Tuesday 1 November 2011

An announcement that shook Sweden




Recently, the winners of the Nobel prize for Literature was officially announced. This sombre occassion is avidly followed by the media from around the world. Who will win? A Swede? A European? The favourite....?

Yesterday, another announcement was made in Swedish media. Not quite of the same calibre as the Nobel prize for Literature, and not as interesting for international media, but none-the-less it was an announcement that created a lot of reaction in many Swedish households.

Who will lead 2012's Melodifestivalen? Who will indeed be the host for the Swedish version of the Eurovision Song Contest qualifiers?

Late yesterday, the announcement came. Film actress Helena Bergström, singer Sarah Dawn Finer and blogger Ana Gina were the 'lucky' winners. Not many people reacted to Sarah Dawn or Ana, but the choice of Helena Bergström caused a storm on websites, in coffee rooms and on social media networks.

According to one net survey, 32% were angry at the choice of Helena Bergström. Others wrote acidic comments such as 'She's just going to cry all the time', 'she has no business being there' and 'she's probably going to get her tits out like she always does.'

Think how powerful it would be if people could channel all this energy into something meaningful and positive instead of focusing on who hosts a music competition to select a bad Swedish song that never wins the international competition anyway?

1 comment:

  1. Haha, yeah, you're right - if only people could focus on the important things ... although in Sweden, Eurovision IS deadly serious, of course. For some reason. It's always funny when Sweden doesn't win Eurovision, especially if the points are really low, because there's always a huge outcry in the media about it. "They're cheating, always voting for their neighbours!" (like we've never voted for OUR neighbours??), "We're not doing this any more! We're pulling out!" and so on ... Sense of proportion? Not so much.

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