We're Not Living Right (MC Babka)

What is in the frame

The catalogue holds a still from a TV report: an elderly woman in a dark headscarf, shot in close-up in profile, standing at a doorway with peeling pale blue paint. At the bottom of the frame the logo of the TV channel “Kstati” is visible. Her face is not fully visible, and this article does not give the heroine's name.

It should be remembered that this is a real person in real and difficult circumstances, not an invented character. That is exactly why the text contains no details of her life, address or surname.

Timeline: from news to remix

The original report aired on the Nizhny Novgorod TV channel “Kstati” on 6 August 2019: a correspondent asked an elderly resident how one can live in a flat infested with cockroaches. In reply she spoke rapidly, and her speech fell so densely on the ear that it resembled recitative. Only the phrase “nikak ne zhivyom” (roughly “we're not getting by at all”) is clearly audible.

The sound engineer Ilya Smelov, known as Smelych, according to some accounts made a musical version of the excerpt on 19 July 2021. The video became popular on TikTok, where dozens of remixes followed, and the heroine began to be called “MC Babka”. According to one review, the original report had by then gathered more than 1.6 million views. Other details vary, and they should be checked against the primary source.

What the grandmother actually says

Even when the words are slowed down, they cannot be made out in full: viewers hear different things, and there is no single version of the text. So the only phrase that can be reliably quoted is “we're not getting by at all”, along with the general meaning: the woman expresses weariness and irritation at having been asked a humiliating question.

It is exactly the continuous flow of speech with its inner rhythm that made the excerpt material for music: remixers lay a beat over it, and the sound becomes like real rap. But the “rap” here is an accident, not the heroine's intention.

How the meme lives today

The phrase “we're not getting by at all” has become a universal answer to “how are you?” when things are going badly but it is easy to say so lightly. It is written under memes about prices, work, study and the weather. Videos and musical reworkings use it as background for clips with the same mood. In the remix the phrase repeats as a chorus, so it is remembered even by those who never saw the original TV story.

Do not use the meme against poor, elderly or sick people, and do not mock the heroine: her original line was a response to a humiliating question.

Examples of captions

“How's work? We're not getting by at all.” The most direct use: a short one-line answer.

“Monday, 8 a.m., the chat writes ‘look urgently’.” The answer is a frame that expresses shared horror without words.

“My balance after shopping during the sale.” Everyday tragicomedy: the sale happened, but the money didn't.

“Everyone around is going on holiday, and I have deadlines.” A joke about comparing one's life with someone else's feed.

In all these examples the hero of the joke is the author, not someone from outside. That is how the meme stays kind: people laugh at shared weariness, not at someone else's misfortune. A good caption speaks about oneself, slightly exaggerates an everyday trifle, and ends with the phrase itself.