Yevgeniy Prannik and Tariq Metwally

October 30, 2014

UWRT 1101-030
Professor Olivia Zicherman
Analysis of our Chosen Genres
People are obviously trying to get over the Ukrainian-Russian dispute by adding humor into the mix,
as is evident in the twitter post and the memes. The online news article titled, Ukraine Crisis:Timeline,
from the BBC however, is a little more formal and because of that, there is no such humor to be found
in it. In the twitter post a person called Reuben Lewis posted After failing to win an Oscar, Leonardo
Dicaprio has gone on an all night coke binge and ended up in Ukraine. This came complete with a
man in a picture to go with it, as the man resembles Leonardo Dicaprio. The memes use humor as well,
with pictures of the Russian President Putin along with captions saying, Got asked if Ukraine is the
same as Russia, . Trying to imply that it will be or it already has become part of Russia. The exact
same message is being implied in another meme that also has a picture of President Putin that says
Ukraine? No. Mykraine.
Now the news article takes a whole other approach to the Ukrainian problem, it's title says it all:
Ukrainian Crisis: Timeline, and to start off the article it has a picture of an old man and what seems to
be his completely destroyed house behind him while he stands looking away in shock. Way to go BBC,
you've got us all feeling strongly about this already. Throughout the news article they use words that
would only make you feel worried about Ukraine and the Russian invasion. Words they used were
long and elaborate one you do not see everyday such as: Rebellion, Annexation, Separatist, overthrow,
threatened. These are words I have only seen being used together in Star Wars, and that was a pretty
dramatic movies series to me. What also makes the news article in favor of Ukraine by a lot is the big
details like pictures, titles, the introduction, but once you start reading the small details and facts by
day, it shows that Russia did not seem like it was doing anything wrong. Things like Russia sending

envoys of humanitarian aid, sending troops to it's own side of the border because of a rebel attack on
the Russian town of Novoazovsk as well as Ukraine accusing Russia of invading Ukraine, and Ukraine
capturing 10 Russian Paratroopers. This shows that Russia was not really trying to invade and decimate
Ukraine, or so it says. Simply from all that information one can convey that this news article is in no
way humorous, if it was I am pretty sure BBC will get some extreme flaming from other news stations
as well as people.
The reason I feel that the memes and twitter are mostly humorous is because they both are found on
social networking sites where people are friends with everyone else and they tend not to be serious
towards a subject or topic because that is what is considered cool. Now if you were in a serious
environment then what you would be talking about is news, formal articles, things that make it big, not
some lousy picture with white writing on it. One can not really say whether or not the memes are
factual or opinion, they are either funny or not. Also, a journalist has a reputation to uphold which is
why I feel that they are as serious and straightforward as can be.
One thing all these sources have in common is that they do talk about the Russian-Ukrainian conflict
as well as president Vladimir Putin of Russia. Things they have in contrast is the twitter post is limited
to 159 characters and one picture, if we are correct (both of us are not really tweeters). The meme must
be very funny within 10-20 words on a picture. The last source, the news article must be very factual
and information filled, like the jelly in a jelly filled donut, but with more jelly and a really big donut
because the article is so long as well as being covered in chocolate and sprinkles. Needless to say news
articles are written by professional journalists and they write very long, elaborate, and complex
readings for a larger amount of people.

Works Cited
1. BBC Online News Article: "Ukraine Crisis: Timeline." BBC News. BBC News, 9 Sept. 2014.
Web. 3 Nov. 2014.
2. Twitter Post: "Fun." Pinterest. 6 July 2014. Web. 2 Nov. 2014.
<http://www.pinterest.com/pin/290411875943505154/>.
3. Meme: "Ukraine? No. Mykraine..." IFunny.com. IFunny, 5 Jan. 2014. Web. 2 Nov. 2014.
<http://www.ifunny.com/pictures/ukraine-no-mykraine/>.