#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

[tuituipupu]

don’t remember if i posted this photo here from the october london gig but also the caption… that was so weird hhh

[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.

[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)

[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.

[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

[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

[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 💩

[nanoa1foryou]

It’s interesting that a song where Käärijä openly criticizes the constant pressure from the media, to the point of namedropping a famous tabloid to elevate his point, is with Elastinen.

Ela has taken a break from the public life in the past to focus on his private life, and continues to keep significant parts of it, such as his family life, private. Ela’s verse focuses largely on being now on top, past the point of needing to prove himself while still wanting more. At the same time he points out that this kind of lifestyle is extreme.

On the other hand Jere’s opens up about the constant pressure that comes with it, of never getting a break due to the continuous search for more, and wondering where to draw that line.

They are at two very different point of their respective journeys, but both reach the same conclusions. That no one does it like them and that they want to keep doing what they do.

[the-converse-high-top]

Another Käärijä Research Project

aka: käärijä style-shifting project

as a preface, here are my (non) qualifications for this project and the circumstances under which it happened:

I am a linguistics student, and this past semester I took a course on sociolinguistics. the goal of this project was to become familiar with the concept of and analyze style-shifting (it's more commonly known as code-switching online but theres a difference and this is style-shifting), specifically by analyzing the speech of one person. We had the option to study oprah or to have someone else approved by my prof, so you know I had to ask my prof if I could study jere. This project is solely my intellectual property; even though I had a tutor help me a lot, everything written in this paper and on this post was my work alone.

now, on to the actual findings! the full paper and transcripts will be linked at the end :D

the actual variables (words or sounds) that I studied were the pronunciation of r, and use of the word "the".

to make things a lot easier from the get-go, i'm going to introduce you all to one of my favorite websites, ipachart.com (the international phonetic alphabet [ipa] chart is a big chart with an entry for every sound that exists in a language. this handy dandy website has an audio recording for each one of those sounds).

go to this website, and then scroll down to the table. go to the column labeled "post alveolar" and then click on ɾ and ɹ. those are the sounds i studied in this paper! ɾ is the finnish r and ɹ is the american r :)

so basically what i did to find instances of my variable was i just looked up a bunch of esc interviews and listened out for use of the different r sounds. i also transcribed the entire dinner date live because i love torture apparently :) the specific interviews and lives/stories are in the bibliography of the paper :p

after i transcribed all the interviews and lives/stories i went through and highlighted every instance of the r sound. then i calculated the ratios of ɾ to ɹ based on the context they were spoken in. the two contexts i looked for were formal contexts (sit-down interviews) and informal contexts (literally anything else).

i found that jere uses ɹ WAY more often in formal contexts than he does in informal contexts, and the same in reverse with ɾ.

i then went back to the transcripts and looked for all instances of the word "the". i also looked for instances where i thought it should be present, but was omitted. i calculated the ratio of present vs omitted "the"s in formal vs informal contexts and made some charts.

the graph with the smaller black section is "use of 'the' in formal settings" and the one with the smaller green section is "use of 'the' in informal settings" (the images are transparent, sorry)

i found that jere uses "the" WAY more often when in formal settings! there were also some instances where he added a "the" where it was unnecessary, which is studied at length in this wonderful paper by @alien-girl-21

something i also noticed that i elected not to study because this paper took enough energy on its own was that in formal contexts, whenever the "or" sound came in the middle or at the end of a word, jere wouldn't pronounce the r. it stuck out to me mostly because i heard words like "performance" turning into "perfomance", which i thought was an interesting quirk.

unfortunately i was somewhat limited by both my brainpower and capacity to do more work on this paper in the relatively short timeframe i was given (2 weeks) and the fact that i was given a 5 page MAX for this paper (not including a bibliography). i had a lot of fun doing this though and am definitely planning on studying jere for for academic credit again in the future if given the chance!

also i would like it to be known that i spent an hour searching for that 5 second clip of the urheilucast where jere said that he used to sell kitchens and understands english better than he can speak it.

link to a google drive folder with the actual paper i wrote and the transcripts of the interviews with notation:

please feel free to send me asks and dms with questions or comments about this paper! i absolutely love rambling about linguistics :3!!

[jedibinx]

Part THREE of JediBinx's expulsion of everything she's been bottling up for god knows how long and its all coming out now because shes finally snapped:

I cant even begin to express my confusion over everything I feel about käärijä. Like, yeah, I'm 35, but I only found out I'm autistic last year when I burnt the fuck out and käärijä has become a special interest of mine.

Everything I do, writing, crafting, whatever, its all related to käärijä in some way, minimum is his colour palette is involved in some way.

Still feels weird. Sorry, but it does. I've been told my whole life that it's weird to be obsessed with one thing and it's wrong to be so into something that I'm trying to purposefully branch out and do things non käärijä related.

Why tf should I have to do this? Fuck you, society, I enjoy my special interest and yes I will continue to surround myself in käärijä crafts and collect pictures and videos of him like I'm collecting beanie babies.

Fuck your expectations, I ain't living down to them no more, I'm doing what I want, when I want and the future is käärijä.

[kidvoodoo]

Solitaire

The long drive from the airport passed by with a dizzying blur and Joost found himself barely taking in the scenery of the snowy streets, preferring instead to be captivated by the man in the back of the limo with him.

Käärijä. The upstart his own ex-boss had been complaining about not even a year ago. This was his savior and temporary bodyguard. He didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.

‘He’s so much different than I pictured…’ he thought to himself. The man couldn’t be older than his early thirties, he was expecting some grizzled Fin with hard eyes and an even harsher demeanor, not an eccentrically stylish man with eyeliner, silver piercings and a bowl cut…

But the man, for all his oddities, was surprisingly warm.

He patched Joost up without question, risked his life and the lives of his people just to get the Dutchman out of danger. Joost doesn’t get it, doesn’t understand even in the slightest. He barely has a chance to process anything from the last twenty-four hours.

“Um,” he softly clears his voice, “I was gonna ask, where is a good place for me to lie low for a while? I have some cash I can use to pay rent…”

Käärijä looks at him with a puzzled expression, Joost shrinks a little under the stare.

“Why you need to rent? You coming to my place of course.”

Joost’s eyebrows shoot up and he nearly drops his glass of brandy.

“Wha-ah wait, I couldn’t do that, I would be bringing danger directly to you if I’m found out!”

The other man snorts a laugh, his eyes glinting with amusement.

“You think I scared of old Dutch gangsters? They are afraid of me! Besides, you try and go into hiding and they probably find you anyway.” He shrugs nonchalantly, as if he hasn’t just declared war on the entire Western Mafia.

“They always gonna find you, but they are stupid to try and take you while I’m watching,” he grins, those sharp canines giving his expression a vicious edge.

“Not the first time they try and cross me, now their men underneath a frozen swamp in pieces.”

Joost swallows, he forgot for a moment this isn’t just an excitable newcomer with a deathwish, he’s the Nordic Crime Lord for a reason. You don’t get far in the Underworld if you can’t get your hands dirty and bare your teeth.

“Still…it’s an imposition. I can’t in good conscience accept more help from yo-“

“Shh! Enough.” He silences Joost with a sharp word. “I say you are coming with me, you are staying at my compound. It is safest place in Finland I promise.”

Käärijä leans forward and fixes his gaze on Joost, much softer than before.

“Tommy doesn’t vouch for a lot of people. I hear you take two million from your former boss. I don’t know why you did it, maybe you need the money, but I do know a clever money man when I meet one.”

He smiles, he looks almost too sweet and genuine to have just been talking about butchered people and tossing their remains in a swamp.

“It take a lot of guts to do what you did Mr. Klein. We need people like you in the Union, if not as members, than at least allies.”

Joost drops his gaze to the ground.

“I didn’t steal the money for myself,” he says under his breath, ‘Am I really going to admit this right now?’

“What you do with it?”

“I emptied sixteen accounts and forwarded it over to INTERPOL, the two million is what the investigation is willing to discuss publicly.”

He looks up into Käärijä’s eyes and almost bashfully admits it.

“The total sum is around two Billion.”

<><><>

The rest of the journey was spent in silence, Käärijä seemed to adopt a more thoughtful demeanor as he no doubt was processing the depth of Joost’s gambit. He doesn’t blame the man, it still sounds absolutely absurd when he says it out loud.

Absurd, dangerous, stupid…

But does he regret it?

The scenery changes and it’s a while before Joost realizes they aren’t in Helsinki proper anymore. His abysmal grasp of the Finnish language isn’t helping as they pass sign after sign, the only one slightly recognizable is a larger sign displaying the name ‘Vantaa’.

Käärijä must have caught his puzzled look, as the man is beaming with pride when Joost turns to face him again.

“My city, my rules.”

Joost manages a shy smile of his own.

“I’ve always wanted to see Finland…didn’t think it would be like this of course.”

The gangster chuckles, Joost is caught off guard by the casual openness of it all.

“No worries, you gonna have a good time, a lot of fun things around here!”

“Have a good time fearing for my life you mean?” He means it in a joking way, but the concern on Käärijä’s face is evident.

“Hey, I promise you I keep you safe okay? I don’t break promises, and if I do? You can steal my money, I give you 10 seconds head start.” He winks and Joost can’t help but smile at the man, for someone supposedly so dangerous, he jokes around a lot.

A little while later the vehicle descends deeper into the city, the sky had quickly fallen dark and the twinkling lights of the streets and buildings illuminate the snowy walkways. The people are scarce on the streets, the occasional gaggle of pub-goers making their way around town seem unaffected by the cold and icy night.

“Here,” Käärijä says, tapping the glass of the window and gesturing outside. “This my place.”

Joost looks out the window at an imposing high rise building, towering twelve stories at least above the snow covered streets; It’s bright blue lighting casts a cold glow over the block, it’s massive, illuminated and worst of all, highly visible.

This…this is the hideout?!

The Finnish gangster grins and before Joost has a moment to process his now increasingly troubling situation, he’s being ushered out of the back of the car and into the frigid wintery night, up the short flight of stairs to the entrance where another bald gentleman in a black suit is waiting to open the door and welcome them inside.

His eyes adjust to the bright lights of the…lobby? The floors are a white marble and the walls equally as stark. Aside from a couple of comfortable and trendy looking leather couches, the ground floor is empty of any decorative features. At the back of the large room is a double set of silver elevator doors and sat in front of them is a concierge-type of desk. Its matte black surface stands out against the stark white room as does the figure sitting behind the desk.

Another bald man…could they be triplets? No, on further inspection Joost realizes they all seem to resemble each other, but not perfectly, not identically.

Brothers?

Joost startles and lets out an undignified yelp as the bald man who let them through the door grabs his shoulders and begins patting him down without a word.

“Hey! What are-“

“You really should have done this before he got in the car, Jere…”

Another presence startles him further causing the bald man to squeeze his shoulder threateningly.

“Be still.” The man growls. Joost freezes.

His attention is drawn back to a tutting noise, a taller blond man casually strolls up to the three, his hands in the pockets of his navy blue suit pants. He’s wearing a relaxed style shirt in crisp white and sports an easy grin. Around his neck is an expensive looking black camera, the man’s face looks…similar to-

“Jakko, relax. I don’t think Jere would let a spree shooter in the building, no matter how much of an air head he is.”

“Fuck off Mikke,” Käärijä snarls beside him, petulantly crossing his arms. “I know what I am doing.”

“Don’t let him fool you,” the blonde man winks at Joost and holds out his hand expectantly. “It’s lovely to meet you Mr. Klein, I’m Mikke, the boss’s older brother, welcome to the Union headquarters.”

The man grasps his hand for a firm albeit friendly greeting just as the bald man, Jakko apparently, digs out the meager belongings Joost had somewhat hidden in his suit’s inner pocket.

“H-Hey! That’s-“

He’s doesn’t have time to react before his wallet, phone and little vial of pills are passed off to Käärijä.

“We get you set up with secure phone card yes?” He says matter-of-factly, checking the edges of the device for any obvious tampering or bugging. “You smart to not turn it on yet.”

“Thanks I guess, but-“

“Mr Klein,” the blond man interrupts. “Look over here.”

Joost does, and is for the moment blinded by a flash of white light, having had his photo taken by the man’s black camera completely unexpectedly.

“Hey, wha-“

“For your fake ID, we’ll have it ready for you by tomorrow, also we can get you anything else document-wise within the next three days so please let me or any of the staff know! Good to meet you!” And without another word, the blond man is gone out the door behind him.

What the fuck is happening?!

“Come, let’s get upstairs okay? We have a lot of things to do before the night is over.” Käärijä says to him, passing his phone back but holding onto the wallet and pills.

He doesn’t have a moment to breathe or process anything as they make their way over to the elevators, a quick nod from the bald man at the front desk relays some unspoken information to the mafia boss and the sound of the elevator dinging echos in the empty lobby.

Loading into the elevator, Joost takes in the panel of floor numbers . Thirteen floors in total, one labeled as a basement beneath the building, the top floor button has a number pad next to it, off limits to anyone without the code.

“Fifty Euros? That’s all you have?” Käärijä asks in a shocked tone, he’s digging through Joost’ wallet now. “You say you have money for rent? This not enough!”

Joost moves to yank the wallet out of the Fins hand but one look from Jakko behind his dark shades and his hand lowers. He still resolves to clear his throat and holds out his palm in a gesture of polite request.

“May I please have my wallet back? There isn’t anything dangerous in there I promise, I shredded my ID and bank cards. I was planning on fencing some information for additional funds.”

Käärijä cocks a disbelieving eyebrow at that as he pulls out the only other thing in Joost’s wallet, an old folded up Polaroid.

“Wait! Please don’t-“ he begs, the gangster takes one look at Joost’s face and his desperate tone must have struck something, because the man is carefully tucking the photo back in and returning his wallet and phone.

“Sorry, Mikke was right I should have checked sooner.” His tone is apologetic and Joost sighs, pocketing his phone and wallet again.

“It’s…it’s fine, really. I understand you can’t be too careful in this business. And I appreciate everything you’ve done for me.” He offers a shy smile, awkwardly rubbing the back of his neck. Käärijä pats him on the shoulder and the elevator dings to announce their arrival to the eleventh floor, the silver double doors parting to reveal new space.

The space is huge, penthouse sized with clean looking floors and expensive, elegant furnishings. The lighting is studio style with the sliders able to accommodate whatever level of visibility is needed, for now it’s a soft glow that doesn’t strain the eyes. The windows are large and have a breathtaking view of the cityscape below, there is a full sized kitchen, an alcove off to side where the bedroom and bathroom must reside, a comfortable looking leather couch, a desk, dinner table and chairs, a frankly ridiculously large flatscreen tv…

It’s…very nice.

“Here it is!” Käärijä claps his gloved hands together and practically drags Joost into the space, his excitement evident. “We getting you a new laptop and there is plenty of food if you are hungry, oh! Here is the bedroom, you have a great view of the river, we get your phone working tomorrow don’t worry-“

Joost can’t help but sputter in amusement a little at the man’s energetic enthusiasm, for a moment he forgets he’s being hunted by the most dangerous gangsters in all of Western Europe and instead lets himself be whisked away by the gangster. He forgets he’s in the company of the man upheaving one hundred years of underworld tradition, he forgets, as he looks out the window of his new bedroom at the glittering lights of the city below, dots of yellow and gold reflecting off the snowy cityscape. He nearly gasps at the beauty in the night.

“You want to hang onto these?” Käärijä asks from behind him, Joost turns and sees the man holding his little bottle of pills, a soft yet sad look on his face.

“Oh, I…I guess I should.” Joost stammers, staring down at the two little pills. He nearly forgot he had these. His just-in-case. Last resort.

“You know,” Käärijä says quietly, taking a second to choose his words wisely. “I hope you can be comfortable here. I am sorry this all happening.”

“But my place is right above, you can use call button by elevator if you need anything, okay?”

Joost feels almost guilty in this moment, it’s obvious Käärijä knows what is in the bottle but he won’t say it aloud. The man has risked his life for him, taken him in and is using all his collected resources to protect him. And here Joost is taking back the bottle.

Like he would thank the man with the gift of his corpse.

“Um,” Joost begins, taking it all in. “I really do want to thank you. I don’t have…many friends out there, at least not many who would go out of their way to help me like this…”

You don’t have any friends anymore, you robbed them blind and put a target on your head.

“So if there is anything I can do to repay you, please let me know. I don’t want to just take something without returning in kind.”

Käärijä looks into his eyes and a smile blossoms on his face though the sadness in his eyes stays. He squeezes Joost’s hand, the bottle of pills a barrier between them but the warmth in there radiating through the leather glove he wears. Joost can’t help but blush a little.

“The only thing you need to do is relax now, we gonna take care of this okay? Tomorrow I give you actual tour of the place, we get your phone secure and get you ID card.” He gives Joost’s hand one last squeeze and then he’s heading towards the door, Jakko standing vigilantly by the elevator waiting for him.

Joost watches him go, the bottle still clenched in his hand. The glass is warm as is his palm.

The man gives one last wave goodbye before the elevator doors close and it begins to descend, leaving Joost in the quiet of his new residence.

He takes a minute to let it all sink in. In twenty-four hours, his life has completely shattered and was simultaneously reconstructed in an instant. From the moment he ended the phone call with Tommy, his heart hasn’t stopped pounding and the eventual adrenaline drain finally begins to make his body tremble.

He needs to sit down.

He all but collapses on the bed, his bed, with the dark blue duvet cover and soft looking white pillows and stared at the ceiling, feeling the manic fight-or-flight instinct dissolving in his blood.

Minutes passed, maybe hours. Joost’s mind calms and he takes in his surroundings properly. There is a bedside table with a small reading lamp, next to it is an ashtray with a pack of unopened cigarettes and a lighter.

It’s his usual brand.

He should probably be more concerned about that, how could Käärijä know that? If Tommy is their only mutual contact, a man he has only ever communicated with long distance, who did Käärijä have in place to know this information?

He’s too tired to care as he reaches over and opens the pack, shrugging off his suit jacket and carelessly tossing it on the floor. Lighting up a cigarette, he stares at the bandage on his hand, the non-functioning phone on the bed, the little bottle of pills…

The photo is old and creased, the edges of the Polaroid turning yellow with age. There is a skinny boy with a head of bright blond hair and a huge smile on his face, his front left tooth missing, his second baby tooth to go that year. His glasses are busted on one side, held together with tape and willpower alone. He sports a striped polo shirt that has grass stains all over it, a result of his recent roughhousing in the field behind his home. Behind him is a man giving holding up two fingers behind the boy’s head, a mocking bunny ears gesture and a jovial expression on his face. He shares the same jawline as the kid, same smile and same joy.

Joost exhales a plume of smoke and looks out into the darkness of the night, the sea of lights below seemed miles away.

What have I gotten myself into now?

<><><>

Hey! I am now posting this story on ao3! Come check it out and leave a comment if you like!

[izpira-se-zlato]

Berlin, 16.10.23

Also very haphazard and partial gig report:

fuck him for singling me out, I had suddenly never worked a job in my life 😂 (he asked me what job I worked. I told him "IT" after a lot of pointing to make sure he really meant me, but he just understood that I made tea, so I mimed typing. And he went "aaah! Computer things! So you're the smart one. Not like me, I'm the monkey." (Paraphrased because aaaaah)

I'm so so happy I got to see bulbasaur cap! Käärijä in person

he threw water into the audience near the start (not the CCC water) and a few droplets caught me. Much better than with a detour through Bojan's mouth

I felt a little bad for the girl next to me filming hhh because I was excitedly yelling along 😂

the girls during icip were so good? And he interacted with them in such a lovely way? Recreated the weird run where Tommy chases him across the stage, and they all fell to the floor, and idk if Käärijä just wanted to fistbump them, but they pulled him up from the floor and he just. Did not cooperate a lot 😂 so they remarked (bc they still had the microphone) "oof, he's heavy"

he was also so so careful to get consent before touching either of the girls on stage, but in a way that felt like he just Does That? He'd also told us that we're a family and that we should kiss each other, bit that you need to ask before you kiss someone and if they say no, you don't miss them, simple as that (unsure if the family bit and kissing bit were the same banter segment)

Jesse had to come in stage and do… Idek what it was. Oh! Open a water bottle for him 😂 that was a lovely little moment

the coat?? Actually looks really awesome irl?? I did not expect that

I got a Häärijä high five at the barrier 😭

bald cap Häärijä is… Something 😂

Jesse was so good natured about us cheering him on setting up the stage 😂

he was so so touched by the number of people singing along

we chanted voittaja for him 😍

icip slays live so fucking much Holy shit

I was drenched after the concert. I jumped a whole lot (and have already seen myself on Mikke footage 😂) and I will be dead tomorrow but I think it will have been worth it

apparently he was still asleep at doors, which might have been the cause for the delay? Or 1 hour simply being a little short to get 1.6k people into the room

Jesse told the people still waiting (not us, I was already asleep at the time) to please not ask for autographs when Käärijä went to the bus but they all got handshakes and apparently a thank you speech

Salena came on stage but she didn't really know any lyrics, and a nice Finnish woman I talked to in the queue told me afterwards, “such a shame, she was so unprepared, you could wake Bojan in the middle of the night and he'd be able to just go rankka viikko ja paljon…”

I didn't actually see a lot of Salena at the beginning because we were all squatted down

I stepped on so many toes while jumping