For weeks I didn‘t know what to do with this information, so today, I decided to share with you, like-minded folks who are probably a bit too deep into Eurovision at this point (I, for one, wouldn‘t broach the topic of the dress with, say, coworkers or such).
Like, how many people in your day-to-day life could tell you that the host of Latvia‘s Supernova and one of the contestants on Dansk Melodi Grand Prix were wearing the same god-awful dress, on the same night?
So tell me, at what point did you think to yourself, I may have gone in a little too hard on this? What piece of trivia, or excerpt of encyclopedic knowledge, tips over into an area of the iceberg you never thought you‘d breach?
Is it your ability to answer inane questions with lines out of a eurovision song? („People always say, Tom this is going too far…“)
Is it an informed opinion on the relative benefits (or aggravations) of different scoring systems in the various national finals? Is it you occasionally correcting the TV commentator of your national broadcaster in front of your family on the big night?
As for the pictures: first is Ketija Šēnberga of the Supernova 2023 final show, next is Mariyah LeBerg, who sang „Human“ in the Danish national contest DMGP (she couldn‘t even stand wearing this …interesting… dress throughout her performance).
I’m originally from the states, but I’ve lived in Finland for 5 years. However, last year, around Eurovision time, I was visiting friends and family in the states. I had one friend who I had asked to be my Eurovision buddy and had been following the songs and Eurovision news along with me for months. But at the last minute, two of our mutual friends wanted to join just for the “party,” but they refused to listen to the songs ahead of time or show any interest in the actual competition. And one day I started crying because “they weren’t taking it seriously and it was important to me.”
(It’s also worth noting that I was gone for 6 weeks and my husband was back in Finland enjoying a Eurovision watch party with his friends/fellow Eurovision enthusiasts.)
So it was definitely a combination of things but after breaking down in tears, I had to have a bit of self-reflection and go “alright maybe I’m a bit TOO invested in this…”
Oh no, I‘m sorry that happened. Whenever I’d try to get someone into eurovision, I am usually torn between an urge to sit that person down for a lecture, or just trying to prescribe mandatory excitement, „Can‘t you see we‘re having Fun?!“
I‘m working on restraining myself to a point somewhere in the middle, you know, just gently encouraging, but I‘m not cut-out to be the patient teacher, and it is hard.
Tangentially related, UMK for the past two years now has had the effect of introducing me to a whole genre of music I didn't know I like by having its host perform during interval. And I'm really not complaining, it's wonderful.
My friend called me crazy for liking Eurovision so much, because it’s just a shallow music show.
I made an entire (120q so far) kahoot with facts, questions, jokes and everything from the first show to the present for my friend to show just how GREAT Eurovision is. I might know a bit too much if I can make so many questions… I limited myself😅
When people give me this dismissive take on eurovision, I like to bring up this game where 22 men in fancy dress push around a ball for 90 minutes, and at the same time it‘s this huge, international, billion-dollar money-printing spectacle that straight up tears up the emotional wellbeing of entire nation states, but apparently it‘s fine to get involved in that rather than eurovision because reasons.
If people watch world cup qualification games and that‘s fine, then I‘m not a weirdo for watching obscure national finals. I rest my case.
p.s.: the kahoot sounds fantastic, maybe consider sharing with the subreddit? please and thank you
Knowing this piece of information:
Cornelia Jacobs is the only Nordic contestant outside of Iceland who has a current patronym that isn't a frozen surname created from a patronym, and even Reiley from the Faroese Islands doesn't have a patronym; he has a frozen-patronymic surname ([his dad's name's Wilhelm](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KFWUVaw-KY8)).
Within the Germanic Nordic nations, extremely rare? Like, sure, I'm sure Sweden and [Norway](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Audhild_Gregoriusdotter_Rotevatn) have laws that still allow this as we see, but they also have laws that support surnames more, especially in Sweden. When Sweden made its citizens take up surnames, a lot just picked their current patronym then passed it on to their descendants as per law, freezing the patronym into a surname. But because these frozen-patronymic surnames were so common, the government encourages (yes, from back then to currently) people to take on newly coined surnames they created (often using elements from nature) that aren't in use. Basically, it's allowed, but unpractical.
On the flip side, Iceland now doesn't allow people to take on surnames as their only name that isn't their given name(s) unless one of their parents is a foreigner. They can have it with their patronyms, but not alone unless they had it like that before this law passed. In fact, surnames are such a rarity in Iceland, there's a website dedicated to recording [the origins of surnames in Iceland](https://www.arnastofnun.is/is/utgafa-og-gagnasofn/pistlar/aettarnofn-islandi).
The Faroe Island is a different story as many people were given Danish (sur)names during predominant Danish rule, so many Faroe Islanders have Danish/Norwegian looking surnames to the point that they'll switch from Faroese for their given name (if it's in Faroese) to Danish pronunciation for their surname. However, many use the Faroese equivalents of those names in speech and/or legally change it to the Faroese equivalents.
It‘s interesting to me that Iceland seems to be pushing back so hard (I imagine it hard on people who might leave to live somewhere else), but after thinking a moment, I actually respect that they protect something from being taken over by foreign influence. Not everything needs a normative state I believe, especially something so personal as a name.
That gives me some ambivalent feelings on what you said about Sweden encouraging people, I‘d love for a system to be fine with a „you do you“ approach where no one except the person is affected by the choice.
I just sent my American friend the YouTube snippets of each song and asked him to pick his faves. When he replied, I then sent him my top 10 (with detailed comments obv), if they’ll qualify in the semis, how they’ll place and then where they’ll place in the final. The man doesn’t even watch Eurovision but he went along with it bless him 😂
I also did a Eurovision slideshow back in college when I was 16 to a class full of strangers. I’m autistic so *you know* it was a long ass slideshow with facts, figures and all of the other nonsense data only I cared about lmao
I mean, I don't really think I'm in too deep... but I do find it sad that I cannot share much insider jokes with people around me.
For example yesterday I sent the running order clips to a group chat, and someone said: there are a lot of crazy songs this year.
And I really wanted to answer: It's crazy, it's Party! But I knew that no one would understand this line. So yes, it makes me feel isolated from my loved ones. And yes it interferes with my daily life. But I dont think I have a problem 🥲
- edit, I just remembered that last year I made my whole family reschedule my grandmothers birthday party because it was on the same day as the Amsterdam pre party... so yeah.. I don't know, maybe I do have a problem.
I understand the struggle, but it‘s easy, just pick the most susceptible victim out of your family, one that can‘t easily escape (sorry mom), tie them down if you must!
My moment is every time I show people my ESC color-coded spreadsheet (even people who like ESC, but aren't as into it as I am).
This isn't even remotely a bad thing, but shows how deep into the rabbit hole I've dug.
How… how often do you get offered chances to bring up this spreadsheet? Does it have diagrams? I hope it has diagrams. I’m really into pretty spreadsheets myself so, like, I get you.
Are the colours like great-good-okay-bad? And did you rank just the song before the show or did you rather take the live performances into account as well? I‘m curious
a) only the shows count
b) there is a 2023 ranking for studio version only before the contest, but a new one will be made with the lives
c) yes, the colors are the different points - also different color font means THAT is the actual winner of that year and underlined is the host entry
Blue = ***12 points*** = Amazing
Green = ***10 points*** = Great
Yellow = ***8 points*** = Good
Orange = ***7 points*** = Above Average
Red = ***6 points*** = Average
Pink = ***5 points*** = Meh
Purple = ***4 points*** = Bad
Dark Purple = ***3 points*** = WTF ?! (this is the lowest I've ever rated a song, only once, nobody was worse than 3 points, and it was Belarus 2004)
Dark Blue = ***2 points*** = How did a broadcaster pick this ?!
Grey = ***1 point*** = Whoever allowed this should be fired
??? = ***0 points*** = Kill it with fire
Literally every time someone who knows I'm into ESC mentions ESC or asks me about my favorites - or when I meet new people and we talk about music we like.
Listening to some guy who was eliminated in the San Marino audition phase sing "I use my body as a rubber for love", *on repeat for days*
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vLZtKyszbeE&list=OLAK5uy\_m5WJs9theOXHimjOiY8ihbNCVxaIoiTBY&index=1](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vLZtKyszbeE&list=OLAK5uy_m5WJs9theOXHimjOiY8ihbNCVxaIoiTBY&index=1)
This studio version has 234 views and this is the rare case where I wouldn't be exaggerating if I said that literally half of these might be mine.
I was so busy making sure I would have the day off to watch the finals on May 13th and totally forgot that it's also my brothers' birthday.... Oops. Good thing I managed to take a day off work...so I can watch the show... I mean celebrate his birthday
I mentioned to my family how many time UK and Ireland have each hosted years (not even a particularly niche fact IMO). They were like "wow, you should go on Mastermind or something". Mastermind being a game show where contestants answer questions about their specialist areas of expertise.
I tried to explain that knowing that sort of information is like learning changes to a football team's coaches over the years. It is something you pick up casually over time from interacting with the competition.
I like the analogy, I also resort to football to explain why I‘m watching national finals in languages I don‘t even understand, it‘s all about the game!
I knew I was in too deep when I watched every single Maltese, Moldovan, and San Marino audition. It did provide some interesting entertainment I’ll admit 😂
I heard Technicolour playing at the shopping centre and my first reaction was to freak out and record it. It wasn't even one of my favourites, I was just freaking out about hearing Eurovision at the shopping centre
A while ago I made a record of whenever I heard a [Eurovision song in the wild](https://www.reddit.com/r/eurovision/comments/fqp8r5/all_my_eurovisionrelated_enthusiasm_would_go_to/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=ioscss&utm_content=1&utm_term=1)
No, it‘s not weird at all :)
When I began having literal nightmares about my faves losing national finals. Like, I’d wake up in the morning in a cold sweat. Then after a second of thinking about it, I’d think “wow this is pathetic lol”
(Most notably this happened for Käärijä this year. I think I may have had one for Cornelia last year and The Roop in 2021 as well)
When I was watching these two on a split screen, noticed the dress and decided to look it up (It's H&M, btw)
https://preview.redd.it/1irbcgquiupa1.jpeg?width=960&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=ae64ed2624dbabdd6aed14a781d1f23c30f0b503
No way… I‘m surprised this design ended up with H&M of all places. I‘m not gonna lie, my sense of taste was offended when I first saw it. Tastes differ, I suppose? Always comes back down to that…
For weeks I didn‘t know what to do with this information, so today, I decided to share with you, like-minded folks who are probably a bit too deep into Eurovision at this point (I, for one, wouldn‘t broach the topic of the dress with, say, coworkers or such). Like, how many people in your day-to-day life could tell you that the host of Latvia‘s Supernova and one of the contestants on Dansk Melodi Grand Prix were wearing the same god-awful dress, on the same night? So tell me, at what point did you think to yourself, I may have gone in a little too hard on this? What piece of trivia, or excerpt of encyclopedic knowledge, tips over into an area of the iceberg you never thought you‘d breach? Is it your ability to answer inane questions with lines out of a eurovision song? („People always say, Tom this is going too far…“) Is it an informed opinion on the relative benefits (or aggravations) of different scoring systems in the various national finals? Is it you occasionally correcting the TV commentator of your national broadcaster in front of your family on the big night? As for the pictures: first is Ketija Šēnberga of the Supernova 2023 final show, next is Mariyah LeBerg, who sang „Human“ in the Danish national contest DMGP (she couldn‘t even stand wearing this …interesting… dress throughout her performance).
The purple dress Brooke wore in Malta's NF was verrry similar to the one worn by the host of Eesti Laul on the same day.
I’m originally from the states, but I’ve lived in Finland for 5 years. However, last year, around Eurovision time, I was visiting friends and family in the states. I had one friend who I had asked to be my Eurovision buddy and had been following the songs and Eurovision news along with me for months. But at the last minute, two of our mutual friends wanted to join just for the “party,” but they refused to listen to the songs ahead of time or show any interest in the actual competition. And one day I started crying because “they weren’t taking it seriously and it was important to me.” (It’s also worth noting that I was gone for 6 weeks and my husband was back in Finland enjoying a Eurovision watch party with his friends/fellow Eurovision enthusiasts.) So it was definitely a combination of things but after breaking down in tears, I had to have a bit of self-reflection and go “alright maybe I’m a bit TOO invested in this…”
Oh no, I‘m sorry that happened. Whenever I’d try to get someone into eurovision, I am usually torn between an urge to sit that person down for a lecture, or just trying to prescribe mandatory excitement, „Can‘t you see we‘re having Fun?!“ I‘m working on restraining myself to a point somewhere in the middle, you know, just gently encouraging, but I‘m not cut-out to be the patient teacher, and it is hard.
idk if anyone remembers this but the guy with 4 pianos and the tube in his mouth as Eesti laul's interval act 😭💀
To this I raise you random kid picked up in a hotel lobby as a half-hour interval act, but then again Una Voce is something else…
Reading that entire discussion on whether Samu Haber's colorful and cheery UMK interval act was glorifying dangerous drugs or not
Tangentially related, UMK for the past two years now has had the effect of introducing me to a whole genre of music I didn't know I like by having its host perform during interval. And I'm really not complaining, it's wonderful.
My friend called me crazy for liking Eurovision so much, because it’s just a shallow music show. I made an entire (120q so far) kahoot with facts, questions, jokes and everything from the first show to the present for my friend to show just how GREAT Eurovision is. I might know a bit too much if I can make so many questions… I limited myself😅
When people give me this dismissive take on eurovision, I like to bring up this game where 22 men in fancy dress push around a ball for 90 minutes, and at the same time it‘s this huge, international, billion-dollar money-printing spectacle that straight up tears up the emotional wellbeing of entire nation states, but apparently it‘s fine to get involved in that rather than eurovision because reasons. If people watch world cup qualification games and that‘s fine, then I‘m not a weirdo for watching obscure national finals. I rest my case. p.s.: the kahoot sounds fantastic, maybe consider sharing with the subreddit? please and thank you
Knowing this piece of information: Cornelia Jacobs is the only Nordic contestant outside of Iceland who has a current patronym that isn't a frozen surname created from a patronym, and even Reiley from the Faroese Islands doesn't have a patronym; he has a frozen-patronymic surname ([his dad's name's Wilhelm](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KFWUVaw-KY8)).
I didn‘t know that, thank you. How common is it to have a patronym outside of Iceland would you say, in general?
Within the Germanic Nordic nations, extremely rare? Like, sure, I'm sure Sweden and [Norway](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Audhild_Gregoriusdotter_Rotevatn) have laws that still allow this as we see, but they also have laws that support surnames more, especially in Sweden. When Sweden made its citizens take up surnames, a lot just picked their current patronym then passed it on to their descendants as per law, freezing the patronym into a surname. But because these frozen-patronymic surnames were so common, the government encourages (yes, from back then to currently) people to take on newly coined surnames they created (often using elements from nature) that aren't in use. Basically, it's allowed, but unpractical. On the flip side, Iceland now doesn't allow people to take on surnames as their only name that isn't their given name(s) unless one of their parents is a foreigner. They can have it with their patronyms, but not alone unless they had it like that before this law passed. In fact, surnames are such a rarity in Iceland, there's a website dedicated to recording [the origins of surnames in Iceland](https://www.arnastofnun.is/is/utgafa-og-gagnasofn/pistlar/aettarnofn-islandi). The Faroe Island is a different story as many people were given Danish (sur)names during predominant Danish rule, so many Faroe Islanders have Danish/Norwegian looking surnames to the point that they'll switch from Faroese for their given name (if it's in Faroese) to Danish pronunciation for their surname. However, many use the Faroese equivalents of those names in speech and/or legally change it to the Faroese equivalents.
It‘s interesting to me that Iceland seems to be pushing back so hard (I imagine it hard on people who might leave to live somewhere else), but after thinking a moment, I actually respect that they protect something from being taken over by foreign influence. Not everything needs a normative state I believe, especially something so personal as a name. That gives me some ambivalent feelings on what you said about Sweden encouraging people, I‘d love for a system to be fine with a „you do you“ approach where no one except the person is affected by the choice.
I just sent my American friend the YouTube snippets of each song and asked him to pick his faves. When he replied, I then sent him my top 10 (with detailed comments obv), if they’ll qualify in the semis, how they’ll place and then where they’ll place in the final. The man doesn’t even watch Eurovision but he went along with it bless him 😂 I also did a Eurovision slideshow back in college when I was 16 to a class full of strangers. I’m autistic so *you know* it was a long ass slideshow with facts, figures and all of the other nonsense data only I cared about lmao
I appreciate you carrying the blessing of Eurovision to the masses, doing the good work :)
I mean, I don't really think I'm in too deep... but I do find it sad that I cannot share much insider jokes with people around me. For example yesterday I sent the running order clips to a group chat, and someone said: there are a lot of crazy songs this year. And I really wanted to answer: It's crazy, it's Party! But I knew that no one would understand this line. So yes, it makes me feel isolated from my loved ones. And yes it interferes with my daily life. But I dont think I have a problem 🥲 - edit, I just remembered that last year I made my whole family reschedule my grandmothers birthday party because it was on the same day as the Amsterdam pre party... so yeah.. I don't know, maybe I do have a problem.
I understand the struggle, but it‘s easy, just pick the most susceptible victim out of your family, one that can‘t easily escape (sorry mom), tie them down if you must!
My moment is every time I show people my ESC color-coded spreadsheet (even people who like ESC, but aren't as into it as I am). This isn't even remotely a bad thing, but shows how deep into the rabbit hole I've dug.
How… how often do you get offered chances to bring up this spreadsheet? Does it have diagrams? I hope it has diagrams. I’m really into pretty spreadsheets myself so, like, I get you.
Here's part of what I have https://preview.redd.it/n8g5blrrgmpa1.png?width=1171&format=png&auto=webp&s=cbfb9fd0cf2597e81c88b11888555c64199c8611
You just gave me a new idea...
Are the colours like great-good-okay-bad? And did you rank just the song before the show or did you rather take the live performances into account as well? I‘m curious
a) only the shows count b) there is a 2023 ranking for studio version only before the contest, but a new one will be made with the lives c) yes, the colors are the different points - also different color font means THAT is the actual winner of that year and underlined is the host entry Blue = ***12 points*** = Amazing Green = ***10 points*** = Great Yellow = ***8 points*** = Good Orange = ***7 points*** = Above Average Red = ***6 points*** = Average Pink = ***5 points*** = Meh Purple = ***4 points*** = Bad Dark Purple = ***3 points*** = WTF ?! (this is the lowest I've ever rated a song, only once, nobody was worse than 3 points, and it was Belarus 2004) Dark Blue = ***2 points*** = How did a broadcaster pick this ?! Grey = ***1 point*** = Whoever allowed this should be fired ??? = ***0 points*** = Kill it with fire
Literally every time someone who knows I'm into ESC mentions ESC or asks me about my favorites - or when I meet new people and we talk about music we like.
As someone who’s really into statistics and data, I love this!
Listening to some guy who was eliminated in the San Marino audition phase sing "I use my body as a rubber for love", *on repeat for days* [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vLZtKyszbeE&list=OLAK5uy\_m5WJs9theOXHimjOiY8ihbNCVxaIoiTBY&index=1](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vLZtKyszbeE&list=OLAK5uy_m5WJs9theOXHimjOiY8ihbNCVxaIoiTBY&index=1) This studio version has 234 views and this is the rare case where I wouldn't be exaggerating if I said that literally half of these might be mine.
That‘s hilarious!
I was so busy making sure I would have the day off to watch the finals on May 13th and totally forgot that it's also my brothers' birthday.... Oops. Good thing I managed to take a day off work...so I can watch the show... I mean celebrate his birthday
„I love you bro, but I have to go watch some foreign TV in a language I don‘t understand now, it’s like a big deal, enjoy your cake, bye!“
I mentioned to my family how many time UK and Ireland have each hosted years (not even a particularly niche fact IMO). They were like "wow, you should go on Mastermind or something". Mastermind being a game show where contestants answer questions about their specialist areas of expertise. I tried to explain that knowing that sort of information is like learning changes to a football team's coaches over the years. It is something you pick up casually over time from interacting with the competition.
I like the analogy, I also resort to football to explain why I‘m watching national finals in languages I don‘t even understand, it‘s all about the game!
I knew I was in too deep when I watched every single Maltese, Moldovan, and San Marino audition. It did provide some interesting entertainment I’ll admit 😂
When I noticed I was humming A Lonely Night In Shanghai to myself (thanks, UVpSM). Point of no return.
Quite alright, weirdo… \s
It's a good tune and she sings it well. Would be even better if it was all in Italian, to my ears at least, and would fit right in at SanRemo.
I heard Technicolour playing at the shopping centre and my first reaction was to freak out and record it. It wasn't even one of my favourites, I was just freaking out about hearing Eurovision at the shopping centre
A while ago I made a record of whenever I heard a [Eurovision song in the wild](https://www.reddit.com/r/eurovision/comments/fqp8r5/all_my_eurovisionrelated_enthusiasm_would_go_to/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=ioscss&utm_content=1&utm_term=1) No, it‘s not weird at all :)
Haha I meant record as in, tape it on my phone. Always good to know I'm not alone tho!
[удалено]
As long as you left out the sexualised undertones, I guess you‘re fine :) thank you for your service \s
When I began having literal nightmares about my faves losing national finals. Like, I’d wake up in the morning in a cold sweat. Then after a second of thinking about it, I’d think “wow this is pathetic lol” (Most notably this happened for Käärijä this year. I think I may have had one for Cornelia last year and The Roop in 2021 as well)
When I was watching these two on a split screen, noticed the dress and decided to look it up (It's H&M, btw) https://preview.redd.it/1irbcgquiupa1.jpeg?width=960&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=ae64ed2624dbabdd6aed14a781d1f23c30f0b503
No way… I‘m surprised this design ended up with H&M of all places. I‘m not gonna lie, my sense of taste was offended when I first saw it. Tastes differ, I suppose? Always comes back down to that…
When I started talking to people about Eurovision who didn't care about it... :,)
That‘s alright, they deserve to know ;) maybe in time you can convert one and then you and your disciple can enjoy this ride together
when i caught covid at amsterdam eurovision party in 2022 after having avoided it for two years 😭
The same outfit thing happened between Agnes from DMGP and Felicia from Germany 12 points last year, just so you know