schoolgirl pop act. Now he's trying to do the same with Islamic terrorism. On Sept 11 in Moscow, he launched nATo, a 16-year-old girl who dresses in a Burqua, much like the Black Widow suicide bombers who are currently terrorising Russia. With the Beslan massacre only a week old, Nato's launch - complete with invitations designed like plane tickets - was not a huge success... Mindful of the dire consequences of being a dissenting voice in Putin's Russia these days, Shapovalov is planning to launch nATo properly in London later this year, and get a recording contract here." stolen from popbitch
posted by mr.marx (19 comments total)

Hmmm. I would be stunned if nATo was a success.

I mean, everyone likes schoolgirl lesbians, but not everyone likes terrorists. I predict that she will go the way of Sigue Sigue Sputnik - a blast of publicity, some minimal interest, and a rapid descent into obscurity.

Unless she rips of the burqua revealing a skin colored sequined bikini at the MTV Video Awards.
posted by Joey Michaels at 2:04 PM on September 24, 2004

Lame. Maybe if the video showed her getting "dressed up" in the black outfit. Or if she had particularly sexy eyes. There was a reason tATu was so popular, and I don't think it wasn't the music.

On preview: damn, JM. Ya beat me.
posted by Civil_Disobedient at 2:13 PM on September 24, 2004

Bad idea, just because it sounds like a good idea when you're drunk doesn't mean you should try it.

Funny, I've never seen Tatu, just heard their music and I like it.

Badly timed and a bad idea, I predict he'll be sent to Siberia within the week.
posted by fenriq at 2:22 PM on September 24, 2004

yvan eht nioj!
posted by MrMoonPie at 2:29 PM on September 24, 2004

Let's hope they don't take the dog'n'pony'n'burka roadshow near Chechnya or Shamil Basayev might develop a sudden interest in pop music.

everyone likes schoolgirl lesbians, but not everyone likes terrorists

What's next? Tumbling lesbian terrorist midgets?
posted by meehawl at 2:39 PM on September 24, 2004

Because, as we all know, the only reliable recipe for massive riches is and has always been: lowercase-capital-capital-lowercase.
posted by aramaic at 2:40 PM on September 24, 2004

Ugh, can't imagine this going anywhere, at least Muslimgauze had some sincerity (anyone remember them?).

Funny, I've never seen Tatu, just heard their music and I like it.

Tatu managed to get legendary producer Trevor Horn to work on their album, which I think had a lot more to do with their success than people realize.
posted by bobo123 at 2:44 PM on September 24, 2004

[frantically trying to make meehawl's idea a reality]
posted by adamrice at 3:12 PM on September 24, 2004

Tatu managed to get legendary producer Trevor Horn to work on their album

Holy...! I didn't know that. Yeah, that would probably do the trick.
posted by kindall at 3:17 PM on September 24, 2004

holy shit thats awesome
posted by Satapher at 3:26 PM on September 24, 2004

By the way, sexual attraction to adolescents isn't pedophilia, it's ephebophilia; and almost every culture discourages the former but allows or encourages the latter. Certainly from a pure biology standpoint, ephebophilia is normative while pedophilia is not.
posted by Ethereal Bligh at 4:38 PM on September 24, 2004

While not meriting a MeTa callout:

Mr. M., on posting this, did you think, "This, yes, this must surely and forevermore be considered The Best of The Web?"

'Cos if not, like, uhm, I don' geddit. Whatever floats yer boat, and Ivan Jimbob there must be considered King of the Trolls, but still...
posted by mwhybark at 4:59 PM on September 24, 2004

See, I personally think Tatu was pure genius. Like a lot of seemingly shallow stuff that becomes obscenely popular - like say The Wizard of Oz, which may be an economics allegory - it has some clever overtones. Anyone can pitch teen lesbians, so there has to be something there that made it catch on.

First of all, few could come close to putting together a duo more appealing to the average slavering male's eye. They're individually very attractive, but certainly not the most in the world. But their images compliment one other in ways not quite explicable. Basically, one is the angular, dynamic, mysterious type, and the other's the rosy, full, cute type. They each are very good examples of the two aspects of the female ideal that can't both be fully present in one person (hence, the very most attractive people are appealing but visually bland compromises, like say Britney Spears). The lesbian thing is two sexual aesthetics seeking literal sexual concord, so I think subliminally that's what makes it so captivating.

Then of course there's the marketing thing. Ivan made it so it was scandalous enough that it would cause a shameless media frenzy, but not enogh that people would feel guilty for liking them. Plus every fragment of information was re-spun into the machine - he even pre-empted the idea that Tatu were blatantly pretending be lesbians by in some of the marketing implying that they had been pressured into it, but now feel a real love developing, etc. He's has Ph.D. in psychology and NLP and mass psychology (which the tabloids altered into, "Shapalov hypnotized Yulia into having sex with him!," more record sales ;) )

I think Ivan realizes Tatu was his real chef d'oueve and now is working on much less subtle gimmicks to keep the money coming.
posted by abcde at 7:16 PM on September 24, 2004

adamrice made a very funny comment.

I will happily admit to listening to TATU for a solid week before it became painfully annoying and never worth returning to on the ipod. But for that week when i wasnt sick of em yet? THEYRE NOT GONNA GET US!!!! NOT GONNA NOT GONNA GET US!!!! sigh. so true. so true.
posted by Peter H at 7:33 PM on September 24, 2004

I hear his next hit with the suicide bomber will be similar, just the unexplainable love affair between a teenage girl and her bomb.

LET LOVE LIVE PEOPLE
posted by Peter H at 7:35 PM on September 24, 2004

This latest project may be crap, but Shapovalov's surplus of bad taste ensured that we heard about it. The guy's like the Karl Rove of pop music.
posted by clevershark at 12:05 AM on September 25, 2004

The lesbian thing is two sexual aesthetics seeking literal sexual concord, so I think subliminally that's what makes it so captivating.

You forgot the fact that they're teenagers.
posted by Civil_Disobedient at 1:05 AM on September 25, 2004

The pretentiousness of that sentence was meant to be ironic, I promise you ;)

I think it's maybe 80% teen lesbians and 20% platonic similie that makes it popular ;)
posted by abcde at 9:17 AM on September 25, 2004

It think an appropriate counterpoint to this story is also on the same site.

Christ, this Shapovalov guy is a total tool.
posted by echolalia67 at 2:31 PM on September 26, 2004