#esc winners

[eurovision-facts]

Eurovision Fact #628:

Micky Maus Magazin, a German comic magazine with Disney comics in it, featured Donald Duck and Daisy dressed up as Käärijä and Loreen on the cover of the April 26, 2024 publication.

[Source]

Micky Maus Magazin Nr. 10/2024, egmont-shop.de.

[unibrowzz]

Eurovision fun fact

No song with a title beginning with the letter C has ever won.

[columba1234]

Okay, while I agree with the first and third points, I do not agree with your second point, especially winning artists returning in national selections (I'll only talk about the artists that are selected through national preselections only in this post, eg.: Loreen and Alexander Rybak (because they are the only winning artists that returned to Eurovision through a national final that I remember of, but both of them would be making good points in this context. Any correction and CONSTRUCTIVE criticism is appriciated )

Often when a winning artist returns to Eurovision, the fandom views them as stealing the spotlight, the road to fame from other artists. But (a really big BUT here), the viewers in the national final, the people in the country they would represent VOTED for them to win, to BE in Eurovision. The artists are not stealing anything from other artists (except if the votes aren't fair and plagiarism, which is a radically different story I'll not discuss here.). If other new artists failed to do that, try better luck next time then. Improve the vocals, songwriting, staging, etc. Let's have some examples, and I'll take 2 of the most recent returning winners of Eurovision: Loreen and Alexander Rybak, especially Loreen. Both of them receive a lot of negative reactions in the Eurovision fandom when they win their national selections/ Eurovision again (Loreen): The full scoreboard of MGP 2018 (Gold duel)

"That's How You Write A Song" has WAY more votes (televotes) than "Who We Are", so Rybak won MGP 2018 and represented Norway in the song contest in Lisbon that year. Nothing stealing from here. The full scoreboard of Melodifestivalen 2023:

Same story as Rybak here. Loreen won both the televotes and juries in Melodifestivalen 2023.

The detailed scoreboard of the grand final of Eurovision 2023 :

Sweden is 1st with the juries and 2nd with the televotes (it's worth noting that Sweden's 243 points are really far off Finland's 376 points) and the runner-up, Finland is 1st with the televotes but only 4th with the juries. So Tattoo did score well with the televotes, but not as close as Cha Cha Cha. The juries and televoters are still voting in accordance with the rules in Eurovision, but the juries did have a HUGE bias towards Sweden (Tattoo scored the most 12 points overall, with 15-12 points from the juries, so it's clear why other countries such as France, Spain (both have jury-friendly entries this year) cannot score as high). So absolutely no stealing here.

It is understandable why the Eurovision fandom is disappointed at the results (me included, I really want Cha Cha Cha to win, Finland also has the 2nd most televote points of all time (376, tieing to Portugal 2017 and second only to Ukraine 2022 )), but when we are discussing how to make Eurovision better, we should discuss it with facts and data, not just opinions.

Changes we need to bring to 2024 Eurovision:

– Reduce jury votes: I get that eliminating them completely is not a possibility. The EBU wouldn't agree to that. However, maybe their importance should be lower. Make the vote 70% Public + 30% jury. In the end, people should be the ones selecting the winner, not a 5 person jury often selected in a non-transparent manner.

– Winners shouldn't be allowed to come back. And not only past winners, but also consolidated artists. Harry Styles shouldn't represent the UK nor Rosalía with Spain. They already have the spotlight. Past winners also had their moment and enjoyed the momentum. The opportunity should be offered to those who haven't tasted it yet.

– Israel shouldn't participate. This one is self-explanatory. It's hypocritical for the EBU to ban Russia from competing and not Israel. They should do better.

[worldsmightiestwitch]

CHA CHA CHA CHA CHA CHA CHAAAAA

[luluxa]

cha cha cha!

redbubble

[caribbean1989]

Cheeky bastard 😏😏

All my Baby Lasagna related posts have been moved to my new Baby Lasagna sideblog 😉

[raapija]

Hang it in the Louvre.

Jere welcomed back by Finnish supporters 💚

[holyprincenerd]

yes yes rigged this cha cha that but please let’s not ignore this right now:

https://www.aftonbladet.se/podcasts/ab/episode/355975 Swedish “eurovision expert” Tobbe Ek (for those of you who aren’t Swedish, this is the same guy who accused Måneskin of doing coke on live tv back in 2021) and his posse of minions decided that it was time to spread some absolutely hateful rhetoric against the people of Finland by calling them shitty, idiotic, telling them they should be ashamed of not voting for Sweden (??? literally what???) etc etc, while also dragging in other contestants like Lord of the Lost and insulting them as a means of questioning why the Finnish public voted for them but not for Sweden. (You know. Because it totally doesn’t make any sense at all that a country known for having the most metal bands per capita in the world would vote for Lord of the Lost. Not at all.) 

As the cherry on top of this xenophobic shit cake, they started to go on about how “There’s no way there were ten contestants who were better than Sweden this year.” (Again. Not only disrespecting the other contestants, but them pretending not to grasp the concept of a country known for preferring heavier music choosing to vote mostly for bands this year... Yeah... Couldn’t be their preferences...)

Again, this man is considered a Eurovision expert here in Sweden, yet this is the type of behaviour he and his coworkers display over a nonissue like the Finnish public not voting for Sweden this year. If there’s something shameful here, it’s this.

To reiterate: These are three grown-ass well past 40-year old people having a genuine meltdown over one (1) singular country not voting for them.

Why are we giving Tobbe Ek (and his irrelevant coworkers) a platform, again?

EDIT:

Hoo boy, there’s more. Because of course there is.

ALRIGHT here’s an article from one of our tabloids using quite suspiciously colonialistic sounding rhetoric about Finland being “the kingdom’s previous eastern half”.

https://www.expressen.se/noje/finska-sveket-mot-sverige-gav-noll-poang-efter-uppmaningen-rosta-taktiskt/

The specific quote in Swedish: “Tv-tittarna i tidigare östra rikshalvan gav nämligen Sverige noll(!) poäng under Eurovisionfinalen på lördagen.”

Translation: “TV viewers in [our] kingdom’s previous eastern half gave namely zero(!) points to Sweden during the Eurovision finale on Saturday.”

Yeah, Johan Bratell (the writer of the article) is technically not wrong about Finland having been a part of Sweden. But why bring this up now? This was so clearly meant as a condescending insult.

The article also talks about a throwaway comment that the Finnish commentator Mikko Silvennoinen made about tactical voting (or more specifically, an anonymous comment he read out loud about tactical voting). From my understanding this was a joke reference to the previous elections which took place recently in Finland and forced a portion of the Finnish public to vote tactically as an attempt to block a far-right party from getting into the parliament. It’s embarrassing how much these people are reaching.

And even if they were voting tactically, so what? Sweden won. Why are we so focused on the public vote of one (1) country, Jesus Christ this is embarrassing.

EDIT 2: WHY THIS MATTERS. A LOT.

For those of you who are not in the know about Swedish politics, these statements are reflecting some far-right political views that have their roots all the way back in the times when Sweden ruled over Finland. In recent memory, our far-right political party Sverigedemokraterna claimed that the Swedish minority group Tornedalians are not Swedish, because they may speak local dialects that blend Finnish into Swedish, or speak the minority language Meänkieli. Coincidentally, Meänkieli just so happens to be a minority language that blends Finnish and Swedish, as it is mostly spoken by people who live by the Torneå river, i.e. the Finnish-Swedish border. Here’s an article about this controversy (however you may not be able to read it unless you’re subscribed to said newspaper): https://www.dn.se/asikt/orimligt-att-tornedalingar-inte-skulle-vara-svenskar/?fbclid=IwAR33K_UVRhXlJhyPd3gY7GDXN_lotUdrtM1AeL-nRzWE26Tmq5BFE0lIUzw

Sverigedemokraterna also believe that the Swedish minority group of Sweden Finns should essentially cut their ties to their Finnish roots and that they should not be able to be citizens of both Finland and Sweden. https://aip.nu/sverigedemokraterna-och-de-dubbla-medborgarskapen/

This sort of rhetoric is ridiculously common here, and in situations like the ones that have occurred in light of the ESC, they almost never get called out. Because it’s common. Because it’s okay to call Finnish people names and to use colonial rhetoric against all Finns, both those who live in Finland and those who live in Sweden. Because this is “friendly banter.” Mind you, as someone who technically belongs to both of the aforementioned minority groups I’m completely fine with the actually friendly banter and piss taking that we usually partake in, because it is just that. Friendly. But this is not it. This is actually harmful. I have never seen so many Swedish people attacking Finns on social media as I’ve seen these past few days. The usual colonialistic and fennophobic insults have started to rear their ugly heads: People have started to insult the Finnish language (a fennophobic sentiment that goes way back to the days when Finland was under Swedish rule and the Swedish tried to get rid of the language), they have started to insult the way Finns look (goes back to fennophobic rhetoric of Finns essentially not being “white enough”), etcetera. For more information on how the Swedish government treated the Sweden Finns and Tornedalians (the fact that they tried to abolish both the Meänkieli language and the Finnish language from Sweden and have even done skull measurements as an attempt to prove that these minority groups are not equal to Swedes), here’s another article: https://www.svt.se/nyheter/lokalt/norrbotten/regeringen-tillsatter-sanningskommission

For those of you who speak Finnish and are interested in the topic, the book Kansankodin pimeämpi puoli by Tapio Tamminen goes into both issues, with photographic evidence of skull measurement incidents among other things. Meanwhile, the Finnish media is mostly just reporting on the tomfoolery of these “journalists.” Sure, there are a lot of Finns who are acting out as well and spreading hateful rhetoric against Swedes, but the difference here is that one group is punching up, while the other is punching down.

Whether Tobbe Ek, Jenny Ågren, Markus Larsson and Johan Bratell meant to cause this does not matter. They’ve still done it, in the case of the former group, they’ve even dragged other Europeans (and Australians!) into this mess.

They’ve gone ahead and spread fennophobic rhetoric on huge platforms: Sweden’s biggest national tabloids. They should be held accountable for this.

To reiterate: ALL THIS OVER THE FINNISH PUBLIC “NOT VOTING FOR SWEDEN” DURING THE EUROVISION SONG CONTEST OF 2023.

Edit 3: Just in case we need a bit of clarification:

I know this whole post may come across quite negatively. So let me make this clear: There is an issue with the Swedish culture and its normalisation of fennophobia, however, that doesn’t mean every Swede is maliciously fennophobic. It’s literally just so normalised here, that sometimes people don’t even notice when they’re partaking in it, and because of said normalisation, for many these fennophobic and colonialist insults have become a sort of knee jerk reaction to when there’s “actual beef” with Finland. (Which, obviously, is a fucking problem, because look who has to bear the brunt of that.) 

Moreover, many Swedes aren’t even familiar with their shared history with Finland, and the discrimination Finland was put through during the Swedish rule (not to mention the discrimination the Sweden Finns and Tornedalians have had to face and still face). That part of our shared history simply isn’t taught in schools here, so a regular person would have to know to go out and look for the information. Heck, the only reason I’m aware of this is because at the end of the day, despite having been born and raised in Sweden, I am ethnically Finnish, and grew up by the border with very strong ties to the Finnish culture because of it. But less about me, and more about this issue. Most Swedes (and Swedish journalists who have any sort of sense in them and who work for respectable publications) have expressed their dissatisfaction with this years results as well. There’s a reason Cha Cha Cha is charting so well on Swedish Spotify. There’s a reason for why the Swedish jury and the public gave Finland 12 points.

So, Tl;dr:

1. Swedish tabloids are trash.

2. We have an undeniable problem with how normalised fennophobia is here, and it’s absolutely bizarre that this is how it’s getting exposed.

3. Most regular Swedes aren’t happy with this either, and are in fact not Finland’s and the Finnish people’s greatest haters in the world.

4. Tobbe Ek should get fired. At the bare minimun, he and his coworkers should probably issue some sort of apology for spreading this, seeing how it is actually hurting a lot of people.

Anyway, please don’t hate on the Swedes because of this lol, think about what Jere from Vantaa would think about that. 💚

[elizabethsharmon]

nice of all the countries to serve as opening acts to finland's concert

[toktopus-art]

cha cha cha!

[fluffyninja91]

brb, I'm going to listen to "Rim Tim Tagi Dim", "Europapa", "No Rules" and "The Code" on repeat

[eurovision-facts]

Eurovision Fact #642:

According to winner of the 2024 Eurovision Song Contest, Nemo, non-binary flags were banned by the EBU at the arena. Nemo themself had to smuggle their own flag in:

“I had to smuggle my flag in because Eurovision said no, but I did it anyway, so I hope some people did that too,” they added. “But, I mean, come on, this is clearly a double standard.”

This year, the contest only allowed the flags of participating nations and "rainbow flags" specifically.

[Sources]

"Eurovision winner Nemo hits out at organisers over ‘unbelievable double standard’," independent.co.uk.

"Strangest prohibited items in Eurovision history as total bag ban is enforced from handcuffs to mugs," mirror.co.uk.

Prohibited items Malmö Arena - Audience, PDF.

[unibrowzz]

And so a potential Chernobyl is turned into a "mere" Three Mile Island.

[laeheaps]

meow cat, please meow back :3

[potatounicoorn]

Okay I know some finnish have propably been very disrespectful losers, I have too been too harsh on Loreen. But can we talk about the swedish newsreporters for a second?

Sweden WON. They WON Eurovision. And what is Sweden making news about? Making fun of Finland and throwing tantarums at finns for not giving them public votes.

Wonder why that happened.

Sweden WON and Loreen made history. First woman to win the Eurovision song contest twice. She should be celebrated. So why can't swedish be happy?

"Our weird little brother Finland is throwing a petty fit for losing" "Finland used to be part of us" "Sometimes the public is wrong".

Camoon Sweden, you won. Why do you have to rub salt into wounds?

"Some Germany got votes but not us" "I don't think they can find 10 better songs than Tattoo" "Finlands voting was rigged"

Thats what Sweden is saying. Instead of celebrating Loreen it seems. Because of course a nation of 5,5 million people can throw a national campain to not vote Sweden. Makes a lot of sense.

Also our commentator got some of this too. Apparently Mikko was telling everyone to vote tactically. In fact he read a joke from the live chat about tactical voting and no countries were mentioned. So no, YLE did not incite any camoain against Sweden. Loreen was actually Mikko's favorite.

Käärijä was descriped as "harshly partying salad bowl". Cool Sweden.

Of course we also have "shame on Finland" "fuck them" "stupid people".

You know, listening all this you would think Sweden lost. And I would have understood all this if they did, cause Finland has been saying these too. But Sweden WON, Loreen WON. THEY WON. So why can't they be happy instead of being bitter for not getting a few votes (which didn't affect the end result in any way) from Finland?

Loreen deserves better and Finland doesn't deserve this shit from Sweden.

[tesb]

Käärijä interviewed at a news conference after arriving to Finland [source]