Hi everyone,
I recently discovered that Marina was featured in sueddeutsche.de quite a while ago. sueddeutsche.de is the website of Süddeutsche Zeitung, which is one of the most read newspapers in Germany, and sueddeutsche.de is one of the most popular websites in this country.
Here is a translation into English (please be indulgent because it's been a long time since I've translated something from German to English):
The Genitive its death
As if Bastian Sick* would have gotten lost in the „Sexy Sport Clips“ on DSF** with a Russian accent: HotForWords, the most lascivious teacher of the Internet, explains the origin of words.
By C. Kortmann
„Infotainment“ is a birdbrained word. It is mostly deprecatingly used to describe a mixture information and entertainment. But how can you inspire people to a subject if you don't communicate it attractively? The media always comes up with the times, uses all means to get its message through: Even the scientific „Telekolleg“ had had its entertaining parts, which became clearer in later broadcasts like „Hobbythek***“ with big bushy beard Jean Pütz or his counterpart in children's TV, Peter Lustig's „Löwenzahn****“ (lit: dandelion). These hosts were perfect entertainers, and their audience always learned something new.
But how can you inspire an Internet audience that is looking for the spectacular and that is uneasily looking at the „Related Videos“ in the column at the edge even when watching a 45 second long video to etymology? The video blogger „HotForWords“ manages to do exactly this by playing with her sex appeal: by offering sex although the users know that they won't get sex on Youtube. But the interplay of language and lubricity, the veiling of the body and the unveiling of the words, has an appeal that makes HotForWords very successful even after 230 episodes.
In her most popular clip she explains one of the longest and most difficult words of the English language that poses a challenge to even be read correctly: Antidisestablishmentarianism. It describes a mentality that is directed against the separation of church and state. Didactically correct HotForWords explains the creation of this words from its origins since the beginning of the 19th century and becomes ironic at the right place: People liked to say that word so much that they decided to make it even longer.
Today Antidisestablishmentaianism was known first of all because of its length, but it would rarely be used. That the outside appearance covers the inner values may be all right with the video blogger with the motto „Intelligence is sexy“. According to her website, the studied philologist who specializes in etymology is called Marina Orlova and is 27 years old.
In her clips she appears as the stern teacher who provides for quietness among the backbenchers with her hoarse voice. HotForwords addresses to a worldwide clutch of students, while the orchestration of classroom intimacy is successful. She presents her attraction, the camera almost falls into the décolleté, but she is unreachable behind the flashplayer window as once the student's adored teacher was behind the desk.
In another video she broaches the issue of the forgery terms „fake“ and „phoney“. She had often been called a fake, HotForWords comments, and she shows a photo where she is made up for a photo shooting. Breasts, handbags, identities, who can say beyond doubt whether these things are real, and for whom does it matter anyway? That is the counter balance in the HotForWords-clips: The presentation is definitely not real, but contrary to that the words are real and are shining in pure glamour.
So you learn a lot of new things, things you didn't know that you wanted them to know, things you woldn't have the heart to ask Peter Lustig for. The words „naked“ and „nude“ for example have by the time changed their connotation. „nude“ may have sounded salacious in the past, but nowadays „naked“ is the correct pornographic term.
This clip's punch line is reminiscent of that of a MAD Magazine in the 80s: „Here you can see Nena***** naked“ was written on the cover, and the reader was asked in the booklet to undress to watch a picture of the fully clothed Nena. They requested a „naked vlog“ from her, she explains, so she delivered it.
At the end of the clips she comes a little bit closer to the users, thanks them, shows bloopers that unmask her play, and pictures where she poses. Short skirt, tight top, her glasses' earpiece in the mouth, a book before the knees, sometimes that looks as if Bastian Sick would have gotten lost in the „Sexy Sport Clips“ on DSF with a Russian accent which shows some English teaching instead of naked tennis or synchronised showering.
But HotForWords never shows more than she promises, she plays her game with the physical obvious and the etymological secrets beyond the language's surface. Only the words get naked in the end at HotForWords.
Notes:
* see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bastian_Sick.
** see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deutsches_Sportfernsehen.
*** former German TV show covering science in daily life. In every episode, lots of tips how to use physics and chemistry in a common household.
**** educational German TV show for smaller children. The host's family name “Lustig” translates to “funny” in English”). The German word for dandelion, Löwenzahn, literaly translates to “lion tooth”.
***** see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nena.
