#no one does it like käärijä

[theplantbish]

Honestly an artist starting an onlyfans and then making a song about selling sex is a fucking iconic move no one is doing it like he does it

[smimon]

Giant K series #14: you can always count on Jesse 🧡

Okay this episode is a bit different so the text part goes in the beginning! Fair warning that this story is not comedic but very emotional, however with a hopeful conclusion 😊

Change of tone! Today we cry 🤧

[omppupiiras]

a part of me is low key jealous of everyone who has had the chance to be in the first row for käärijä's gigs, but a bigger part of me wonders how the heck are ppl able to queue for HOURS or basically for a whole day??? like wow the dedication gotta respect it, i wish that was me 😭 but im old and mukavuudenhaluinen

[sparkly-skies]

Ah yes, I still have some great pictures to share, such as:

some fountain thing close to the venue, some pumpkin-ghost-shaped chocolate I found in a store, and one of four boxes of black currant iron supplements I bought in Munich because they don't sell them in Austria;

pictures that will make @mondscheinprinzessin ask the chancellor to ban me from entering Germany;

kitty at the train station who had to eat before they could keep travelling, and flat fuck tuesday country photograph, and, of course,

this from before it started from right behind the sound techs who had their own little party going on, and where Mikke stood on his little beer crate to be tall enough to take pictures.

IT WAS SO GOOD I love him and his silly jokes that make me laugh and how HAPPY he looks when the crowd sings back and how he tells everyone to behave themselves and be nice and jokes around with his crew and DID I MENTION HOW GODDAMN HAPPY HE LOOKS ALL THE TIME

Anyway anyone who has the chance to see him live should, even if you don't know anything else but CCC, the show he puts on is so GOOD it more than makes up for not knowing many songs

💚💚💖💖💜💜

[linkhundr]

So NFTgate has now hit tumblr - I made a thread about it on my twitter, but I'll talk a bit more about it here as well in slightly more detail. It'll be a long one, sorry! Using my degree for something here. This is not intended to sway you in one way or the other - merely to inform so you can make your own decision and so that you aware of this because it will happen again, with many other artists you know.

Let's start at the basics: NFT stands for 'non fungible token', which you should read as 'passcode you can't replicate'. These codes are stored in blocks in what is essentially a huge ledger of records, all chained together - a blockchain. Blockchain is encoded in such a way that you can't edit one block without editing the whole chain, meaning that when the data is validated it comes back 'negative' if it has been tampered with. This makes it a really, really safe method of storing data, and managing access to said data. For example, verifying that a bank account belongs to the person that says that is their bank account.

For most people, the association with NFT's is bitcoin and Bored Ape, and that's honestly fair. The way that used to work - and why it was such a scam - is that you essentially purchased a receipt that said you owned digital space - not the digital space itself. That receipt was the NFT. So, in reality, you did not own any goods, that receipt had no legal grounds, and its value was completely made up and not based on anything. On top of that, these NFTs were purchased almost exclusively with cryptocurrency which at the time used a verifiation method called proof of work, which is terrible for the environment because it requires insane amounts of electricity and computing power to verify. The carbon footprint for NFTs and coins at this time was absolutely insane.

In short, Bored Apes were just a huge tech fad with the intention to make a huge profit regardless of the cost, which resulted in the large market crash late last year. NFTs in this form are without value.

However, NFTs are just tech by itself more than they are some company that uses them. NFTs do have real-life, useful applications, particularly in data storage and verification. Research is being done to see if we can use blockchain to safely store patient data, or use it for bank wire transfers of extremely large amounts. That's cool stuff!

So what exactly is Käärijä doing? Kä is not selling NFTs in the traditional way you might have become familiar with. In this use-case, the NFT is in essence a software key that gives you access to a digital space. For the raffle, the NFT was basically your ticket number. This is a very secure way of doing so, assuring individuality, but also that no one can replicate that code and win through a false method. You are paying for a legimate product - the NFT is your access to that product.

What about the environmental impact in this case? We've thankfully made leaps and bounds in advancing the tech to reduce the carbon footprint as well as general mitigations to avoid expanding it over time. One big thing is shifting from proof of work verification to proof of space or proof of stake verifications, both of which require much less power in order to work. It seems that Kollekt is partnered with Polygon, a company that offers blockchain technology with the intention to become climate positive as soon as possible. Numbers on their site are very promising, they appear to be using proof of stake verification, and all-around appear more interested in the tech than the profits it could offer.

But most importantly: Kollekt does not allow for purchases made with cryptocurrency, and that is the real pisser from an environmental perspective. Cryptocurrency purchases require the most active verification across systems in order to go through - this is what bitcoin mining is, essentially. The fact that this website does not use it means good things in terms of carbon footprint.

But why not use something like Patreon? I can't tell you. My guess is that Patreon is a monthly recurring service and they wanted something one-time. Kollekt is based in Helsinki, and word is that Mikke (who is running this) is friends with folks on the team. These are all contributing factors, I would assume, but that's entirely an assumption and you can't take for fact.

Is this a good thing/bad thing? That I also can't tell you - you have to decide that for yourself. It's not a scam, it's not crypto, just a service that sits on the blockchain. But it does have higher carbon output than a lot of other services do, and its exact nature is not publicly disclosed. This isn't intended to sway you to say one or the other, but merely to give you the proper understanding of what NFTs are as a whole and what they are in this particular case so you can make that decision for yourself.

[xclowniex]

EUROVISION DRAMA UPDATE

Baby Lasanga went on a podcast and talked about some drama which happened regarding Israel. It was in croation but the official translation is:

"This is the first time I’m actually talking about it. We were standing in line to join the flag parade, and everything was fine. The Irish representative and the Greek representative were standing there, and just then someone passed by and filmed a video; I guess it was someone from the Israeli delegation. Bambie started shouting at him, ‘Don’t film me!’ They yelled like an angry dog! And added that it’s a ‘celebration of love and peace’ while drooling… and everyone was really shocked. I bit my lips trying not to laugh. They talk about a celebration of love and peace while shouting and getting angry, just unnecessary drama. In the end, Bambie, Nemo, and I don’t know who else ran to the room and started crying. What’s going on with you guys? This is supposed to be Eurovision…”

“I don’t know why Bambie, Marina, and Nemo were so upset with the Israeli delegation. The Israeli delegation was not a nuisance at all, at least from what I saw. And regarding Bambie’s claim that they film her, there are cameras everywhere and everyone is taking pictures of everyone. It just amused me that she shouted about peace and love while behaving with anger and frustration.”

PLEASE DO NOTE WITH TRANSLATION: The Croatian phrase which has been translated as "angry dog" does not hold as strong of a connotation in Croatian as it does in English. It is used to emphasize severe anger, and does not mean rabid with anger, as a lot of english speakers have assumed it does.

So, what this means is:

A lot of allegations surronding the Israeli delegations actions were likely blown up, and made to seem worse than what they were

At least a portion of the claims of the Israeli delegation filming people is likely them filming Eden Golan or each other and contestants being in the background which was standard for other contestants to be in the background of any delegations videos, aka not out of normal behaviour for any delegation

Any complants brough to the EBU about the Israeli delegation had no rulings made on it, meaning that they were found unjust aka they didn't break any rules

Bambie Thug was so unprofessional that they were suspended from the flag parade in the finals due to their own behaviour, not the Israeli delegation's like they claimed

Bambi thug is a major sore loser considering their comments after the finals

What the implications of this is;

Bambi Thug is either antisemitic or xenophobic - depends on exact motives, which we do not know

Bambi Thug is also immature as they purposely lied and/or made things out to be way worse than they were to garner sympathy and/or to paint the Israeli delegation as these big bad evil people

Considering Marina was present during at least one of the situations, and still supported Bambi Thug, we also know that Marina either does similar behaviour to Bambi Thug, or thinks that behaviour is okay

The biggest thing out of all of this, is that the Israeli delegation was made out to be super evil and bad, and so much effort was put into protraying them this way, and all that effort has gone to waste because someone decided to speak out about what really happened.

Baby Lasanga also isn't even the only person who is proof of the delegation not being cunts the entire time. käärijä, in a now deleted video, was seen being nice to Eden Golan and even danced with her to his track from last years eurovision backstage. käärijä had the Israeli delegation take down the video after he recieved backlash for it and he also released an apology very similar to baby lasanga's statement.

Baby Lasanga's statement for the podcast was

"I won't beat aroud the bush and I feel like I have to respond because I owe that to the ESC community. I didn't feel like I had to express this online, but now I see that there's some confusion about it. So let me say it: U condem the actions of Israel's government. I bow my head to palestine and it's victims. I keep them in my prayers every night I go to sleep. Likewise, I will truly give my best to help those wounded by this horrigic tragedy. Love Marko"

My take aways from this are:

He can seperate citizens from their government like a normal fucking human being should

He also assumed that people would be able to do that too, but alas they weren't and he had to release a statement

He still stands behind his comments during the podcast

For anyone wanting to interact with this post, please note that this post is not about whether or not Israel should or shouldn't have attended. Whilst it is part of the overall wider conversation, I am not talking about that as eurovision already happened, Israel competed. This post is purely about how the Israeli delegation was treated and drama going on about that. Please do not start talking about whether or not Israel should have been allowed to compete.

[fasolabean]

I think people who are mad at him for mentioning twitter just dont get the vitriol that that site has for him. Warning for fatphobia, abelism and d*ath threats.

Im not talking here about the specific fandom. Kä fandom is small and pretty self contained and I'd say people complaining and criticizing stuff rarely ever go over the line. Usually cause well, that's his fans, they want him to be the best, they want him to improve. I'm talking about, well, people from the wider circle. Because I've seen hate tweets about him before I even got to listen to his music for the first time. I've said in a previous post that every time there's valid criticism or reporting to be done on him, theres like 50-100 hateful messages without any basis attatched. But like. He doesn't even have to do anything. It's like every two weeks I see a person call him ugly, talentless, going at his weight, his face, his voice, his outfits. I keep blocking the accounts, but new ones keep popping up. I've seen him being called "a beached whale", last year when his tooth got chopped off I've seen a post saying that it makes him look like a n*zi. I've seen people disrespecting Finland and Finnish as a whole and attaching his esc23 performance as if to make it a point. One time I've seen someone make a point of "hey maybe don't be too rude about his body itself, he almost died", the response was something along the lines "well he should've".

"Im glad loreen won" is a statement said every time he does something stupid, but it can also be attached to like. Him doing something suggestive on stage (and then cue tens of comments about how gross he is) or like, even just loudly laughing in an interview😭 And when he does do something stupid, there's nothing constructive said either. Back in may people were saying how they wished him to k/ll himself, and when you made a post with the keyword "käärijä" you would get responses of pictures of graves, saying either that it should be him or his fans. Like I need you to understand how fucking terrible that website is. This is not a "he can't take any criticism ever" issue when any valid criticism gets overshadowed by d/ath threats. Like it's hard to look at any vaguely negative message when on top of that you see pictures of tombstones that are edited to say your name.

No, Jere isn't perfect. No, Käärijä isn't perfect. Yes, I wish he did better, I wish he took constructive criticism. But like this is what you see when you search his name on there. I don't think he deserves that for the amount of shit he's actually done.

[hockey-finns]

So about pekka (and his og boyfriend)

since käärijä and hockey are currently the two main topics of my blog (don’t ask why), after today’s urheilucast episode I feel like it’s my responsibility to introduce pekka rinne better to you who do not know him yet

this post is made just so you know that pekka is lowkey also a kinky bastard and when you inevitably start to write those pekka x jere fanfics you will not forget that pekka already has a hockey goalie boyfriend named juuse saros and they had have a very interesting relationship

pekka has been one of juuse’s biggest idols since he was twelve and he used to watch his highlights on youtube. they met the first time in the 2014 ice hockey world championships when juuse had just turned 19 and he was clearly very starstruck by pekka, who took juuse under his wing immediately

here is a gif of juuse so maybe pekka has a type (significantly shorter, blue eyes, dark hair, younger… sounds familiar?)

By a coincidence (it was fate) juuse was also drafted by nashville predators and ended up playing in the same team as pekka, and that’s where their relationship really kicked off

Here are some memorable moments:

first The Daddy Interview that all hockey tumblrs have probably seen (also multiple people have commented that they thought this is the beginning of a gay p*rn before they knew they’re hockey players)

in addition to this pekka often refers to juuse as ”my son” of ”my boy”

probably the second most kinkiest well known moment - The Collaring in front of the whole team

when juuse was asked his opinion on the chant ”Rinteen Peksi, parempaa kuin seksi” (”Pekka Rinne, better than sex”) he answered ”that’s true”???

juuse is very well known for doing the splits and he has also said that his party trick is to twerk in the splits (sadly no video evidence)

juuse has also had a goalie mask which featured pekka in a sexy white suit and he very proudly presented it to pekka

juuse’s actual father is also named pekka so it’s a bit awkward that his father and his daddy have the same name

one of my most popular posts is a translated video where pekka talks about (praises) juuse for four minutes straight in a sauna and in the end he requests that juuse does his interview shirtless

(So do whatever you want with all the daddy kink, dom/sub shit and the praise kink)

here are some wholesome gifs to cleanse your soul because in the end these two love each other to bits

(gif/video credits in order: @dermott, @rask, @imadeoutwithmikeywayonwarpedtour, @rask, @sorokie)

[bisnes-socks]

i have a lot to say about this one so pack a snack and let's make sex moneyyy

i think this is one of the most openly culture and media (and social media) critical songs he has. i think it's a super daring song that probably makes the likes of certain helsingin sanomat music critics a little bit uncomfortable, because he is spitting facts - and because he has a relationship with sex for show that people for some reason are still quite weird about.

to start a little further back: we all know sex sells. we all know the music industry uses sex to sell their products. but for some reason, in the year of our lord 2024, a musical artist verbally recognising that they are using their sexuality and sexual themes to build their brand is somehow scandalous. it's like.. it's okay to use sex to sell your art, if it's like "accidental" MTV sexuality or like agreeing to looking objectifiable. the media will call you hot and sexy and wow. but if you own your sexuality, make it obvious that yes this is sexual, i'm being very deliberately sexual and i am trying to be sexual..? oh no that won't do! scandal! we've seen it with so many artists, especially female artists. like WAP is a great example! how scandalous that suddenly these women had agency in their own sexuality! but no-one said a word when their sexuality served the usual male gaze agenda. it's like people are so much more comfortable being peeping toms who sexualise and objectify artists when they're not looking, but as soon as the artist does it as part of their whole thing? well now it's inappropriate actually.

he talked about this in a helsingin sanomat interview, saying how he does actually think things revolve too much around sex in the music industry, even though he uses sex and sexual themes himself to sell things as well, and that he sees the irony in saying that. but the difference, in my opinion, is that the way he, or someone like erika vikman for example, is so open and upfront about the sexual themes, that it becomes carnevalistic, it becomes camp. it's not insidiously using sexual and heteronormative objectifying imagery to get people horny. what käärijä does is playful and fun sexuality, and for whatever reason that is so unusual it needs to be talked about separately as something a bit wild and scandalous, and he needs to be asked to explain his actions.

and that's what this song is. he's very clearly saying none of this is accidental. the visuals of his brand, the social media content, the onlyfans thing, none of it is coincidental, accidental or anything other than his perfectly deliberate way of selling sex. and he has talked about these themes before, he has talked about like the rammstein live stuff that inspired him (some of it is pretty hardcore stuff) so to his fans it's nothing surprising that sexual themes are present in the brand and interest him. but he has also talked about how, even if this song is a bit tongue in cheek, he's also serious. and he is right. and for some reason calling people out about the fact that sex makes them buy things, even when it's true, is still.. scandalous somehow.

and he's basically calling people easy lmao. like, i needed to figure out a lil boost to my career and well, i know what will make you throw money at me. and i won't be shy about it either.

i'm getting sidetracked. the song.

and then that is enough to warrant lyrics such as "koko perheen käärijästä koko perheen krapula" meaning "käärijä for the whole family turning into a hangover for the whole family".

but it was all already there! let's not for a second pretend CCC was some sort of family show and a family song. it's not. but people were okay with that, because they could happily confuse the camp and carnevalistic sexuality of käärijä with the campness and carnevalistic nature of eurovision, and because it wasn't more than the suggestive sexual nature of everything else around them. and it was all just fun, when kids came up with their own lyrics to the song because they couldn't understand the references to drinking. so then people took their kids to see him at shows and became scandalised by the adult nature of it all. it's like.. people were fine letting their kids see the everyday media sexuality that we see in every eurovision, fine letting their kids get used to that, and then just sort of didn't think käärijä would be anything different. but he's only different in that in his show and brand, sex and sexuality aren't denied while still blatantly obviously there.

but again, a lot of this is to do with media, and what media normalises and what it doesn't. what it deems newsworthy and what it doesn't.

if in ready to go he's telling haters that i know you want to see me try and fail, maybe even be too embarrassed to try, but baby i'm ready to go, then in sex = money he's saying i know you want to see me naked and i know you want sex from all of this, so here you go, i'll sell you some sex. and then he stands there holding eye contact like what are you going to do with it. what a cunty king.

and there are so many fun and funny little details in this song.

right in the first verse we have "kieli taittuu sköödi föödi." good old sköödi föödi. i tried to find the earliest example of sköödi föödi, but i'm starting to think it might predate the internet, or at least social media. not to bring up köpi kallio again, but they use sköödi föödi a lot in viki ja köpi show, and köpi just happened to tweet about it in 2020, saying he believes sköödi föödi has been around for at least 20 years (someone tried to credit viki and köpi for it). so, what does sköödi föödi mean, you ask. it does not mean anything at all. sköödi föödi is just a sound, a noise you make, when you need it, usually in place of something in a foreign language but not exclusively. in this instance, sköödi föödi is him demonstrating his excellent english skills. sköödi föödi (pronounced almost like a sterotypical tv american would say skirdy-firdy) means nothing and it means everything, whatever you need it to mean.

it is also noteworthy to point out that "kieli taittuu" can be a reference to two different things here. the finnish word kieli means both tongue and language. so he could also be saying that he has a very bendy and flexible tongue, like literally. which, of course, all of europe has already seen. taittua literally means to fold or bend, but it's a common phrase to say, that if you can do something, you bend it (or more like it bends as a result). so literally the line translates to "language/tongue bends sköödi föödi".

the first verse ends in "sekö jos mikä on varma nakki" meaning "that, if anything, is a sure thing". nakki literally means a sausage, a hot dog sausage, weiner sausage, you name it: a small sausage. so translating literally: "that if anything is a sure sausage". it's a common phrase in spoken finnish, nothing unusual about that, but i love that he used it, because it makes the next line hilarious on a first listen, when the chant comes in. so when they start chanting NAK- NAK- i really thought they were gonna shout NAKKI. but no, it is nakuna, naked.

okay still with me? good. let's look at the "tein onlyfans bägin, koko suomen daddy" section next.

i remember when the song came out, people did explain who danny is, but in case anyone missed it, danny is a singer from finland, and he was a MASSIVE star back in the day, especially in the 70's. so to say he is bigger than danny is indeed quite the flex, because danny was like.. the finnish equivalent of elvis, basically. but danny is not just a flex, he turns danny into a clever thematical scheme here (more on thematical schemes in the bananas post, if you're interested). he says "kadulla on kuumaa, ne pyytää mua hätiin" and this is a reference to one of danny's most popular and famous songs, kesäkatu. smart, smart, smart! and then of course "kadulla on puumaa, mut mulla on jo täti" meaning there are cougars on the street, but i already have an aunt. which, that to me reads like both a cunty quip and a himbo line all at once. like shutting down some man wanting to be your daddy by telling him "but i already have a father". i nearly choked laughing the first time i heard the line.

also can i just say, calling himself the daddy of finland? like, thinking about the whole context i talked about at first, how people are comfortable with sexual stuff and sexualising, but not comfortable recognising it or being real about it or celebrating it? yeah knowing all that, he just called himself EVERYONE'S daddy in a song called sex = money, and he's not even wrong 😭

in conclusion: i love this song. and i love the attitude in it. it's like he is looking everyone, from every uncomfortable insecure hetero man, every scandalised parent to every tabloid journalist, straight in the eye and saying "yes, i'm selling sex. why? well i couldn't think of anything else, but then again, why should i? isn't this what you want? this is what you want. i know what you want. i'm your daddy."

like if he truly wanted to, he really could have this country on their knees for him, don't tell me last independence day didn't prove it. as much as he gets crap as well, at the end of the day, he has people under a spell by simply being, well, bigger than danny. and he-man.

now. the placement of the song on the album, right after autiomaa.

i personally don't think that the album builds one cohesive narrative from beginning to end. but i think this can be read two ways: a sad way and an empowering way. the sad way to read it is that he means it when he says he couldn't come up with anything else and his creativity is fried, but sex sells so he does that, and it's a bit mindless. but given the context of what he has had to say about this song, i'm more inclined to read this the empowering way: he has worked on himself and found a way to see things more clearly, and he has found it in himself to even be confrontational about things. the whiplash of the song order i think is more to highlight the fact that autiomaa is a rare glimpse into something different, and now here we go again. to me, sex = money makes autiomaa even more powerful, but autiomaa doesn't change the interpretation of sex = money all that much for me.

you really can't be upset about the song without proving his point. and you can't love the song without proving his point. facts have been spat and points have been proven. absolute king behaviour.

and if you read through this whole thing, i owe you money. cash money, not sex money. well, we'll talk about it.

++

bonus: i absolutely love that he knows how to say "make some noise" on this track, but continues to say "give me some voice" or some sort of a hybrid word between voice and noise, something like.. woise, at his international shows. the king of in through one ear, out through the other. he, she, noise, voice, he doesn't know the differences and does not care.

bonus bonus for the sad bojere bitches:

second verse: "täl alal ei sua kukaa huomaa" meaning "nobody will notice you in this field (of work)". maybe my brain is rotted but this moment reminds me so much of the famous liverpool bojere lunch date video where bojan tries to parrot jere, who is saying "tääl ollaa nyt, tota" and bojan goes "talalaiteta" and then they both proceed to giggle about it like it's the funniest thing anyone has ever said. "täl alal" goes out to you, bojan titanic.

[theplantbish]

Käärijä's great glögi tasting video

Translation under the cut

It's Käärijä here, hello. We are doing my favorite thing, glögi tasting!

Here we have 7 different kinds of glögi here if I counted correctly, some of them look a bit lighter some look a bit thicker and now we should rate these and guess what these flavors are

Käärijä's great glögi tasting video

First flavor: light glögi

Pretty good! Pretty good! Pretty watery, but good. Rating for this, I'll give 3/5, this is like, for thirst, you can drink this when you're thirsty. This is light glögi, obviously, this is made from different grapes.

Second flavor: dark glögi

This is a lot thicker, this is more, like, bitter. Like this, this is, I'll give this 2/5. This is dark.

Third flavor: blueberry and spruce sprout glögi

This isn't my favorite, is this some blackcurrant glögi? I'll give this one 2/5 too

Fourth flavor: apple glögi

This is that... Does this have a little bit of an apple flavor? Is this some apple glögi? I'll give this 2/5

Fifth flavor: strawberry glögi

Oh... This has an interesting smell to it. This doesn't work at all. Is this strawberry? Weird flavor, strawberry and glögi. I'll give this a 1/5. These haven't gotten good grades so far.

Sixth flavor: glögi tea

This is warm. This doesn't seem to have much sugar in it. What does this remind me of? This is some grandma's sugar free version. I'll give this one 2/5, what is this? If you'd put a bit of honey in there it would probably be a 3/5

Seventh flavor: traditional red Marli, known to be K's favorite glögi, will he recognize the flavor?

This is more on the traditional side, this is my thing. This is a 5/5. Is this Marli? Marli just is my thing, can't help it

This was surprisingly good, this light one, I liked it. I need to test this one (the glögi tea) with honey and it might get a better score. Strawberry didn't work at all, apple was alright. These two over here were kinda similar to each other. Marli showed them once again, it's hard to beat

[alien-girl-21]

The Käärijä Research Paper (tm)

aka: Error Analysis of the Use of English Articles in Jere Pöyhönen Interviews in 2023

(Before we start, a couple of clarifications: firstly, I am a linguistics student and this research was my final project for my psycholinguistics course, secondly, this was a group research and I have gotten permission from my friends to share these results with y'all so tysm to them, and lastly, the og work is LONG, 50 pages long, so I'm condensing it into the important bits)

Findings and explanations under the cut <3

Before sharing the actual research, i'm going to share some important terms for you guys to understand the overall layout of this work.

Error analysis: kind of self explanatory, it's the process of analyzing errors, specifically in one's speech, more on how we did this later.

Omission: The alienation of a linguistic form in speech (i.e. I go to (the) supermarket.).

Addition: The opposite of omission, putting an unnecessary linguistic form in a sentence (i.e. It's the maybe half and half.).

Substitution: Exchanging a linguistic form for another one (i.e. He admitted to have stolen a wallet. Instead of: He admitted to having stolen a wallet.).

Overgeneralization: Looking at a grammatical rule and thinking it applies to every case with no exceptions (i.e. finding out verbs conjugated in the past end in -ed and creating conjugations like writted instead of written). Also known as intralingual transfer.

Negative transfer: When your mother tongue (L1) seeps into your second/foreign language (L2) (in this case it's foreign language, but I'll still call it an L2 for simplicity's sake), if we're talking about Spanish negative transfer it can look like: the car red (Spanish adjectives go after the noun, unlike in English). Also known as interlingual transfer.

Local error: An error that does not affect the overall meaning of the sentence, making it still understandable.

Global error: An error that affects the overall meaning of the sentence, making it difficult to understand without clarifications.

Okay, with that out of the way, let me explain what we did:

We decided to make an error analysis on how Jere utilized articles (the, a/an) throughout 2023, for this we considered 2 interviews and 1 Instagram live, the interviews were: KÄÄRIJÄ TRIES LITHUANIAN FOOD (uploaded on 12/04/23) and Episode 3: Käärijä and friends (uploaded on 26/12/23), the ig live was the one he did to promote the release of Huhhahhei on 19/10/23, the dates are important for later.

Now, to do the error analysis in itself we followed Rod Ellis’ proposal for error analysis which follows four main steps:

Identifying errors: Self-explanatory, you see what errors one has committed.

Describing errors: Once you see the errors, you describe what exactly the error is, it can be with grammatical categories, or with omission, misinformation, addition, misordering, and substitution.

Explaining errors: After describing the error you need to explain why this error was committed, the two main ways are through overgeneralization and negative transfer.

Error evaluation: After all this, you identify how the error affected the overall message of the sentence being spoken, was it local or global?

We put these steps into a chart and listened to the interviews and identified the errors we found, it’s a really long chart, so if you want to see it fully you can find it here (hopefully). After identifying all the errors and doing our own error analysis we… well, analyzed the data, duh, according to the objectives we set up for the research.

Our first objective was to identify errors Jere has committed regarding articles in the three videos I mentioned. What we analyzed was more grammatical, so what grammatical structure he used the most. He usually omits an article before a noun and with adjectives, like in: “We go to bar with my producer…”, or “Käärijä goes to boat.”, or “I am fine, uh… little bit tired.”. Obviously, this is kind of expected because Finnish does not have articles, but he also adds articles when it is not necessary, like in: “I have the one festival.” Here are the charts of the grammatical trends:

Then we focused on the describing errors part of our analysis. In this part, we found out that he usually finds himself committing omission errors, with 67 in total across the three videos, like I said before, expected, however, the second most common error is addition, this means he adds an unnecessary article in a sentence, and what’s interesting is that he usually does it with the article “the”. Since this is not an actual academic article I will speculate with a full chest: I think he does this because people are usually taught that “the” is the only article in English (only definite one, but not the only one), and that nouns usually have an article accompanying them, so I think that he adds the when he is unsure if an article needs to go there or not. Finally, there was only one case of substitution: “This is the lovely story.”, not really sure why he did this, but it’s interesting that it only happened once. Have the charts and graphs:

We moved to the next step: explaining errors. When we started this research, we thought that we would only have negative transfers since, ya know, Finnish grammar and all, and we were kind of right? He has committed negative transfer errors the most, with 66 in total, but he also had 23 overgeneralization errors, which I didn’t really expect to happen with articles that much. Not much else to say here, have charts:

Lastly, error evaluation. He made mostly local errors, which is what mainly characterizes his speech, we know what he’s saying, he just usually lacks some grammatical form that doesn’t affect his overall meaning. He did have 15 global errors that unless you have the context, it can be a little confusing to understand what he’s trying to say (like in the ig live he said “here tour” when he wanted to say “here in the tour”). Charts!

Our final objective was to see the evolution of these errors, has he made more or less as time went on? Well, since we all can see and hear, he has made a great improvement! You already have the charts above to understand that, but I just have to explain it. In the first interview, in April, he made 50 mistakes in total, by the ig live he had cut those in half, and by the latest interview he gave in English he had cut the mistakes in half again! Have the graphs to accurately see this:

He has improved so much in such a short amount of time! Even more impressive when he hasn’t really taken any formal English classes, just by talking to Bojan and Alessandra. There’s a difference between language learning and language acquisition that was proposed by Stephen Krashen (cool dude, if you’re interested in language learning, go check him out). He says that people usually learn more by acquiring (unconscious) rather than learning (conscious), and you can see that Jere has learnt so much by acquiring English through his friends and his own experiences! And this is just looking at how he uses articles, there is also a distinctive change in how he uses other grammatical forms (but that was too much work for just 2 weeks, maybe I’ll do it later, no promises on anything, though). Even if we’re not talking about his grammatical and syntactical forms, his pronunciation has improved as well! My friends were fascinated by how his accent seemed to develop from video to video, which was very sweet because his accent is one of my favorite things about his speech, but that’s off topic.

The general takeaway from this research is: Jere still has a lot of Finnish tendencies in his English, he has developed his own grammatical structures to communicate in English, and how much he improved in an 8-month period is kind of insane, especially for an adult (who are the age group who have the most trouble learning languages). He’s the it-girl of blowing off a linguist’s mind (me, I’m the linguist)

That would be all!! If you have any other questions, feel free to ask! I'm more than glad to answer them

[kidvoodoo]

Käshweek24 Day 6: Comfort

Thank you @hotcat37 for hosting Käshweek! This has been a lot of fun!

(Drabble under the cut ✌️tw for description of panic attack)

Jere doesn’t even remember how it got this bad.

He’s been here before, the same spinning room with the same walls closing in on him. He was here in a hospital bed as the doctor explained a life-altering surgery, but he was high on medication so the room only pulsed and shook, not the ceiling threatening to collapse on him like right now.

But the screaming is the same, like a rush of noise and sensation only he can hear, a thousand voices and shrieking sirens and metal scraping. Above him, the lights turn to muzzle flash and bolts of lightning.

He can’t remember how he got here.

He was flying, where did he fly too? Somewhere too far away from comfort and home. He’s in an airport. The language on the automated announcements is foreign to him. He’s not in Finland.

Someone is saying his name. Not Käärijä, if Käärijä were here right now he wouldn’t be dying like this. He wouldn’t have frozen stock still in the middle of an airport with people around him. Käärijä would have walked right through the curtain of anxiety and shame. Käärijä doesn’t get panic attacks.

But Jere does.

And Jere is all alone in his head with no one to pull him out of the whirlwind of fear that threatens to swallow him whole right now.

He had a therapist say the panic attacks don’t always have an easy to understand trigger, that sometimes it’s from anxiety or fear, from anger or even excitement. Sometimes the air is too sharp and the lights are too hot and all the noise turns into tidal waves. Overstimulation, the doctor said.

Käärijä thrives in the storm of color and sound, Jere drowns.

But someone is saying Jere’s name again and it’s a clear and crisp sound that easily slices through the screaming, crushing walls.

His paralysis is broken when his knees crash to the ground. A moment of sharp pain snaps his vision focused again. He sees a tall man with pale skin and long brown hair approaching, Jere’s name comes out of his lips.

Jere’s breath and vision are swallowed by the panic and his body seizes. He is dying.

He is dying in an airport in front of strangers all alone. His mind can’t even begin to comprehend how he must look to the unsuspecting public right now.

He is dying.

Someone is calling his name again.

Jere doesn’t think he has the strength, there is a rushing in his ears that makes it hard to move but he tries. He tries to force his eyes to see past the explosion of color and light and find the person saying his name.

His eyes lock on a face in the storm. A pale man with long brown hair and worried looking eyes. The voice he hears comes out of the man’s mouth. He knows that voice.

He’s heard it laugh and shout and sing. Heard it groan from satisfaction and whisper filthy things in his ear at night. He’s heard it say his name before like a prayer, a secret and a spell, soft and sacred just for him.

Tommy.

Jere tries hard again, he tries so hard to find sensations outside of his head but it’s hard. He opens his own mouth to try and tell Tommy but the sound that comes out is a breathless whimper. That’s right, he still can’t breathe.

He’s going to die in front of Tommy and in front of strangers in an airport from a panic attack. What a way to go.

Tommy says his name again and this time there are other words too. Jere tries really, really hard to hear them but it’s hard. It’s too difficult and he’s so embarrassed he can’t understand Tommy, he tries to apologize but it’s a choked gargle of words that make no sense.

Tommy’s hand moves then, slow and deliberate. Jere watches it from behind the smokescreen of light and color.

And with a gentle touch of his hand on Jere’s cheek, there is a break in the storm.

Jere’s vision clears first and he’s looking into Tommy’s familiar eyes, the worried look is gone and only calmness remains. Tommy always had a knack for composing himself. It was a game sometimes for them, see how Jere could get him to lose control.

But now Jere is grateful the control is there in Tommy’s eyes, he can see it’s safe there. It’s going to help.

And just like that, the sensations of reality come crashing back into him.

Where once his body was being shaken apart and floating away, he’s slammed back into it so jarringly he lurches forward, only Tommy’s arms catching him keeps him from face planting into the ground. The pounding in his ears is his own heartbeat, the stinging on his skin is cold sweat, his muscles are seized and aching, his knees hurt from falling, the sound around him is his own panicked breathing.

Tommy holds him gentle and comforting, commanding him softly to count back from ten.

He does so shakily in Finnish, the familiarity of his mother tongue grounds him further, he can hear Tommy counting with him in English. They count back from ten several times. At one point they reach zero together and Jere’s vision is clear again. They are no longer in the airport.

“Where-“

“Someplace safe and private.” Tommy whispers back. He must have pulled them off to a secluded spot. Safe.

Safe. Quiet.

“Shh, it’s okay baby,” Jere hears gently against his ear. “You’re okay, just breathe for me.”

And so he does. How could he refuse when Tommy says his name so sweetly? He lays there in Tommy’s arms and breathes, his heart slowly returning to normal rhythm and his blood cooling and calming.

The color storm is gone, everything is slightly blurry and he realizes he’s crying and the tears in his eyes are warping his vision. He shudders and Tommy holds him firm.

Tommy tells him they are staying in here as long as they need too, that there is nothing to worry about, Tommy can take care of it. All Jere needs to do is breathe. He can do that.

The panic is gone and Jere feels hollowed out afterwards. It’s a fugue state that happens and he doesn’t remember much of what happened before. But it doesn’t matter right now. Right now Tommy is holding him and whispering sweet nothings into his hair and Jere can’t remember the last time the storm subsided with something like a happy ending.

Jere closes his eyes and soft colors fill the darkness behind his eyelids. The screams are a distant memory fading to the quiet calm, he buries his face into Tommy’s neck.

[omppupiiras]

käärijätober day 7, prompt: auto jää

his big pink jacket and corduroy pants in the auto jää lyric video are very dear to me

[raapija]

Käärijä's Veikkaus interview, 5.5.2023

Ten Questions For Käärijä

In this interview Vantaa's most famous bowl-cut Jere Pöyhönen tells, how he thinks about his Käärijä-named alter ego and why he would sometime want to "whack" Käärijä. Furthermore, he reveals his embarrassing vice - and reminds you that in every one of us there lives a tiny Jesus.

Q1: Why do you have such a funny haircut?

"When I was in junior high, I got a bowl-cut during a break. It was on a whim. There were us two boys, who did it, and we rocked with the bowl-cuts. I've always been whimsical, a guy, who is easy to provoke. I like to try things, and I've never really been embarrassed by anything. We had a few friend groups in Vantaa, with who I hung out with, and I was always the clown in the group. I like to make others laugh and I also like to laugh at myself. The others laughed with me, not at me - or that's atleast what I like to believe!"

Q2: So, Vantaa - you're a born and bred Vantaa-citizen. What does Vantaa mean to you?

"Quite a lot actually. I think that Vantaa is an under-dog kinda place. It reflected, for example, in hockey, which I used to play a lot. When we played against Espoo, it had emotion! The deal is, in fact, that Vantaa-people hate people from Espoo! [laughter] People from Vantaa are somehow more real than Espoo-citizens or people from Helsinki, more honest. If a Vantaa-person doesn't have money, then for fuck's sake they don't have money, they won't try to hide it, like Espoo-people do. Indeed, Vantaa is the place to be. Or at least the Tikkurila hoods, Myyrmäki on the other hand... We totally aren't any kind of a big and happy family in Vantaa. [laughter] East- and West-Vantaa are completely different things, kinda like the Bronx and Brooklyn. Actually I'm from Ruskeasanta, and for example Ruskeasanta's or 'Rusa' 's Shell (a gas station) has been a significant place in my life. We used to go there with friends on our mopeds and drink coffee and tea, fool around, bully vocational school students."

Q3: Wait a minute, you've gone to vocational school, too, but you aren't a student who drives around Tikkurila, around the local blocks?

"I haven't really driven there, maybe a couple times. But I haven't been serious about it in that way. I've never been a car-person, more of a moped-person, and that moped I liked more to tune and decorate, than to drive. I painted, tuned and tinkered with it. I, for example, melted Legos on the covering so I could get more plastic on them - no-one could ever guess, what color moped I'd come to school with."

"In my opinion, vocational school was more of a lifestyle than one going to vocational school. Students drove from gas station to gas station and went to Jumbo (a mall) with driving gloves on. I would rather stay at home to sleep and play Habbo Hotel. Sometimes I'd go to meets (meeting organized by youth to come show off their mopeds), and those were fun, but to those, too, we went with a few friends to laugh at the other dudes. [laughter] If I would now go to Rusa's Shell, I hope people would react to me positively. I'm still nevertheless on their side.

Q4: What kind of memories do you have from Vantaa's Tulisuudelma (a pub, restaurant and music venue)?

"There I didn't go a lot. I was more often at Porkku (Pormestari, a nightclub that has since closed). The few times I was at Tulisuudelma, I sang karaoke. Vesku's 'Hyvää Puuta', that was my favorite. But Porkku was, at least in my mind, Tikkurila's most popular bar. It was a bit like Pinkku (a restaurant called Pingviini), but the cooler guys went to Porkku. [laughter] Yeah, vocational school students went to Pinkku. It might be, that 'Cha Cha Cha' is about a night in Porkku. There I have my first bar-memories. It became my own little home, where all the friends in town came to."

"'Cha Cha Cha' represents dancing, and dancing represents freedom for me. That, that you have to be able to not be afraid to dance without thinking what the others think, even without drugs. You can see it as a drinking song also, I don't care about interpretations, but to me, it represents a lot more also. I want to encourage people to break free, because it's not about how well you can dance, it's about how you carry yourself. I'm not the most skilled singer, rapper or artist. But I believe in this thing, this madness, and I put 150 points on it. It creates the aesthetic, that he is just crazy and a star, even though really I'm just a regular dude from Vantaa."

Q5: The song lasts 2 minutes and 55 seconds. Because of those shy of a three minutes you'll soon go on a long trip abroad to perform. What does that feel like?

"As a thought it's damn crazy. How much work - hours, days, weeks, months - and then it's over. Those are probably my life's most important 2 minutes and 55 seconds. I think, that Käärijä is going on a little trip, does what he does best and it goes just the way it is meant to go. Everything doesn't even need to be so fucking thought out and perfect. It needs a bit of improv, my own style. Because I don't like to be bound."

Q6: You're a pop-star and many people have put a lot of money into your career. Isn't it inevitable, that in some way, you are bound?

"Yeah, that's exactly true. I've had had to work on that. I avoid it, when people tell me things and try to get me to do stuff, that I don't stand behind. It's been hard learning to say no, but it has been a necessary skill. Those people do see Käärijä as a product. It feels like a crazy thought - I'm like a walking billboard. But I'm a human and I have to do my own stuff, my own values, and not be with a note on my forehead saying 'buy this' or 'I'm selling this'."

"I've gone along with a couple things, but those have been the kind that benefit me. I want to rip out everything from those guys - the record label, ad-collabs and everything, and secure it that I'm not being fucked over. This is a rough business. People want a piece of Käärijä, which they can benefit from, so I have to be really alert. And not everything can be measured in wealth. For example, I've done stuff for charity."

Q7: Many of the stories about you are headlined "Jere from Vantaa", and that's the way you seem like: a nice basic dude. How does that nice basic dude handle all that hassle?

"At the beginning, not so well. I'm humble, and I still have a lot to learn about a certain type of roughness. You have to know your value and value yourself. Who am I, where do I belong, what do I want from life - I think about these and develop all the time. But it's not easy when the big bosses come to say how things are. Then you just have to stay tough and argue against them."

"The piss hasn't got up to my head, because I'm not 20 anymore. If all this had happened at that age, I would most definitely be an asshole. I can differentiate Jere from Käärijä. If on the streets someone films me, or someone sends me suggestive messages on instagram, I know that those are meant for Käärijä, not Jere. They don't really even know Jere, in a way."

"Jere sometimes wonders on red carpets abroad 'why am I here?'. It sometimes feels like a ridiculous circus show - even though I obviously enjoy it and value it. Byt my morals lie elsewhere. I don't appreciate people if they have some great job and money, that doesn't interest me at all. People shouldn't be seen as products, but people should be seen as people and appreciated the way they are. That's why it feels so weird when people go nuts sometimes about this Käärijä-thing, start to cry when they see me. In Madrid one guy fainted because they saw me! It was at the same time like wow, we had created something that had caused this kind of a reaction. But at the same time I think 'what the fuck just happened to you?'."

Q8: What sort of a relationship does Jere have with Käärijä?

"A really good one, mainly. We have a lot in common. In a way I'm a Käärijä-fan because I have to like the thing I'm doing, and in my mind we're making the best shit in Finland ever. But sometimes, when there's so much of this Käärijä-stuff, I'd like to whack that Käärijä: every time I come home and look in the mirror, there that bowl-cut is. Then I miss it, when I could go as Jere to the shop and be Jere to the people and not everyone would circle around Käärijä: how are you, how are you managing, how's the gigs, how's the music - fuck it. Let's talk about the weather!"

"Käärijä is also an armor. If someone asks to put on the bolero and go lay around for those photos, Käärijä will do it. Jere might not. With Käärijä I'm able and not afraid to do things. But the way that everyone right now wants to benefit from Käärijä, is of course sometimes heavy - and that's Käärijä's fault! He fucking did it! [laughter]"

Q9: If you could choose anyone to go in a sauna with, living or dead, who would you choose?

"That's a tough one. I'm a fan of Rammstein like crazy and I can relate to (the singer) Till Lindeman. But they say he's a really stiff guy. We probably wouldn't have a lot of conversation in the sauna..."

"If Jesus is really a real person in history, I'd maybe choose Jesus. I'd like to discuss with him: what all did he do, what kind of a guy he was. I'm really interested in that. Was he a regular fellow like all the rest of us?"

"I believe, that in all of us, there lives a tiny Jesus. I mean that I don't believe we're just a brain and a lump of meat. We're so much more. I don't necessarily mean supernatural things, but that there's something else, something that we can't reach with our level of consciousness. I don't believe in coincidences. There's always a reason why things go this or that way."

Q10: Do you have some secret or habit that you're embarrassed about so much that you wouldn't want to tell of it to anyone?

"I don't really have skeletons in my closet like that... Well, this is a bit dumb, but the thing that I'm sometimes afraid to do, is: I like to put ketchup on everything. I put ketchup in meat soup, too. Once I was in a fancy steak restaurant, a great steak in front of me, and I thought, damn I'd kill for some ketchup now. But there were people around, certain type of steak enthusiasts, that I couldn't do it, because people would've judged it really hard. Yeah, maybe it's about being from Vantaa! [laughter]"

Käärijä's make-up and hair: Tiia Loikkanen

Photography digitech: Pauli Boström

Photography: Ville Malja

Original writer: Jose Riikonen

[little-drop-of-water]

I've finally had the chance to listen to People's Champion in order and I have some thoughts that have been going around my head. Actually, this idea first came when I listened to Sex=Money.

The lines about the therapist seem a bit confusing. Some think he's talking about his own therapist making money out of his situation. Others think he's talking about therapists as a group and that people in Finland are so shocked from him going from "family fierndly" to R rated that they ended up going to therapy.

I think the second take might be closer to what he meant, but of course is not meant to be taken literally. It's an exageration about the way people have overreacted to him moving away from his ESC "family friendly" phase and going back to his most usual not meant for children content.

But then again, the therapist is an interesting character, because they're making lots of money from the situation (they got themselves a brand new Volvo with turbo) at a very low risk to them. And that got me thinking, there's been a group of people that have benefited from Käärijä's fame in a similar way that the therapist does in the song: the media.

This idea that the therapist might be a metaphor for the media/journalists makes more sense to me after Skit and Autiomaa came out.

Skit hit hard on a personal level, even before I read the translation. This is because I overthink a lot and have a hard time forming coherent sentences, so when someone interrupts me when I speak, is really frustrating. Skit reminded me of a bad interview more than a therapy sesion. Think Kelly Clarkson's talk show, where she interrupts her guests and never lets them finish what they want to say. The therapist does exactly that. He behaves like a very unprofessional journalist (you know, like the ones Jere has had to deal with). Not only he interrupts Jere, he also makes assuptions based on what little Jere is able to blurt out before being interrupted again. An actual therapist (or an actual journalist for that matter) would never behave that way.

In Autiomaa, he talks about what he's been going through the last couple of years, how he's been feeling and how he wants to be listened. And then in the MV, the therapist...doesn't pay attention to him. He only takes a picture of him and continues to ignore him. The only notes he takes are "funny guy" and "not married :p", everything else in his note pad are doodles. This is very similar to the way the media has reduced Jere to "the funny party guy" and only care to take his picture, even when he doesn't want to.

So, basically, like the therapist character in the album, the media has done the same things to Jere:

There's a part of the video where Jere and the therapist are watching the headlines about Käärijä. Jere looks uncomfortable,  but the therapist seems to be the one making him watch (not as extreme as in A Clockwork Orange, but he's still forcing him to a point). This reminded me of the times journalists have dug into Jere's past for totally unnecesary reasons, like the time they found out how much he earned in 2022 or when someone else reminded him that he had to sell his moustache and then telling him how far along he's come from that.

*Not paid attention to the deeper meaning of his lyrics, reducing his work to just "party music".

*Reduce him to a cartoonish or clownish character.

*Remind him of unpleasant moments of his past for unnecesary reasons.

*And on top of that, cashed a lot of money from his fame.

[mint-ty]

I just think people judge too goddamn fast nowadays. 🙁 How does it teach a person if we cancel them and won’t let them learn? Since when has hate been a productive way to achieve peace? And how does it make peace in gaza if we hate Käärijä, a totally innocent person, here on the internet, send him thousands of hate mails and cancel him? Our behaviour only polarizes the world more, and yet one more individual is been pushed down and crushed. He needs our support, we live and learn together here as human beings.

good morning anon, how is the hangover?🙂 I hope everyone had a bit of sleep..

I think the judgment came from receiving a punch to the stomach from seeing that video, so it wasn't too sudden, even if we now know Käärijä was set up (I mean, duh). I fully agree that cancelling people is not the way and it does breed hate snowball (sidenote: I'm all for cancelling corporations tho 👍 they can handle.), the reactions I've seen here on Tumblr have been very appropriate and understanding, and majority has been already said, so I want to hug everyone because ugh this will stick and I love you all🫂 I don't use twt but I can only imagine what's there from the comments I've seen on Kä's ig :/

By trying not to get caught in the middle of this esc shitstorm Jere got caught in the worst possible way. So in a way we're all upset because we haven't given up on him. He knows it was a mistake, we know it was a mistake, everyone around him know it was a mistake. He did learn something from the flag incident and it seems have spoken with his team before making any rash decisions. I believe he'll learn a lot from yesterday too.

And anon you touch a really good point - how does it make peace? ESC is a pond and it will be over in few days. War won't. So it's very important to continue with advocacy for palestinians by pressuring politicians and businesses who have actual influence.

This situation also reminds me of family psichology, forgot the term, but it's about how and why your loved one sometimes would lash out or say very hurtful things, when they would never say that to others. And it's because they feel safe to get angry in the presence of you and at you. I think this is very similar and many of us feel like Käärijä, and fans by proxy, is our family and we feel safe to express our hurt and that we will be heard.

But again it's important to remember that here we're all on the same side and if anyone really really wants to send hate mail - well then esc account is much better recipient as an example 💩