Maarie Cristmas! / Don't smoke. Just drink.
A FinnishProblems post.
Someone sits next to you on the bus. There are empty seats. You stare out of the window for eleven stops and get off two early, because walking three kilometres in the snow beats asking them to let you out. Your neighbour is in the stairwell. You wait behind your own front door, coat on, listening, until the door downstairs shuts. You are now late for work. Worth it. The cashier asks how your day is going. You consider emigrating. Abroad, someone in a bar says they've heard of Finland. You buy them a drink and talk about saunas for forty minutes. It's the most you've said out loud since 2019. **Why it caught on:** a bearded man dressed as an old Finnish folk singer, a kantele in one hand and a bottle of Koskenkorva in the other, on rays of blue and white. It's Finland laughing at Finland: the quiet, the sauna, the snow and the dread of small talk, and the whole country recognised itself.