Online cartoon hero Masiania: emblematic of "post-post-communist sincerity," thus Alexei Yurchak  Yes, it's summer, it's hot, and both this blog's authors and readers are offline a lot these days... But perhaps there is someone watching who can help me with a question. I am exploring debates on an alleged link between blogging and sincerity. In the past years, Russian scholars and critics avidly argued whether or not the web is the ultimate locus for "post-postmodern," "sincere" self-expression. Marina Metrenina says it is; Irina Kaspe and Varvara Smurova say it isn't. The journal Setevaia poeziia devoted a full issue to the topic. Alexei Yurchak considers online cartoon heroine Masiania emblematic of a "post-post-communist sincerity" - and Valerii Savchuk senses a "post-informational sincerity" ("post-informatsionnaia iskrennost'") in post-Soviet culture. Russian bloggers often identify with a "new sincerity" - as it is often called - which is supposed to take postmodernism's place. Outside Russia, "new-sincerity" rhetorics have been connected to blogging in the beautifully titled article "Drunk Bunnies, The New Sincerity, Flarf: How Blogs are Transforming Poetry," by Katy Henriksen (published on January 23, 2007in Econoculture, whose link tragically fails to work).But who are the leading voices in this debate in Russia? Am I right in singling out Metrenina, Kaspe & Smurova and Savchuk? Or are they inspired by earlier thinking on the sincerity-cum-blogging link? Are there maybe other specialists who ponder this topic in more detail? If you have thoughts about this, or want to share your own view, do press 'speak.'ER