Adobe Photoshop is not only a must for web designers and photo correction specialists, but it’s also a wonderful program for political satirists and pranksters. In authoritarian countries like Belarus, the former often become the latter. Isn’t it a pretty decent hobby to express your views anonymously making fun in Photoshop of political leaders you dislike? I don’t know, I would rather say yes. In Soviet Union, many writers expressed their opinions about the communist government indirectly, figuratively mocked at it. Many satirists wrote funny stories with stupid, fake and shallow bureaucrats as the main characters. And many political jokes circulated among the general public, especially during the times of perestroika. I heard a rather naïve but interesting view that those jokes contributed to the collapse of the empire of evil. Well, maybe there is some reason in this assumption. If it was really so, then maybe political jokes, anecdotes and collages could fuel people’s will for change within Belarusian society.
A few months ago, some anonymous pranksters have launched a website that would collect Photoshop artwork on the topic of Belarusian politics. (more…)