In just a few weeks, video clips of “Balkan Boys,” the new single of the Bosnian rock band Dubioza kolektiv, reached over four million views on social network, gaining a status of regional hit in the Balkans. The song ridicules various stereotypes, including the Flat Earth conspiracy theories which are widespread in the region.
At the moment, the video clip for “Balkan Boys” has over 1.2 million views on YouTube, over 2.4 million views on Instagram and over a million views on Facebook, i.e. more than 600 thousand as a reel and over 400 thousand as a whole video.
The song is in English, but like some other Dubioza hits the YouTube version of the song comes with subtitles with translations in Chinese, Czech, German, Italian, Polish, Romanian and Spanish, contributing to its promotion beyond the native region of Western Balkans.
Amogh the various humorous references, the song “Balkan Boys” contains the following lyrics ridiculing the Flat Earth conspiracy theory, with the video showing a scene of supposed Flat-Earther view of the Earth from the Moon, a parody of the famous Blue Marble photograph.
„I like planet as a ball
Some people tell me it’s flat
And if it’s flat then I could fall
But where’s the logic in that?“
The Flat Earth conspiracy theory, claiming that the plane is not round is noted in the school curriculum in North Macedonia as an example of lack of critical thinking and non-scientific reasoning. The myth that the shape of the Earth is a flat disk was debunked in antiquity. Based the scientifically proven notion that the Earth is spheroid, mathematician Eratosthenes was able to calculate the circumference of the Earth over 2300 years ago with a high degree of accuracy.
While the educated public around the world and in the Balkans meets the new Flat Earth claims with irony, social networks abound with such conspiracy theories, which are often debunked by the fact-checking services such as the Truthmeter.mk, Faktoje.al, Raskrinkavanje.ba, and Istinomer.
Dubiza kolektiv initaly planned to publish the single “Balkan Boys” on January 24, but they postponed the release for three days as a sign of support for the General Strike in Serbia, organized by the student movement for justice, demanding institutional responsibility for the 15 victims of the Novi Sad railway station canopy collapse.
In response to malicious comments suck as “why a band from another country meddles in other’s protests” Dubioza kolektiv issued a statement on their Facebook profile:
“Dubioza kolektiv is a band composed of people from Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, Croatia and Slovenia. We support any протест we reckon that demands dignity and better life for the common people. About us we would like to say that by birth we first become ordinary persons, and then along the way also Bosnians, Serbs, Croats or Slovenes.
This has not been the first time that Dubioza kolektiv express support for student movements from the region that have been fighting for democracy and decent life. In 2015 they held a free concert in Skopje in support of the Student Plenum, which was documented in the following Meta.mk video.
