Käärijä essay project 2024

I created this blog to share the survey I made about Käärijä, but since I now have a blog I might as well use it to give some updates on the project I'm working on as time goes by. The project in question is a collection of essays. Käärijä is one of the main topics but not the only one. Out of 4-5 essays 2 will most probably be about Käärijä. The first one is about his role as part of a cultural shift in Finland, the second one is about his broader appeal, with a focus on his international fanbase and what he represents to them. The other essays touch on subjects such as the evolution of Finnish song lyrics and our human tendency to create narratives where fact and fiction intertwine. All essays are also part of a wider narrative about my experience as a Finn living abroad, observing the evolution of my country from afar. You can find the survey over here: https://framaforms.org/research-for-an-essay-about-kaarija-1719480954 A big thank you to anyone who takes the time to participate!

[ohcoffeedragon]

The Käärijä survey results are now online! I was only going to make a quick overview but I ended up making an 18 page presentation instead… lots of interesting stuff!

https://at.tofe.me/kaarija-results

Thank you to everyone who participated, I couldn't have done it without you :D

And special thanks to @tuherrus for letting me use the illustration on the cover and @lemon-h4 for sharing the survey link on Instagram and getting me lots of answers!

[kaarijapeach]

let the little guy cross your dash ♡૮ ˶ᵔ ᵕ ᵔ˶ ა

[omppupiiras]

since the black box gig is getting yeeted from yleareena in may i went ahead and downloaded it for myself - and while i was at it i translated his yappings too, oopsie daisy 🫣 so if that's of interest to you, you can find it here 🫡

the subs are in the folder separately as well so if you want to download the video you can add them to your media player as well! (or if you have your own recording already ofc the subs would work for that as well, you'd just have to sync them up i guess heh)

[ohcoffeedragon]

Hi! I was reading your post about finnish swedish relations and i was wondering, you mentioned the negative imagine of finland that some swedes hold and low self esteem, and KAJ competing for sweden instead of finland, have you noticed some finnish people being like. maybe irked? that the song is almost stereotypical finnish (like sauna, the ei saa peittää which i understood to be a thing written on radiators??) and then that song be performed and maybe ingraining the stereotype of finland in sweden? or is it mostly happy vibes? i hope you understand my question, i’m simply fascinated by the nordic countries relationships to each other!

Hi, thank you for the ask!

It's mostly just happy vibes, at least as far as I've seen, but there are a few counter-exemples as well. 

There was one article (with a humorous tone, but still) that pointed out that the song reinforces some stereotypes that can be tiresome for Finns living in Sweden, and I've seen the same sentiment once or twice in comment sections, but the critical comments tend to disappear in a sea of people who absolutely love the song.

The rest of the answer is very long so it's going under the cut. The role of the underdog narrative is the most interesting aspect in my opinion, you'll find that at the very end.

I think the main reason people don't mind the stereotypes about Finland is that the general vibe of the song is so fun and inclusive. The negative stereotypes about Finland in Sweden would be things like knife fights and heavy drinking, but there is nothing like that in Bara Bada Bastu, not even a cold beer after the sauna, so they are playing it very safe. 

I've seen people speculate about which parts of the song originated with KAJ and which parts with the Swedish songwriters and everyone seems to agree the Finnish words originated with the Swedes, because the words are hand-picked to be words that a Swedish person will understand, as opposed to words that are commonly used in Finland-Swedish. "Ei saa peittää" is something of a meme in Sweden, but there is nothing offensive about it, the joke is that this is the only thing Swedish people know how to say in Finnish.

As for the Finns they are just happy to have parts where they can sing along without stumbling on foreign words. Leaning into the stereotypes a bit here, but many Finns really appreciate the simple pleasure of screaming "Perkele!" in a crowd, there is just something cathartic about it.  

Which leads to the question: where are the people who are usually obsessed with beating Sweden in every game and competition on the surface of the earth? Shouldn't they be annoyed that a Finnish band sent this banger of a song to Sweden instead of Finland? 

I've seen a few people say KAJ should have sent the song to UMK, but they usually get a lot of pushback from others who point out all the reasons that wouldn't have worked, and more or less everyone seems to root for KAJ regardless. 

I think there are a few reasons for this. The most obvious one is that they see KAJ as a second Finnish entry, so if KAJ were to win Eurovision it would be a Swedish victory on paper but it would also be a Finnish win. Sweden would pay the bill for hosting while Finland would still get to bask in the glory. The logic is a little twisted but I've seen this take a lot.

There are other reasons as well, maybe more interesting ones. One is that the resentment against Sweden is getting weaker with every passing decade. Finland has been getting a lot of positive attention lately, both in Sweden and internationally, and it's hard to hold on to your resentment when everyone is showering you with praise. As Mikko Silvennoinen said: "In Finland we like to score points against the Swedes, and in return they send us only love. It's disarming."

There is also a generational gap. Young people in Sweden generally only have positive things to say about Finland and they associate the negative image of Finland mostly with their grand-parents. Similarly, young people in Finland don't expect any negative reactions to their nationality the way earlier generations might have. Their opinions on Sweden vary quite a lot, from very negative to very positive and everything in between, but the old defensiveness is more or less gone, at least that's the impression I'm getting. They will get uncomfortable if you start speaking Swedish to them, but who wouldn't get uncomfortable when suddenly expected to speak a foreign language?  

Another reason for the Finnish hype around KAJ is the underdog narrative. I actually think this is quite an important part, even more so for the people who like to dunk on Sweden, because the underdog story is at least half of the appeal of the whole Sweden-Finland narrative. 

Of course Finland hasn't been an underdog in Eurovision for a while (the real underdogs are countries like Montenegro, Albania, San Marino...) but Finnish people hold on to the narrative, because the idea of punching above their weight and overcoming the odds is a foundational story in Finland. And that story needs a villain, which is where Sweden usually comes in. 

At the beginning of the season many thought that former Eurovision winner Måns Zelmerlöw was guaranteed to win Melfest and that he might do a Loreen and win Eurovision for Sweden again. KAJ on the other hand was dead last in the odds when the participants were first announced. Seeing this Finnish band come out of nowhere and grab the win is the kind of story that is irresistable to many Finnish people.

Sweden is often given the role of the "privileged elite" in different scenarios involving Finland (sorry Swedes, I know this is unfair!), and in Melfest this popular narrative played out on a smaller scale, with Måns Zelmerlöw cast as the "privileged Swedish elite" and KAJ cast as the "charming Finnish underdog". So resentment against Sweden made people love KAJ more, not less.    

Anyway... that was a very long answer to a simple question. I guess this became an excuse to ramble about things that didn't fit in the original post.

It's also entirely possible that there is a backlash against KAJ that I'm not aware of. I don't actually live in Finland, or Sweden for that matter, I've been a French citizen for over ten years. I think seeing all of this from a distance is one of the reasons I find it so fascinating, but it also means I could be missing a lot of stuff.  

[ohcoffeedragon]

The cultural impact of KAJ on Swedish-Finnish relations

I wanted to highlight some positive things that I've observed around the KAJ-phenomenon (Swedish Eurovision entry 2025), while also clarifying a few things about the cultural context to those who aren't from the region - but my small overview got out of hand, so here is an essay-length cultural analysis (sorry about that and hats off to anyone who reads to the end!)

You can read the rest under the cut or on Reddit where there is also lots of interesting stuff in the comment section.

I'm interested in this topic because I'm part of the Swedish speaking minority in Finland, but also because I've lived in the Finnish speaking parts of Finland (Jyväskylä) and in Sweden (Malmö), so I've had a front-line seat to people from all of these communities making assumptions about each other and misunderstanding each other. 

Here are the three geopolitical aspects of the KAJ-phenomenon that I find particularly noteworthy and heartwarming:

1) Sweden is celebrating Finnish culture and it's changing the narrative in both countries 

The fact that a Finnish band is topping charts in Sweden with a song about an aspect of Finnish culture is a bigger deal than you might think, because Finnish culture has not traditionally been held in high esteem in Sweden.

There are some ancient reasons for this, related to the fact that Finland was under Swedish rule from the 13th century all the way up to 1809 with the power dynamics that this implies, but I think the most important reason is probably the wealth gap during much of the 20th century.

In the 1950-70s many Finns emigrated to Sweden for work. They were mostly known to be reliable hard workers, but new immigrants are never highly regarded and on top of that this was the same generation that was on the front lines during the war, with lots of trauma that nobody knew how to treat or diagnose at the time, leading to self-medication with alcohol, emotional detachment, violence and social problems. Being Finnish became associated with a number of negative stereotypes in Sweden (alcoholism, violence, social exclusion, poverty), to the point where children in many Sweden-Finnish families were bullied for being Finnish and people were encouraged to distance themselves from their Finnish heritage.

This is why the hype in Sweden around Bara Bada Bastu - a silly feelgood song about unconditionally loving a part of Finnish culture - is getting so much attention in Finland. Finnish people aren't used to Sweden being this enthusiastic about anything related to their country. Some people in Finland still expect Swedes to look down on them for being Finnish. "The happiest country in the world" should of course have sorted out their self-esteem issues by now (most people have), but sometimes these things can be slow to evolve. 

Finnish culture has actually been getting a lot of positive attention in Sweden for some time now. The love for KAJ is part of a cultural shift that has been going on for years. Some notable music examples are Käärijä doing well on Swedish charts, Swedish artist Markus Krunegård releasing an album in Finnish in 2023 (Nokia & Ericsson) and Swedish artist Miriam Bryant releasing several singles in Finnish in 2024 (Mustelmilla, Otan kii), as well as wildly popular Hooja throwing in some Finnish words in their Swedish lyrics. 

The fact that Melodifestivalen producer Karin Gunnarsson invited KAJ to the competition in the first place probably wouldn't have happened if it wasn't for this phenomenon already being a thing.

2) Finland is showing Sweden some love in return

There is a saying in Finland that goes "it doesn't matter who wins as long as Sweden loses" and yet here we are: Finnish people are singing along to a song in Swedish and many are actively rooting for Sweden to win Eurovision.

The fact that a song in Swedish is topping charts in Finland is very unusual. 

Finland is a bilingual country, with Finnish and Swedish both being official languages, so you might expect the music scene and the general population to be bilingual as well, but they are not. The percentages are 95% Finnish speakers and 5% Swedish speakers, meaning public life is basically 100% Finnish speaking. Swedish speakers have their own schools and radio channels and so on, but if they want to talk with the rest of the country they need to do so in Finnish.  

The same thing is true for the music scene. If you choose to sing in Swedish you have a potential audience of less than 300 000, if you switch to Finnish you have a potential audience of 5,5 million. There are several Fennoswedish artists who are very successful in Finland at the moment, the big names being Mirella and Averagekidluke, but they all sing in Finnish. You would have to be a specific kind of lovable goofball to choose your local Swedish dialect instead.

The Swedish language is also viewed negatively by many in Finland. This is an unfortunate consequence of mandatory Swedish lessons in schools, often nicknamed "pakkoruotsi" ("involuntary Swedish" or "forced Swedish"). The idea to teach everyone the basics of both national languages doesn't sound particularly far-fetched, but many people, especially in the East and North where there are no native Swedish speakers, dislike this requirement to the point where it might do more harm than good.

As for Sweden, the country is seen as a close and reliable friend, but the friendship is somewhat more complicated than it might seem on the surface. The Finnish banter with Sweden is friendly 99,9% of the time but the remaining 0,1% can be surprisingly dark, because it's rooted in feelings of humiliation and injustice that go quite deep.

This is why it made sense for KAJ to do Melfest instead of UMK, beyond the fact that Melfest reached out to them. Gaining a Swedish audience when singing in Swedish is a realistic goal. Gaining a Finnish-speaking audience when singing in Swedish is... not realistic - or so everyone assumed.

In other words: seeing Swedish people sing "yksi, kaksi, kolme, sauna!" in Finnish is surprising, but seeing Finnish-speakers go "bara bada bastu, bastu!" in Swedish is just as unexpected and somehow even more heartwarming, for me as a Fennoswede at least.

As far as I know it's the first time in history a Fennoswedish artist gets nationwide recognition with a song in Swedish. There is more warmth towards Sweden in Finland right now and more curiosity about the Swedish speaking minority than I think I've ever seen.

3) People are suddenly learning about the Swedish speaking minority in Finland 

KAJ getting all this attention is making a real difference in fighting ignorance (mostly in Sweden) and prejudice (mostly in Finland) about the Swedish speaking minority.

Some Swedish people still don't know we exist, which can be a little disheartening to Swedish speaking Finns who follow media in both countries and know everything about Sweden. Fennoswedes trade anecdotes about how Swedish people compliment them on their "really good Swedish" when they speak their native language or how well-meaning Swedes switch to English because they can't tell the difference between a dialect and a foreign accent. The most extreme anecdotes are about Swedish people saying "I had no idea Finnish was so easy to understand" when you talk to them in Swedish.  

In Finland people know we exist, but sometimes mistake us for a small and homogenous group of upper-class snobs - which is fine really, compared to what almost any other minority anywhere has to put up with, but it's also quite far from the truth, so getting some nuance added to the mix wouldn't hurt. Most Fennoswedes are just ordinary people and do not have mansions and old money (unfortunately for us!). Those old money families do exist, but they are not that many. 

The Fennoswedes you see in Finnish media tend to live in the Helsinki area and be perfectly bilingual, which isn't the case for all of us. KAJ is such a refreshing addition to the media landscape because they aren't part of this group: they are from the countryside, their Finnish is a little wonky, and you couldn't possibly accuse them of being upper class snobs.  

And finally, if you read this to the end: Thank you, I spent way too much time on this, so I really appreciate it! Here is your well-earned diploma on Finnish-Swedish relations: 📜👩🏼‍🎓

[gigshoe]

Giving this cap to Jere and seeig how much he enjoyed wearing it and also how much joy it brought to the fandom is making my heart burst out of happiness 🥹💚 Shoutout to my girls who encouraged me to do this, you know who you are 🫶😘

[bisnes-socks]

The Great Big Käärijä Rhymes and Flow Analysis. It is done.

And because it is 28 pages long, I ain't posting it here.

Read it here or if you want the PDF, hit me up! Note: There are links in the text. They're not relevant to the analysis just funny, but be aware that they take you to another page, and getting back to where you left off depends on your device and platform.

Summary:

I've analysed the rhyme schemes and flow of three of his songs (Puuta heinää / Peliä EP, Fantastista / Fantastista album and Takavoltti / People's Champion album) and found, unsurprisingly, that he is indeed very good at what he does.

[tuherrus]

hope you'll permit me some indulgent art inbetween commissions bc seeing this top live bewitched me and so did @radiant-sunlight-blueberry 's photography of it (again)

[bisnes-socks]

i made a masterpost of my kä and jo music analysis posts so far, mostly for my own cross referencing purposes but if anyone wants to find them, here they are!

Aikuinen (request) (written 11.11.2024)

Käärijä

Menestynyt yksilö (request) (written 16.11.2024)

People's champion (album) (written 10.11.2024)

People's champion (song) (written 9.11.2024)

Sex = money (written 7.11.2024)

Vocals in CCC and Ready to Go (answer to an ask, written 6.11.2024)

Mic Mac (answer to an ask, written 6.11.2024)

Kot kot (written 6.11.2024)

Bananas (written 5.11.2024)

Takavoltti is super finnish (written 4.11.2024)

Ready to go (written 3.11.2024)

Takavoltti (not my original post, this link is to a reblog in my blog with my added thoughts and analysis) (written 2.11.2024)

Autiomaa (written 1.11.2024)

Bonus: Autiomaa video feels / mologue about Käärijä's cultural impact (written 1.11.2024)

Joker Out

Stephanie (in depth) (written 10.11.2024)

Stephanie (first thoughts) (written 8.11.2024)

Bluza (written 27.9.2024)

Everybody's waiting (written 24.7.2024)

Šta bih ja composition talk (written 13.7.2024)

Šta bih ja drum talk (written 12.7.2024)

[mita-vittua-olivia]

Kääryleet Secret Santa 2024!!!

As some of you may have seen already, @zefly and I are organising this year’s Secret Santa! We’ve now prepared the google form for you to apply, and it will be open until November 20th.

As of now, our plan is to give everyone the person they’ll be making a gift for in late November, shortly after the form closes. No set date for that yet - we will keep you updated, though.

While I think most people know what a Secret Santa is and have participated in last year’s Secret Santa or in the Summer Gift Exchange, I would still like to explain how this works for everyone who didn’t.

1. You apply through the form I’ve linked in this post. There you can choose what gift form (writing, art, physical art/crafts) you’d like to give and receive, and you can specify your preferences and give your Secret Santa a rough idea of what you’d like them to make for you.

2. You’ll receive the person’s name and preferences after the form has closed. Then, you can send them anonymous asks if you need more info or have any questions - without blowing your cover, of course.

3. Then you have until December 22nd to make and email your gift to me or zefly - more info on that when you receive the person whose Secret Santa you’ll be!

4. We will take care of emailing all the gifts so they will be in everyone’s inboxes December 25th.

If you have any questions, don’t hesitate to ask! More info is coming.

Oh, and even if you can’t participate this time, it’d be lovely if you could share this anyway so other people might see it 💚

Kääryleet Secret Santa 2024

Kääryleet Secret Santa 2024

[zefly]

Do you want to participate to the Secret Kääryleet Santa this december ?

Yes yes !!

Nope

I don't know

Voting ended onNov 14, 2024

@mita-vittua-olivia and myself need to know how many of you will participate ^^ we want to organise the Secret Kääryleet Santa this year :3

[mita-vittua-olivia]

after seeing @kanerva333 ‘s post regarding a possible secret santa this year:

who would be willing to participate and/or organise it with me?

i would love to participate and help you organise it

i would love to participate

can’t participate due to time issues/don’t want to

Voting ended onNov 12, 2024

idk if a poll even makes sense for this lol but perhaps this way more people see it! if anyone would like to organise it w me just hmu!

[ohcoffeedragon]

I was about to give my own take on the album in the tags of @bisonaari's post but seeing the wall of text on my screen I decided to make it a separate post instead, and then I ended up making a graph.

I love how the album takes you on a ride and plants themes that keep evolving. It gets very dark at times, but you never lose that sense of forward motion.

Ready to Go is about getting your big chance, believing in yourself and going all in. It has an inspirational quality to it, but in the lyrics you already get a hint of the problems to come, and you already have two of the running themes: an inability to set boundaries + the impact of getting reduced to a one dimensional character, to the point where people want to see you fail for their entertainment.

Cha Cha Cha of course is about a lot of things, but in the context of the album the classic story beat here is the "point of no return". It's an emotional high: rising to the challenge, overcoming insecurities and difficulties, experiencing a triumph, but at the same time it's the point where normal life goes out the window. This is the point where you get the letter from Hogwarts or step through the wardrobe into a bizarro world.

Takavoltti marks the beginning of the downward spiral. K still has energy in abundance, we find the same attitude of going all in and pushing through difficulties that was first introduced in Ready to Go, but in Takavoltti the pushing just never stops. He is pushed further and further, and once again you can sense that the people pushing him don't really see him as a person. They just want to see how far he will go, it's all about the entertainment value.

Ruoska and Kot Kot go one step further. In Takavoltti K is already acting on command, he has no more agency of his own, but there is still an eagerness to surprise and please an audience. That eagerness is gone in the two following songs, it's all coping, reacting and surviving. Autiomaa is the darkest point but there is a fair amount of darkness in the other songs as well.

Around Autiomaa on both sides you have songs about coping. Kot Kot, Ruoska and Sex=Money, while being fun, are about coping strategies that come dangerously close to self harm (drinking, leaning into the pain/getting hurt but still asking for more, giving people what they want because you can't feel anything so you might as well).

Sex=Money marks an evolution because he is trying to reclaim the narrative and take his own decisions, but he is still lost in the numbness and doesn't really know which way to go.

It's only with Bananas, HHH and ICIP that we are finally emerging into a different mindset. The problems are still there but he is learning to roll with the punches. The numbness is gone and he is able to enjoy the moment again. Feelings of joy and love shine through even when things are frantic and full of uncertainty.

Then we have People's champion as the perfect ending, looking back at the roller coaster, stopping to take it all in, appreciating what a journey it's been, being grateful for it all and letting the positive feelings take over.

I find this album insanely well made. It's heartbreaking and uplifting at the same time, while simultaneously being pure fun, never missing a beat.

And I'm still at a loss about how the HS critic was unable to see this. How could he possibly not see the coherence of a narrative that follows the beats of a traditional story arc?

[bisonaari]

I don't know if it has been done here before because I don't look around, but I have thoughts about the album and I need to share them with someone or I'm gonna go INSANE

Put your tinfoil hats on for my analysis of everything around People's Champion under the cut (probably people have talked about it and I'm just gonna repeat stuff, be warned)

So I've been a bit insane about People's Champion and I've started to think super hard about the order of the songs. I think, in my opinion, that the songs are arranged to tell the story of his life and career from right after UMK 2023 until now.

Ready To Go: This is where we start. Just post UMK, people didn't fully believe in him yet. I remember people saying "oh yeah sweden is sending someone who already won esc, but we're sending… Jere from Vantaa????". Hence the chorus, where people want to see him fail. But he's ready, he knows that he can do it. He's gonna go through and give his EVERYTHING. The mood of the song is really hopeful, with big intense guitar.

Cha Cha Cha: Do I need to explain this one here? I'm still not over this hahaha, I don't think I'll ever be. But this is where events take a turn for him, hence why it's so early in the album, even though it's his biggest song. Because he has so much to say after Cha Cha Cha happened.

Takavoltti: This is where things start to fuck up. He doesn't want to stay on his butt now that he has achieved celebrity and starts to take on so many, many gigs. A lot of us were worried for his health when we saw how much he was performing during summer 2023. But in the song, he says that he only saw opportunities and he just had to continue to take them. It takes a toll on his body. It starts to hurt, but he goes through it. That mad man. Also a couple of times in the song, people ask him to do stuff. Like a little circus monkey. And he just ends up hurting himself.

Ruoska: The bad comments start to really get to him. In the video, Erika and Käärijä are both dressed and perform as aliens. They've completely been striped of their humanity. They're just gimmicks that you can insult anonymously on the internet. Who cares anyway, they chose this life for themselves. It's their own fault. While the previous song was still a bit on the funny side, this one digs straight into the hardships that they feel. There is no more humour, only pain.

Kot Kot: He's still doing too much. While everyone has gone home, he's still drunk on the dancefloor, trying to reach out for friends who were wiser and left. He's being dragged out of there against his will, because he's so stubborn. Pushing through isn't working anymore, and people around him aren't letting him hurt himself anymore.

Skit: An appointment with a therapist. Käärijä is being cut off CONSTANTLY by the therapist, who can't see Jere as a patient. He sees Käärijä, the star. Even when he's trying to seek help, he isn't listened to. Because he's not human anymore for people at that point.

Autiomaa: Käärijä is breaking down. In the video, the therapist from the skit is taking a picture of him during the appointment. The feeling of loneliness and emptiness is around him all the time, omnipresent, eating him alive. He just wants someone to see him as a person, to listen to him, to help him with the void.

Sex=Money: At that point, you know, might as well. You're not human anymore, who cares. Why not try to get some money selling your ass. Who's gonna care anyway, sex sells and that's what people want to see, right? He made so much money on onlyfans, the press is acting shocked that he would even do that. The song is back to a bit light-hearted. My interpretation would be that he just finds the situation ridiculous, and that's why we're getting humour back in the lyrics!

Bananas: I'm not sure how this one fits in my theory, but we're SO back for humour. Kääriä is getting better. I think that in this one he found resolve to just continue going on. He's annoyed because people still only see him as an object, but he has to go through and live his life. Show must go on.

Huhhuhhei: Quite interesting to put a love song in this timeline in the story. But I think it's because he wants to live in the present, and not in anxieties from the past and the fear of the future. He doesn't know if the person sharing his bed is still gonna be there in the morning, but whatever, it's not important. Tonight, they're his and that's what matters. Thinking of tomorrow isn't gonna bring anything good.

It's Crazy It's Party: He's still stuck in the parties, they're around him all the time. He's still doing a million gigs in Finland and in europe. And just as the song is quite close to Cha Cha Cha, he's back at the beginning, the situation hasn't changed much. But this time, by the end, he goes to the party again, by his own will. And this time, he has people around to party with him.

People's Champion: We're back babes. This song is a love letter to people who love him. This is a great wrap around for this album. He's just remembering how everything went, from the start, until this point. Going through every point and emotion we've been through with him during the album. But in the end, he IS people's champion. He did it. He made it. And even with all the hardships, he's with us, when our hearts all sing together. The last line of this album that isn't a chorus is "Thank you everybody, I love you".

What a journey

So something that you have noticed that I've talked a lot is how people don't recognize Käärijä's humanity. He has been made into a kind of creature of gimmicks. You can ask him everything, you can say everything to his face. Whatever, he's a celebrity, not a person.

And this is where that cover is a GENIUS move.

On the cover, there are NO gimmicks. No bolero, no bowl cut, no bare chest with a tattoo. Just his face. You HAVE to watch his face, there is nothing else to see. You have to watch his emotion being raw, he's crying. This is not a pleasant cover to see. And I know, I've had spotify open on his face all day friday while I was working, it felt awful. But it makes you do something.

You have to acknowledge his humanity. And there's no way around it.

I love Käärijä

[mita-vittua-olivia]

it’s 1am and i’m seriously considering trying to find a way to write my paper for uni on käärijä 😭 if anyone has any ideas how kä/the fandom could be related to communication science, do tell

[bisnes-socks]

the video you guys... maybe it's bc it's the middle of the night but i'm losing it

i've said this before and i'll say it again, i think käärijä is pretty much the most interesting thing that has happened in finnish music in a long long time. but that is of course a matter of opinion

what is not a matter of opinion is that in the last almost two years now, he has been the most famous person this country has ever seen. like idk how clear it is to international fans, but it's not normal in finland for a musical artist to have their own personal bodyguard go with them everywhere. he's talked about it yes, but like.. there is like a bend in reality around him in this country that you can only really comprehend when you stop to look at it.

and i've wondered two things. i've wondered if he knows how much he has done for people in this country. i've talked to people in their fucken 50s who have found the confidence to speak english in public because of him. i've seen the absolutely all encompassing effect he has had on the city of vantaa. ccc in esc truly united this country right after an election that tore us apart.

like.. we laugh about how finnish people care so much about what other people think about us. and all these stereotypes us finnish people believe as being the way we are seen. quiet, stoic, a bit unemotional, hard to read, depressed, weird with a quirky language no-one understands. imagine the impact of him showing the world a completely different side to us, that we all still recognise as OUR culture and something inherently finnish. him becoming so loved all around the world and in this country, not despite but because of things we have been culturally taught to be ashamed of. things he refused to be ashamed of, and he showed us. he has done SO MUCH for all of us, and i wonder if he knows.

and i've wondered how he has managed to keep it together through everything. like i said, there is no-one, absolutely no-one, who has had that level of attention in this country. and i wonder how has he stayed sane.

and the song and the video kinda answer these questions and it's as beautiful as it is heartbreaking. absolutely fucking killed me. so many things in that song i can relate to on a very personal level as well, but his story lives on a scale i could never even dream of. and so now i know. i know he knows but how he still can't feel it. and i know if he has stayed sane and he hasn't and i know how he's felt and. it. is. heartbreaking.

but at the same time i have to say how much i admire his decision to put it all in this song and make this song the lead single of the album. he continues to show us and i have so much not only love but fucking respect for him for that. fuck.

[wednesdayday]

which of the new songs is your fav?

ready to go

takavoltti

autiomaa

sex = money

bananas

people’s champion

Voting ended onNov 1, 2024

i’m only including sex = money cause it’s newly released and people’s champion cause we never got the studio version until now 👀👀

pls reblog for more votes! <33