That's obviously a culturally generational issue - wherein young Israelis feel fine with talking about/making fun of/etc Hitler and the older generation is not, nor may ever be, ready for such a transition. Also, 'Hebrew' does not always equal 'Israel' - although your example below it just does happen to, as their topic is Tel Aviv parking. -S- Sharon Greenfield Social Psychologist @SharonG On Jan 22, 2010, at 1:35 PM, Dana Rotman wrote:
The phenomenon of the Hitler memes has gained momentum in several other languages as well, including Hebrew (there are more than 50 Hebrew memes on YouTube currently). This, of course, caused a heated debate about the place (or lack thereof) of such parodies in a country populated by Holocaust survivors (see http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1065210.html) .
It is, indeed, a very sensitive issue - but then again, the core of many viral videos is that of a ridiculing and offending effect as a way of gaining attention, and no better way to get that attention than honing in on one of the most emotionally charged topics of the 20th century.
Based on the statistics provided by YouTube, as well as upload date, the original meme that started the frenzy was probably the XBox video of 2007. Yet with this list in mind, I think that Hitler's take on the scientific review process is an excellent example of the ways different communities of interest take this video excerpt and make it their own, using domain- related terms and key figures. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-VRBWLpYCPY
Cheers, ~ Dana