Iranian Youtube? More like BoobTube!

By Romulus Marshall

Umm… HAHAHAHAHA …AAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA – sorry, I can’t help myself.  So Iran decided to jump into the Hi-Tech Startup arena by launching a home grown competitor to Google’s YouTube.  No, this is not The Onion nor is this some elaborate April fool’s joke.

The site, called “Mehr.ir”     (“Mehr” means affection in Farsi), will allow users to upload their short videos (after being fully screened and approved by state appointed officials, of course) and allow them to access state-run channels with original content. I can only guess that original content includes Martha Stewart Baking recipes and Toby Keith classics followed by the Gay & Lesbian Hour hosted by Salman Rushdie, but that’s just a guess. As much as I’d love to see an endless array of videos starring Ahmadinejad talking about his gay-free country, I’d rather take my chances with stupid cat clips, bum fights, nip slips, and poorly dubbed music videos any day of the week! 

In case you are keeping score – Iran just tried to one-up free speech.  So basically anything with regards to free speech is illegal in Iran… having access to unfiltered internet – illegal!  Listening to music not approved by the government – illegal!!  Breathing – allowed for now, but will soon be illegal if it’s deemed to be influenced by the West.

To top it all off, they are calling it the one thing that the Iranian government is LEAST known for – affection!  I get the PR aspect of it, call it something nice and fuzzy and everyone will fall in love with it, but it’s kind of like taking a red velvet cupcake away and replacing it with a fistful of sand and camel turds – not quite the same thing.