Part two features Alex, a metaphor for the Greek people, and a new character called Europa, who represents the EU average for statistical purposes. Together, they show that Alex isn’t that lazy at all, when it comes to hours worked and retirement age.
Alex, the popular animation character that seeks to demolish the negative, crisis-fuelled stereotypes about Greece in his own little way, has returned to YouTube, this time to challenge the “fact” that Greeks are lazy.
The new video, which runs for just over a minute and a half, follows on the remarkably successful first episode, which has clocked up 180,000 views on YouYube since it went live last November.
The second instalment of Alex was launched on May 8, 2013.
Part two features Alex, a metaphor for the Greek people, and a new character called Europa, who represents the EU average for statistical purposes.
The clip asks whether Europe, described as multilingual, serious, dependable, hard-working and someone “who gets everything done”, could be an example for Alex to follow.
When when figures from the European Union’s statistican arm Eurostat are considered, Alex appears to be anything but lazy, especially when it comes to hours worked and retirement age.
Alex is the brainchild of the Omikron Project, a voluntary, Athens-based initiative that describes itself as “a group of girls and guys trying to show the world the untold side of Greece’s current crisis, and crush the negative stereotypes of our country”.
Crowdsourcing helped the project translate the first clip into seven languages – Greek, French, Spanish, German, Italian, Portuguese, Dutch and Arabic – and organisers are hoping to do the same with part two.
The project says its always looking for people to join the team.