Known as the Russian Reversal, this meme format was popularized by comedian Yakov Smirnoff during the 1980s. The joke structure involves taking an ordinary action where a subject interacts with an object and flipping their roles, prefixed with the iconic phrase 'In Soviet Russia.' For example, instead of 'You watch TV,' the reversal becomes 'TV watches YOU!' While it began as a commentary on the perceived lack of freedom and surveillance in the USSR, it evolved into a massive internet trope in the early 2000s via sites like Slashdot and 4chan. Today, it remains a staple of internet humor, used to describe any situation where the expected order of things is humorously inverted.