Eurovision 2014

[The Blaatschapen]

The whining when Korea wins everything ever will be delicious.

I'm in favour.

North or South?

South.

To participate you need to broadcast the show in full. No way that North would ever do that.

[Monkeykind]

North or South?

South.

To participate you need to broadcast the show in full. No way that North would ever do that.

They'd show their own song, then the goverment votes for their allies.

[The Blaatschapen]

South.

To participate you need to broadcast the show in full. No way that North would ever do that.

They'd show their own song, then the goverment votes for their allies.

And then they get kicked out of the festival.

[Nazis in Space]

North or South?

South.

To participate you need to broadcast the show in full. No way that North would ever do that.

Well, they did show Portugal 7 : 0 DPRK live and in full back in '10 :V

[Monkeykind]

They'd show their own song, then the goverment votes for their allies.

And then they get kicked out of the festival.

Which would make them VERY mad.

[The Blaatschapen]

And then they get kicked out of the festival.

Which would make them VERY mad.

*shrugs*

[Magna Libero]

I didn't watch the show, but I saw the winner. So cheap. I mean maybe she was good, I have no idea, but that beard thing was so cheap. The Eurovision is all just a fake from year to year, they try too much, but show no talent. Maybe the voters just wanted to troll a little "for the lulz"?

Millions of people all suddenly decided to vote for Austria 'for the lulz'?
The only lulz I see are my amusement towards people that try to find a reason why Austria won. Austria won because it had the best entry. That is what Europe believes.

Conchita didn't do the beard thing only for the contest. The entire drag persona has always been like that.
If you have no appreciation for talented artists, go back to your own music. I'm sure your artists are more talented.

Maybe the whole artist won just because he( or she? Or shemale??) wanted a little attention. Just like Lordi with its attention-hungry masks.

Yeah, most of those Eurovision contestants aren't my cup of tea. Some might be good. I might even listen to the winner and were there any others I should listen to?

[Monkeykind]

Which would make them VERY mad.

*shrugs*

I spy, with my little eye, a big missile.

[The Blaatschapen]

*shrugs*

I spy, with my little eye, a big missile.

I spy, with my little eye, a

[Monkeykind]

I spy, with my little eye, a big missile.

I spy, with my little eye, a

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MWqS4A1kVKY

[The Blaatschapen]

I spy, with my little eye, a

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MWqS4A1kVKY

Not gonna happen.

[Monkeykind]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MWqS4A1kVKY

Not gonna happen.

*Nods.* Only if Kim-Jong Il goes completely mad.

[Ardoki]

Still upset Sweden didn't win.
Was surprised Austria won.

Who here liked Poland?

[Arkinesia]

Well there's the part where gay people frequently get assaulted and boxed out of employment and sometimes fucking murdered.

I can see how they might think they're unwelcome in Eastern Europe.

I don't mean to threadjack, but people keep acting as if this is exclusive to Russia. I'm sure I could dig up a few dozen videos of LGBT people getting beat up in America/Britain/Germany etc. Don't act as if Russians are the only homophobes on the planet.

Please tell me where in the blue fuck I said that Russians are the only homophobes on the planet. I did not explicitly or implicitly claim this in any shape or form.

Someone said that Slavic nations are not very homophobic when that is demonstrably untrue and I was responding to that claim. I live in the Deep South for shit's sake do you seriously think I think that Slavic peoples are the only ones with homophobes?

Jesus H. Christ.

[Costa Fierro]

Isn't that a pay tv channel? Better to watch it live and online.

It comes free on Sky, Freeview and Igloo I think.

[Benierra]

Apparently this is the first time Eurovision is being broadcasted to China. So that could have been what the Chinese jokes were about. I'm not sure though.

[Costa Fierro]

No, no. It's to tell people we're going to become Euravision next year. All of the Eurasian continent nations will participate!!

The whining when Korea wins everything ever will be delicious.

I'm in favour.

Have you heard of the ABU Song Festival?

[The Vekta-Helghast Empire]

Still upset Sweden didn't win.
Was surprised Austria won.

Who here liked Poland?

Poland was pretty good. My favourites were Poland and Sweden.

[Ardoki]

Still upset Sweden didn't win.
Was surprised Austria won.

Who here liked Poland?

Poland was pretty good. My favourites were Poland and Sweden.

I thought Poland was hilarious. My favourites in the Final were Sweden and then Romania. However Portugal was my absolute favourite.

[The Unshackled]

I thought Armenia sounded fresh.

[Costa Fierro]

Just had a look at Wikipedia's 2015 Contest and it's looking like Israel may not be back next year. Cyprus and Turkey may to return also.

[Yanalia]

And Ukraine didn't give it's 12 to Russia. Russia only had to make do with four.

The crowd started booing when Russia only gave Ukraine 7 points.
On a related note, the Russian media's reaction to Austria's victory was glorious.

Favourite part is where the one guy gets shouted down for being like "look I think we should celebrate people being proud to be themselves. It's part of art."

"SCREW YOU RUSSIA FORWARD!"

[Libertarian California]

Eurovision makes Jersey Shore look like a convent.

[Nazis in Space]

Apparently this is the first time Eurovision is being broadcasted to China. So that could have been what the Chinese jokes were about. I'm not sure though.

china really deserved a more entertaining introduction than this. I mean, yeah, forgettable soft pop has always provided the majority of entries, but there used to be more than two entertaining entries per contest. With less participants to boot.

[The Archregimancy]

I didn't watch the show, but I saw the winner. So cheap. I mean maybe she was good, I have no idea, but that beard thing was so cheap. The Eurovision is all just a fake from year to year, they try too much, but show no talent. Maybe the voters just wanted to troll a little "for the lulz"?

Millions of people all suddenly decided to vote for Austria 'for the lulz'?
The only lulz I see are my amusement towards people that try to find a reason why Austria won. Austria won because it had the best entry. That is what Europe believes.

Sort of.

Austria won on the basis of a 50/50 averaging of votes between phone-in votes on the night and national jury panels voting on the basis of the dress rehearsal performances (a quick read back through the thread shows the impact of the jury voting's already been discussed in some detail). In that sense, Austria seems to have won because it was the act least disliked by either of the two groups.

If it had been left to the people of Europe, we might well have been convening in Warsaw next year; which might demonstrate that at least some straight men vote in Eurovision. That link also shows that Austria didn't finish top of either the phone or the jury vote in the UK; the UK phone vote had Poland first, the jury had Malta first - Austria came top of the UK vote on the basis of having the best average between the two groups of voters rather than being the song that everyone in the UK thought was the best act. And while the UK might not be representative of the whole of Europe, the same link shows that Poland were also in the top three of the phone vote in at least the Netherlands, Iceland, Austria, Macedonia, France, Germany and Sweden; juries there also seem to have disagreed.

So not everyone agrees with the assertion that Austria had the best entry. Our viewing group was unanimous in thinking that on the basis of quality of the song, the Netherlands was the best act by a country mile (pun fully intended). We all had Austria in the top 10, certainly (we score separately on both song and presentation and then add the two scores), so we thought it would do well, but we didn't think it would win. It would have made for a decent Bond theme, but it certainly wasn't the best song. But then I think we all know Eurovision isn't really just a song contest.

The reasons for Austria's victory were complex, but seem to have been a combination of a decent (but by no means spectacular) song that deserved to do reasonably well, a more serious split than usual between telephone voters and jury voters that allowed a song that wasn't necessarily the top in either rating to do well so long as it wasn't disliked by either group, a genuine sense of LGBT solidarity from Eurovision's sizeable LGBT audience, and - yes - at least a little bit of 'lulz'. None of those factors are mutually exclusive, after all. But I don't think Conchita Wurst's victory was nearly as clear-cut as the last transgender Eurovision winner; Dana International's Diva was incontestably the best song in 1998 (though the link there shows that the latter wasn't quite the runaway winner of popular memory).


On some level I'm pleased that Conchita Wurst won; but I also think the Dutch have every right to feel just a little bit hard done by this week.

At the same time, the Dutch failure to win can't be put down to a combined LGBT/lulz vote either; the Netherlands did astonishingly poorly in the more conservative Eastern European nations (Poland excepted). Many supposedly homophobic Eastern European nations gave Conchita Wurst a higher score than the Netherlands. It was in northern, western, and central Europe that the Dutch did well. I can only assume large swathes of eastern and southern Europe are immune to Eurified alt.country.