Travelling Thoughts

Hello, all of you Eurovision Song Contest enthusiasts out there. It’s been several weeks since this year’s fantastic show that the UK and Ukraine put together for Europe, Australia, and the World. But what is different from this year’s show, compared to any other, is the hype that still seems to go on about Finland and Slovenia.

As you might know, the Eurovision Song Contest (ESC) is the world’s largest singing competition, which is hosted yearly by the broadcasting union of the winning country. Last year, in Italy, Ukraine won and for the first time in the history of the ESC, they were not able to host, thus the UK stepped in offering assistance. As the first place this year went to Sweden’s Loreen with her song “Tattoo“, next year the competition will be hosted there.

But this year, something quite extraordinary happened. The national jury points led to Sweden’s win, whilst Finland’s performer, Käärijä, with his “Cha-Cha-Cha” swiped the votes from the people all around Europe. I wrote about this earlier on, in Rigged, Robbed….

It is not unusual, in Finland at least, for the national contestant to either fade to obscurity, or remain on their level of recognition as an artist after the participation to this famed competition. Maybe it is in our DNA to accept the yearly defeat by silencing it to death. BUT this year seems to be different.

Käärijä, the young man from Vantaa (town next to our capital, Helsinki), has become something like a hero. After the ESC he has been booked to all possible music festivals in Finland for the summer, and his post-Eurovision concert was sold out in minutes. And this post-Eurovision concert is something that has not been organised before for any contestant, save maybe for Lordi, the only Finnish ESC winner, back in 2003. He is not only a national hero, but my TikTok seems strangely full, still, about the sweet bromance of him, and the Slovenian performer, Bojan Cvjetićan, who is the singer of Joker Out. Their “Carpe Diem” made it to the finals as well.

The times and the world changes. For years, if not even decades by now, the Eurovision Song Contest has been seen as a celebration of the LGBTQ people because of the campness of the whole show. And maybe it is in it’s own way. After all, the Eurovision Song Contest started after the Second World War as a means to bring Europe together after the terrors of the war, to offer people a venue without politics, without differences of nations and people, so over the course of the past decades, this is evolved to become also a safe place for the minorities. One of the clear signs for this is last year’s Romanian contestant, whose song was about him having to live in London because he was afraid that his countrymen would not accept him. One can think whatever one wants about the politics in Romania concerning the LGBTQ people, but they sent “Llámame“.

This maybe the reason, why Bojan’s and Käärijä’s bromance is still creating new TikTok videos and news articles in Finland. Currently Käärijä is on a well-deserved holiday trip to somewhere with a pool and a pink flamingo float. This float, aptly named Frank, has sparked also jealous(?) comments from Bojan. And again, the Internet goes wild.

But why? What is so special about these two characters from Eurovision Song Contest that has sparked a bromance phenomenon rivalling that of #drarry? That’s Draco and Harry for you not well versed in Potterverse. Even if the Internet wanted them to become a couple and marry and adopt the baby seal from Tiergarten Schönbrunn, that they allegedly already gave to the boys, is that the whole picture? Or is the picture more about these two guys from two different countries just becoming instant friends, who have similar, funny sense of humour and have decided to use that as part of gaining momentum during the Eurovision weeks, and as their friendship grows, it just carries on and on. Unlike anything that the Eurovision universe has seen before.

I guess that we just have to wait and see what the future holds for them, apart from an adopted baby seal from Austria.