My friend Henrik Schneider gave a quick but excellent talk about the Hungarian blogopshere over lunch here at the first day of the Berkman Center’s moveable feast of an annual conference. (Oxford today, central London tomorrow, Canary Wharf on Saturday.)
His most striking slides featured a very strange and funny website – Sztripkviz – which recently came online in Hungary. The site asks questions about the Hungarian economy and rewards correct answers by removing clothing from an attractive model. Henrik points out that all the answers offered are the most positive possible regarding the Hungarian economy, suggesting that the site was put up by government supporters… or by the government itself.
(Henrik tells me that for the past two days, the site has been down, with a message saying that new questions are coming. He thinks this may be a polite way of taking the site down…)
Hungarian blogger Miles had an interesting response to the Sztripkviz, a site that echoes the design and the text of the pro-government site, but featuring the photo of a Hungarian homeless man and questions that feature some of the less hopeful statistics about the Hungarian economy. (Fortunately, the homeless guy doesn’t strip when you get the questions right.)
Henrik mentions that he’s not offended by the nudity of the site, but by the implication that Hungarian men won’t pay attention to economics unless a nude girl is involved…
He’s got an excellent blog post on the subject with links to some other commentary on the issue.