More on the Goat Man: Erdo Wee! Erdo Woe! Erdo Wan!

As I mentioned yesterday, Turkish President Recep Tayyip “Goat-Lover” Erdogan inadvertently kicked off an instance of the Streisand Effect by taking umbrage at jokes directed at his majestic magnificent self.

First he caused a German comedian to be put under investigation and possible prosecution over a vulgar poem the latter read out on state TV. The topics covered in the poem (Mr. Erdogan’s penchant for interspecies romance, and the diminutive size of his, ahem, equipment — see this Danish video uploaded by Vlad; it’s too naughty to embed here) were so irresistible for other humorists that a veritable firestorm of Internet mockery erupted, all directed at the august personage of the Turkish president.

When someone so powerful and so humorless and so thin-skinned takes offense, how could anyone hold back? The goat meme is a rich vein of humor that can be mined indefinitely.

As part of the trend, a German television program aired a satirical song about the goatish president of Turkey, and got such an intense and immediate reaction from their target that the video of the song went viral. The following clip from the same outfit gives an overview of what happened, and adds some new layers of lampooning to the ridiculous buffoon who isn’t smart enough to cut his losses and drop the matter.

Many thanks to Brunhilde for the translation, and to Vlad Tepes for the subtitling:

Transcript:

00:00   Does Turkish President Erdogan not understand humour
00:04   when it comes to his person? It looks like the answer
00:08   would have to be “No.” But he or the people whispering into his ear, or whoever,
00:12   evidently have been watching the NDR satirical show “Extra-3”, thereby at least showing
00:16   that they have an appreciation for quality in their choice of TV programs.
00:20   Because it aired a satire about the President, in which it said, among other things:
00:24   “He lives in a grand style, the man from the Bosporus.”
00:28   One could laugh about that or perhaps not. Erdogan evidently doesn’t find it all that amusing,
00:33   and therefore summoned the German ambassador.
00:37   And so, the satirical program suddenly became an affair of state!
00:41   This video of Turkish President Erdogan has stirred up diplomatic ill feeling.
00:45   “A journalist who writes something
00:49   that Erdogan doesn’t like
00:53   lands in prison the very next day.
00:57   Editing is shut down, he doesn’t think it over for long
01:01   and drives with tear gas and water cannons through the night.”
01:05   Facts are pointedly presented in a satirical way to the music of Nena.
01:10   The fact that Germany’s ambassador was summoned to the Turkish Ministry of Foreign Affairs
01:14   because of this is more than just a diplomatic slap across the face.
01:18   The response from the German Foreign Office is a diplomatic silence. But the representative
01:22   of the German Federal Parliament, Dagdelen, is said to have found out first hand that it was a long conversation.
01:26   I find it scandalous that the Turks are boasting that
01:30   they gave the German ambassador an hour-long dressing down
01:34   over a satirical program.
01:38   I find it scandalous, and the German Foreign Office
01:43   has to take a clear position for freedom of the press. Insanity of the week!
01:47   For the NDR satirical program Extra-3, such contributions are part of daily business.
01:51   Whether it’s Donald Trump or Angela Merkel, all get lampooned.
01:55   Here for example,
01:59   Merkel is trying out a new hand-scanner.
02:03   For the past nine years, Andreas Lange has been heading
02:07   the editorial office of Extra-3. With his team, he shows what is going wrong
02:11   in politics through satire. They are used to getting critical reactions,
02:16   but this international incident nevertheless took them by surprise.
02:20   It is in any case a new level of escalation that we have not experienced before at Extra-3. .
02:24   I have not experienced that type of thing in all the years I’ve been at Extra-3.
02:28   That Erdogan is on the warpath with a lot of journalists
02:32   is nothing new. In Ankara there is currently a court case against two journalists
02:36   that was instigated by Erdogan himself. They had uncovered that
02:40   the Turkish secret service was planning to smuggle weapons to Syria. For Erdogan, espionage.
02:45   And when it comes to satire, he evidently doesn’t see what’s so funny.
02:49   Such people, such egomaniacs, actually have trouble
02:53   understanding satire, especially in Eastern countries.
02:57   In that case, it’s all about keeping very tight boundaries on freedom of the press.
03:01   Everything that is criticism of the head of government,
03:05   of the President, must be forbidden, so to speak.
03:09   Yet Turkey is achieving exactly the opposite at the moment.
03:13   The Extra-3 video is now in great demand internationally.
03:17   Turkish websites have translated it into Turkish. This makes
03:21   the editorial office in Hamburg happy. It thanks Erdogan in its own way
03:25   and calls Erdogan the Employee of the Month.
03:29   Yes, humour is when you laugh in spite of it all.
03:33   And this story continues. Humour is when
03:37   you keep on going. It’s rare that a satirical program has caused such massive
03:41   diplomatic tension as the Extra-3 program
03:46   on the Turkish president Erdogan,
03:50   “the man from the Bosporus.” He absolutely did not find this film
03:54   funny at all, but Erdogan’s government is very ready to rein in his people
03:58   when they get a little bit too jolly. He once forbade women
04:02   to laugh in public. Hmm. You just have to wonder how much
04:06   he liked Extra-3’s program from yesterday evening.
04:10   The Extra-3 program last night. The greeting is in Turkish,
04:14   the producers take things further:
04:19   We produced a song in which we criticized President Erdogan’s restricting freedom of the press.
04:23   And he reacted by trying to restrict the freedom of the press.
04:27   So, we all agreed that Recep Tayyip Erdogan
04:31   was the Extra-3 Employee of the Month.
04:35   The Turkish president Erdogan as Employee of the month as thanks for his reaction to this video.
04:40   A journalist who writes something
04:44   that Erdogan doesn’t like
04:48   lands in prison the very next day.
04:52   By one week ago, it had already received 50,000 clicks, but after it became known that
04:56   the German ambassador to Ankara had been summoned because of it, that number rose quickly.
04:59   “Erdowie, Erdowo, Erdowahn”: that video has been viewed on YouTube
05:03   four and a half million times. It is causing a sensation worldwide.
05:07   Even the New York Times reported on it. Erdogan scored an own goal.
05:11   One can see very clearly that Erdogan doesn’t understand the internet, doesn’t understand social media,
05:15   because in trying to censor the video, he made it into a big thing.
05:19   He made it into a big thing.
05:23   The technical term for that is the “Streisand Effect”: when a big important institution
05:28   tries to stop some little thing, it just makes it all the more famous,
05:32   because censorship doesn’t work too well on the internet.
05:36   “Hair-dogan, Cher-dogan, or Gun-dogan.” The Turkish president
05:40   is mocked on the internet: as an affronted sourpuss or
05:44   in tweets or cartoons.
05:48   “Either you remove this video or I will extinguish the internet.”
05:52   Because of disparagement of the Turkish flag, Erdogan summons the full moon.
05:56   But there is also a headwind in the internet, with
06:00   “We love Erdogan” or “We have Erdogan, they don’t” tweets
06:05   for the Turkish president. Allegedly he has a real Twitter army
06:09   and uses internet programs to stir up support for him, so-called botnets.
06:13   Those are automatic little software programs
06:17   that send out tweets or create Facebook postings
06:21   that are very positive for Erdogan. So one would think
06:25   that there are a lot of people who are standing behind him, although in reality these are not people, but computer programs.
06:29   The Extra-3 song is now available on the internet with Turkish subtitles.
06:33   It seems that “Complain-dogan” didn’t work out too well.
06:37   “And he rides into the sunset.”
06:41   Yes, whether you’re for it or against it, you can laugh about it some more.
06:45   To be sure, on the TV nowadays one constantly sees pictures that one
06:50   doesn’t actually want to see: destruction, pain,
06:54   Beatrix von Storch. Just a little joke! And Turkish President Erdogan
06:58   knows that. Of course he does. He’s not so keen on unveiled anchorwomen these days,
07:02   but he’d never complain about it. Just give a little hint, perhaps.
07:06   Such as recently when Erdogan, following the Extra-3 satire,
07:10   very calmly summoned the German ambassador.
07:15   That’s the term used in diplomatic circles. Isn’t it?
07:19   Yes, one can call it a summons.
07:23   Well, what else would you call it? It is a sharper form of an appointment.
07:27   A sharper form! Even the speaker for the German Foreign Minister
07:31   herself has to laugh when she says that. And Erdogan himself. After all,
07:35   he has nothing against freedom of expression. This is only a sharper form of street cleaning.
07:39   And what we see here is not the occupation of an opposition newspaper, but
07:43   a sharper form of cancelling a subscription. And when someone like that criticizes our understanding
07:47   of freedom of the press and of expression, our government says nothing for a long time —
07:51   at least, not publicly. Behind the scenes, there would certainly have been…
07:56   …a telephone conversation last night between the Chancellor
08:00   And Turkish Prime Minister Davutoglu.
08:04   All right! So she gave the Turkish government a piece of her mind on matters of Extra-3!
08:08   One of the subjects of conversation was the most recent publication of
08:12   a so-called abusive poem against the Turkish President Erdogan. Huh?
08:16   Yes, yes, but that is the story with Böhmermann…
08:20   The Chancellor and the Prime Minister agreed that
08:24   the issue was a deliberately hurtful text.
08:28   They agreed! Isn’t that great? If someone like Erdogan wants to forbid satirical presentations,
08:33   we hear nothing for a long time. But when Böhmermann insults Erdogan,
08:37   the government promptly announces that Angela Merkel….yeah, what exactly?
08:41   But the Chancellor did not apologize?
08:45   I have told you everything about the phone call that there is to be said.
08:49   Which really says it all! Except for maybe, dear Extra-3 colleagues,
08:53   Erdogan just had an internal problem with it.
08:57   Musically, he found it just as awesome as we did!
 

19 thoughts on “More on the Goat Man: Erdo Wee! Erdo Woe! Erdo Wan!

  1. Two-bit dictators with no sense of humor really get my goat…

      • That was meant as humor, right?

        Although “man” would be a stretch… “Boy” in a man’s body is a more apt description of the imposter-in-chief.

      • You could be talking about the porcine Cameron and the odious Osborne in the UK too. Is it just me or does the latter come across as slightly “Caligula” psychotic looking whilst sitting on the front bench?

  2. So little to laugh about these days…Thank you Extra-3! You have a new fan in the US!

  3. Erdogan the little wannabe Ottoman Sultan should be mocked and made fun of and hopefully soon mocked in American media. As an ethnic Greek or in half I do see him as a threat to Greece and the Balkans. With his wet dreams of a renewed Ottoman Empire I can see this little tyrant marching on Greece like Mussolini did during WWII, only to get his tail kicked by the Greeks and other Balkan peoples. I would wish the same fate for Erdogan. I have a pre WWII 1929 book about Mussolini. I wonder how many comparisons I can find between Mussolini and Erdogan, other than larger than life egos. Today when I go into town with my laptop I plan to search for underground anti Erdogan Turkiah sites in English. Who is this little Tyrant? I know that not all Turks like him. Meanwhile, let’s keep mocking and exposing this little Mussolini. Someone should draw a picture of Erdogan as a baby in diapers with his little Sultan’s turban and a Binky in his mouth. I cannot draw.

  4. “Get out, Traitor!” – German People chases Minister of Justice Heiko Maas to his Armored Mercedes

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J9rvjdB-VRc

    Quote from Maas..probably the only thing he was able to say.

    “We will also take care of the interests of those people shouting “traitor” right now without even knowing what’s happening to them”

    Veiled threat?

  5. Are Erdogan and Merkel in love? I ask this as a serious question. Look at the many photos of the two of them together and the look that passes between the two of them.

      • Looking forward to the day he insists she wears a burkha, that will be doing the rest of the world a favour.

  6. Revealing photo that sure seems to show some chemistry (or is it black magic) going on between the caliph and the chancellor. She’s looking like the love sick school girl in this one and he the grubby groomer.

  7. When Erdogan got hit hard
    where it hurts the most

    He was mounted on a horse, but only lasted a few seconds before getting thrown off by the horse.

    A good Christian horse?
    Anyway, not a horse for the sultan

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