зашквар

Something shameful, shocking, cringey. Refers to a shameful act, terrible outfit, or embarrassing situation (носить эти кроссовки — полный зашквар — “wearing these trainers is total cringe”).

xxx: В конце 90-х бухал у сокурсника на даче в малознакомой компании. Половина тусы — соседские деревенские гопники. Утречком с похмела смотрим с ними под пивко MTV (тогда они еще музыку крутили). На кинескопном телеке в подводном качестве идет Karma Chamelion. Старший гопник на середине клипа выражается, дескать, девахе ябывдул. Я уже слегка прошарен в музыке и робко замечаю, что деваха — пацан и зовут его Бой Джордж. Неловкая пауза. Гопник долго пялится в цветастые пятна на экране, потом выдает «не зашквар, пиздато выглядит хуле».

In the late 90s, I was drinking at a friend’s country house with a bunch of people I barely knew. Half the crowd were local village thugs. In the morning, hungover, we were watching MTV (they still played music back then) over beers. On a tube TV, in underwater quality, Karma Chameleon was playing. Halfway through the video, the oldest thug said something like, “I’d hit that chick.” I was already a bit into music and timidly pointed out that the chick was a dude and his name was Boy George. Awkward pause. The thug stared at the colourful spots on the screen for a long time, then said, “No shame to it, he looks fucking cool.”

(bash.im, 08/2021)

To ruin one’s reputation, to disgrace oneself, to become tainted; to lose face, to become damaged goods, to be forever marked. Originates in prison slang, where it meant to become “untouchable” or polluted by associating with the lowest caste of inmates or touching their belongings. In everyday language, it means to utterly ruin your reputation by doing something embarrassing, hypocritical, or deeply uncool, or by associating with a discredited person or brand (он зашкварился, когда согласился на эту дешёвую рекламу — “he completely ruined his reputation when he agreed to do that cheap advert”).

Как мы знаем Сергей Шнуров ушел с большой сцены, распустил свою группу, пошел в политику, начал задавать какие-то травоядные вопросы Путину и… стал там на RTVi там чем-то заниматься, в общем, как посчитали многие его фанаты, комментарий, политологи — зашкварился.

As we know Sergei Shnurov left the big stage, disbanded his band, went into politics, started asking some tame questions to Putin and… started doing something on RTVi, in general, as many of his fans, commentators, political scientists thought — he sold out and shamed himself.

(Илья Варламов @ youtube.com, 01/2022)