That's What We Wanted You To Think

About

"That's What We Wanted You To Think" is a memorable quote from a scene in the animated sitcom The Simpsons in which a Russian ambassador reveals that the collapse of the Soviet Union was an elaborate ruse.

Origin

On March 29th, 1998, Season 9 Episode 19 of The Simpsons titled "Simpson Tide" was broadcast, in which Homer Simpson joins the United States Navy Reserve after being fired from the Springfield Nuclear Power Plant. When Simpson ends up on a submarine in Russian waters, a political controversy erupts resulting in the revelation that the Soviet Union never actually disbanded (shown below).

Russian Representative: The Soviet Union will be pleased to offer amnesty to your wayward vessel.
United States Representative: Soviet Union? I thought you guys broke up.
Russian Representative: Nyet! That's what we wanted you to think, hahahahahaha!

Spread

On September 12th, 2012, a GIF from the scene was submitted to the /r/TheSimpsons^[3] subreddit (shown below, left). On February 6th, 2014, Redditor belgoran posted another GIF of the scene titled "The opening ceremonies of the Olympics tomorrow" to /r/TheSimpsons, where it accumulated more than 1,900 votes (95% upvoted) and 80 comments before it was archived. On May 7th, the GIF was reposted in a Simpsons thread on the /tv/ (television & film) board on 4chan.^[2] On July 17th, FunnyJunk^[6] user nvwrestler uploaded an extended GIF of the scene titled "The Russia-Ukraine Situation." On January 30th, 2015, FunnyJunk^[4] user DisgruntedTomato posted an edited version of the GIF in which the United Kingdom is revealed to be Pakistan (shown below, right). On March 1st, Redditor Damien submitted another GIF of the scene to /r/gifs,^[5] where it gathered upwards of 4,300 votes (89% upvoted) and 300 comments prior to being archived.

Ukraine-Russia Twitter Feud

During Russian President Vladimir Putin's visit to Paris on May 29th, 2017, Putin remarked on the long relationship between France and Russia, referencing, specifically, Queen Anna Yaroslavna, a French Queen of eastern European descent. Putin referred to her as "Russian Ani."^[7]

However, according to a response from the official Twitter account of Ukraine, "Russian Ani" is actually Ukrainian. In one Twitter post (shown below), @Ukaine^[8] posted that the French queen was actually known as Anne de Kiev, named after the Ukrainian capital of Kiev. They included the caption "When @Russia says Anne de Kiev established Russia-France relations, let us remind the sequence of events." The tweet received more than 5,500 retweets and 7,600 likes within 36 hours.

The Russian official Twitter account responded shortly after. In a tweet that day (shown below), @Russia^[9] said, "We are proud of our common history. 🇷🇺, 🇺🇦 & 🇧🇾 share the same historical heritage which should unite our nations, not divide us." The tweet received more than 3,300 retweets and 3,200 likes.

Several hours later, @Ukraine commented on the above tweet with a gif of "That's what we want you to think" from The Simpsons. They captioned the tweet, "You really never change, do you?"

Several news outlets responded to the postive reaction to @Ukraine's post, including Vox,^[7] The Daily Dot,^[10] CNN,^[11] The Daily Beast,^[12] and more.

Various Examples

Search Interest

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External References