Thanks to Elder KM for her suggestion: we investigate AI’s take on Ukrainian fun.
Let’s start with Elder G‘s assessment:
Elder KM has opened a magnificent can of worms. Or perhaps a barrel of fermented cabbage.
I think the trick is to imagine an AI that has absorbed the entirety of Ukrainian history, geography, folklore, cuisine, and culture, but has absolutely no understanding of the concept of having fun.
After 37 trillion calculations, it announces:🇺🇦 What AI Thinks Ukrainians Do for Fun
A WLBOTT Department of Artificial Intelligence Ethnographic Report
Executive Summary: Ukrainians are a fun-loving people whose recreational activities are largely organized around potatoes, competitive hospitality, extremely large agricultural products, and the occasional supernatural encounter in a forest.
Competitive Borscht Diving
This activity is a distant cousin of America’s bobbing for apples. Every summer, Ukrainian villages fill swimming pools with borscht. Contestants dive from platforms of increasing height, attempting to retrieve a submerged potato without disturbing the sour cream.
Vodokhreshcha
Vodokhreshcha (Водохреще) is the Ukrainian celebration of Epiphany, commemorating the baptism of Jesus by John the Baptist in the Jordan River.
One of its most dramatic customs involves cutting a hole in the ice of a frozen river or lake, blessing the water, and then voluntarily plunging into it.
Elder KM tried to explain the tradition to a bewildered WLBOTT.
There were no takers among the WLBOTT staff, even though the average stock pond temperature on January 19th is 78°.
This did not deter Elder KM, and she set up a mandatory team building exercise for the ENGin staff. Following the swim, hot coco was served and defibrillators were distributed.
Coincidentally, she now has 14 new staff openings at ENGin!
Salo Sculpturing
Salo is the prized Ukrainian delicacy made of cured, salt-soaked pork fat.
Anything Varenyky
ENGin takes home the gold yet again!
YouTube Schadenfreude Fun
We don’t know this for a fact, but we’re guessing that Ukrainian Schadenfreude Fun involves watching Jay in Kyiv, especially his segments on russian Lamentations.
In a nutshell, these segments feature russians complaining, in their limited and profanity-laced vocabulary, that they are being mildly inconvenienced, never once owning the horrors they have rained down on the Ukrainian people.
Another popular segment that Jay features daily: Burning russian Things. He’ll never run out of video clips for this segment! Jay spends time critiquing the artistry, composition, lighting, cinematography, depth of field, etc., knowing that burning russian things junkies rely on him for their daily fix.
Another potential YouTube fun for Ukrainians is our WLBOTT friend, Jake Broe and his recurring segment, Russian Women Crying in their Cars.
Some common themes with Jay’s segment: complete lack of self-awareness about their country’s evil, a poetic mastery of russian profanity, a complete lack of empathy, and a bizarre combination of shallowness and vanity.
[ed. note: The WLBOTT Ministry of Virtue and Vice spend several hours censoring the wordy dirds from images.]
ENGin Fun
In addition to competitive varenyky cooking, ENGin‘s main source of fun is satisfaction with a job well done, and the prospect of continuing to help Ukrainians learn English while creating bonds with people all over the world. (You can read the full report here.)
Wishing all of Ukraine and Ukrainians Worldwide the Best!
