Balkan stereotypes are stupid (and dangerous)

When someone says the word “Balkan”, these are probably some of the things that the average person would associate with this rather mystical part of the world. With the turn of the century, the fall of communism and the barbaric bloodshed of the Yugoslav wars, the area of southeastern Europe has steadily acquired a refined new identity, an image that was intensely developed and promoted as time went on.

This very image has, through the expanding pop culture and internet meme culture, reached quite incredible notoriety, so that “Balkan” is nowadays, among natives and foreigners alike, the prime embodiment of oriental barbarism, craziness and hot temperament that is unique to this part of the world.

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►Timestamps

0:00 Introduction
3:18 Part 1 - Orientalism
6:44 Part 2 - The Balkan™ brand
14:46 Part 3 - Spectacle and fetishization
15:58 Part 4 - The reaction
21:00 Part 5 - Emancipatory potential