Eurovision Song Contest
| RPF Fandom | |
|---|---|
| Name(s): | Eurovision Song Contest Eurovision |
| Scope/Focus: | Music RPF |
| Date(s): | |
| See also: | Måneskin |
| Click here for related articles on Fanlore. | |
The Eurovision Song Contest is a song competition in which European countries (and Australia) send a representative to perform, and compete to win votes from both the public, and the juries of the other countries. The contest is infamous for its weird, campy, and/or wonderfully bad performances and a fun sense of 'it's so bad it's good'. The most well known artist to come from Eurovision is ABBA, though other acts such as Måneskin have also gained a fandom from having won the competition.
Fans will collectively livepost about the event on various social media sites such as Tumblr or Twitter, especially the final. The event has a large queer fanbase, in large part due to its campiness.
Notable Acts
Fandom
Fans seem to prefer the weirder acts who 'got the memo' over ballads, which are often joked to be 'toilet breaks', especially on sites like Tumblr. These acts can be anything from Ireland sending a puppet turkey from a children's TV show to a couple of singers in yellow wolf masks singing about giving wolves bananas to Latvian hip-hoppers in suits comparing salad to pussy. The ballads tend to get higher points from the jury than the weirder acts, and memes about the usually large differences between the public vote and the jury vote are prominent almost every year.
Within transformative fandom, there are generally two types of Eurovision fanworks. Eurovision RPF is the Real Person Fiction fandom based around the celebrity personas of Eurovision acts and presenters. Eurovision AUs are alternate universe stories where the characters from a particular source material are often participating in the Eurovision. For example, a story where Jaskier from The Witcher fandom is a Eurovision contestant.
Terminology
- EBU: The European Broadcasting Union is an alliance of public service broadcasters. A country's broadcaster must be a member of this Union to participate in the Eurovision.
- The Jury Vote: Each country has a national jury of five music industry professionals who decide the country's jury vote in the Finals. The five jury members changes every year.
- The Televote: The televote refers to votes received from members of the public. The audience can vote in the semi-finals and the finals. A person cannot vote for their own country.
- ROW Vote: The Rest of the World Vote is an aggregated televote from countries which are not participating in the Eurovision Song Contest.
- Nul Points: This is the term used to describe a country receiving 0 points and can happen in either the semi-finals or the final. A country can also receive nul points in the televote, but receive points in the jury vote, and vice versa.
- Douze Points! This is the term used to describe a country receiving 12 points, the maximum number of points allowed.
- The Big Five: The Big Five countries automatically qualify because of the amount they contribute to funding the EBU. They are Spain, Italy, France, Germany, and the UK.
2023
Finland's entry, "Cha Cha Cha" by Käärijä, garnered a lot of attention on Tumblr despite only taking second place. Fans produced memes and fanart for the performance.[1][2][3] A poll asking tumblr users to pick a winner garnered 28,000 votes, with Finland winning by a landslide.[4]
Criticism
There has long been criticism of Eurovision for its inclusion of certain countries, leading to calls for fans and other viewers to boycott the event. Israel's inclusion in particular has regularly drawn ire, especially in 2019, when the country hosted the event, and 2024, during the midst of the humanitarian crisis in Gaza. The latter boycott has been further fueled by the inclusion of Azerbaijan, who were involved in the flight of Nagorno-Karabakh Armenians from the Republic of Artsakh in September the previous year. Many fans or former fans are, or will be, taking part in boycotting the event.[5]
Example Fanworks
| Examples Wanted: Editors are encouraged to add more examples or a wider variety of examples. |
Fanfiction
Eurovision RPF
- Seize the Day by mrdesperation, The one where Bojan is crushing hard, and Käärijä is totally oblivious. (Bojan Cvjetićanin/Käärijä)
Eurovision AU
Bingo Cards
- My Eurovision bingo cards for our party, 2023 Bingo cards, created by pvtanima and shared at /r/Eurovision
Communities
Archives & Fannish Links
- Eurovision Song Contest RPF works on Ao3
- Alternate Universe - Eurovision Song Contest works on Ao3
Resources & External Links
References
- ^ discussion of memes about Finland's performance posted to Tumblr on 19 May 2023.
- ^ screenshot of Käärijä trending on tumblr, Archived version. Posted
- ^ some fanart: example by tuherrus, example by polygraphish-art, example by ladyyatexel
- ^ Ok, forget the fucking Jury, who is the real winner of Eurovision, Tumblr?, Archived version, poll posted by jv on 13 May 2023. Over 28,000 users voted, and the top four contenders were Finland (66.1% of the vote), Germany (6.5%), Croatia (5.7%), and Sweden (5.2%).
- ^ Genocide at the Eurovision Song Contest (Jan 2024) by verilybitchie