Indexes, like words, can signal more than one meaning. They may also refer to more than one plane of interaction—i.e., the interpersonal and the (imagined) social. Through his concept of orders of indexicality, Michael Silverstein explains that such a stratified understanding of indexicality can illustrate how people link, and discursively recreate, the macro- and micro-social planes: “Indexical order is central to analyzing how semiotic agents access macro-sociological plane categories and concepts as values in the indexable realm of the micro- contextual” (Silverstein 2003, 193). First-order indexes refer to surface-level pragmatic meanings within a speech event, as when tous and vous in French or ty and vy in Russian code informal versus formal interlocutor relationships. But the same tous / vous opposition can also index stereotypes, identity groupings, or other personae, and this invocation of macro-sociological categories in the micro-context of the speech event is second-order indexicality (Silverstein 2003).

Similarly, first- and second-order stances, following Kockleman (2004), map out different levels of meaning, illustrating how seemingly trivial comments about whether a joke is amusing or not, as when an editor says a joke about sex is “not funny” or, conversely, that a joke about pregnant teenagers is “timely,” the remarks link up to larger frameworks of valuation. A lot of American comedians make jokes about sex, and Russophone comedians do as well (though largely outside of KVN). The fairly commonplace assumption in KVN that sexual themes are not funny represents an orientation towards values outside the immediate speech event of the editing session—a second-order stance, or a statement not just about a team’s jokes, but a moral stance about what KVN, and sometimes society, should look like.

We might consider Demchenko’s blunt criticism of the team, “You’re being lazy,” a first-order stance. Paul Kockelman defines first-order stances as, “stances we take towards states of affairs” (2004, 143). Stances towards states of affairs also reveal orientations towards value-laden norms, however. As Jaworski and Thurlow argue, “Stance may be predicated on intellectual, moral, or affective grounds, but always indexes a particular ideological position—political, social, cultural, economic, religious, and so on” (2009, 218). It is this second index, a stance that presupposes an ideological position (in this case a presupposed expectation among KVNshiki), that can be captured by Kockelman’s concept of second-order stances (2004, 143).

Demchenko’s first-order stance responded to Denis’ plea to keep a joke in the show. But he took second-order stances towards two normative KVN values: (1) working long hours and (2) making people happier. Demchenko, thus, adopted a second-order stance to speak not just with the authority of an editor, but with that of KVN tradition.

The first, working hard, refers to the expectation that KVNshiki will revise material constantly and, often, go without sleep in the days leading up to games. As Stanislav, a nationally-successful competitor from Irkutsk argued, the most important quality of a good KVNshik is being hard- working. He said,

Being hard working is especially [important]. Sometimes there are moments when you arrive [to an editing session] with complete material. And they cut out almost your entire text. The entire opening number. What do you do? You have one night to [write] something you can show the next day. That's how it was for us in Krasnoyarsk, in the Asia League. It is really difficult. We went to bed at 6:00 a.m., got up at 8:00 a.m., and again re-wrote everything. Again presented our material. And if it weren't for our desire, our patience, our, as it were, hard-workingness, on this account we would have burned out immediately and a long time ago. That's why you have to love this game very very very much and give your all to it. Work work work. Don't sleep at night, but do it (interview with author, November 14, 2017).

Demchenko, thus, cited a value that KVNshiki find commonplace. Working late into the night is routine. Denotationally, Demchenko said—and meant—the Moscow competitors were being lazy. But the interactional text, in this scenario, included a shaming mechanism that reinforced KVN values specifically. When an editor cuts jokes, competitors are called on to write new ones, that night, regardless of how long that takes them.

The second value Demchenko endorsed, via his index to the KVN theme song, was the idea that KVN should help people. KVN should not exclude individuals, like audience members potentially alienated by insulting jokes (“so that no one stays on the sidelines”) and KVN should make people happier (“everyone will become more cheerful”). Pavel, thus, took two layered stances: one towards the material the team presented and one towards a moral framework that privileged audience cheerfulness over artistic expression. In invoking the framework, he renewed its social consequence.

Jaworski and Thurlow observed that a stance is “an evaluation or appraisal of an object...as being somehow desirable/undesirable or good/bad” (2009, 217). The moral imagination that structures what is good and bad, desirable and undesirable also often dictates what counts as funny. In KVN, joyfulness (vesel’e) emerges as the quality that organizes taste—in jokes, in atmosphere, and in events. Joyfulness, as opposed to simple laughter or entertainment, is, I argue, linked to ideas about the collective good that were consonant with values the Soviets promoted through cultural policy aimed at youth recreation.