Putin Starting Way Back

Submission 10,548

Part of a series on Tucker Carlson Vladimir Putin Interview. [View Related Entries]

About

Putin Starting Way Back, also known as Vladimir Putin Giving Tucker Carlson History Lesson, refers to memes parodying Russian President Vladimir Putin giving a nearly 30-minute background on Eastern European history going back to the 9th century during his February 2024 interview with American political pundit Tucker Carlson. In memes, Vladimir Putin explains events, both real and fictional, by starting centuries earlier with seemingly irrelevant historical occurrences.

Origin

On February 8th, 2024, American pundit Tucker Carlson uploaded a two-hour-long interview with Russian President Vladimir Putin, the first major interview with Putin since the start of the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022, to YouTube^[1] and X / Twitter^[8] (seen below).

The interview opens with a question as Vladimir Putin asks for a minute to provide historical background on the history of Russia and Ukraine, proceeding to speak in length about his perspective on Eastern European history starting with the formation of Rus in the 9th century and arguing that Russia has a claim to Ukrainian territories and that Ukraine is an artificially created state.

If you don't mind I will take only 30 seconds or one minute to give you a short reference to history, for giving you a little historical background.

Immediately following the interview, jokes and memes about Putin's historical excursion during the interview were posted on X / Twitter, 4chan and other platforms. For example, on February 8th, 2024, X^[2] user @zanyfen made a comment that garnered over 200 reposts and 4,600 likes in one day (shown below).

Later that day, X^[3] user @stranysovok posted a screenshot of a 4chan post parodying this segment of the interview. The post (shown below) received over 1,600 reposts and 22,000 likes on X in one day.

Spread

In the following hours, multiple memes in which Vladimir Putin explained various events (both real and fictional) by going way back in history to seemingly unrelated historical occurrences appeared online. For example, on February 8th, 2024, X^[4] user @MiddleearthMixr posted a The Lord of the Rings parody that received over 2,100 reposts and 22,000 likes in one day (shown below, left).

That same day, X^[5] user @CyperPunkCortes posted a meme in which Putin explains the roots of the American Civil War by going back to Saxons arriving in Britain in 449 AD. The post (shown below, right) received over 3,900 reposts and 50,000 likes in one day.

The parody trend continued the following day. A February 9th, 2024, meme by X^[6] user @cremieuxrecueil accrued over 3,600 reposts and 52,000 likes in one day (shown below, left). An X Lore video caption by user @MKatorin gained over 200 reposts and 1,100 likes on X^[7] in one day (shown below, right).