Memetic Mutation / Eurovision Song Contest

Everyone gangsta until Sax Guy appears

• Verka Serduchka and "Dancing Lasha Tumbai". It comes as no surprise.
• The "Epic Sax Guy" from the 2010 Moldova entry "Run Away" by SunStroke Project & Olia. They're all quite aware of this; in fact, the band actually managed to return for the 2017 edition, resulting in much rejoicing.
  • It helped Moldova, a nation with very limited resources, came THIRD when it returned in 2017. Previously, their best was in 2005, their debut and also in nearby Kiev, with meme friendly Zdob Si Zdub, who were even odder in 2011!
  • Epic Sax Guy (whose real name is Sergey Stepanov) is considered a Memetic Badass in his home country of Moldova and even received an award for that song.
• Estonia's 2011 entry "Rockefeller Street" is known in particular for a Nightcore version from an osu! video.
• Sweden's 2012 entry Loreen and her "crab walk" seem to be getting there.
• The smallest of the sweet little old Russian ladies from 2012 developed a fandom on Tumblr due to her dance moves.
• 2013: "Alcohol is free" became a punchline for jokes about the Greek economic crisis.
• Tumblr users developed a fondness for the 2013 Romanian entry, whom they described as the "gay opera dubstep vampire".
• 2014 UK entrant Molly Smitten-Downes with her WTF?!?! style reaction and facial expressions when presented with a curlie-wurlie cake from her local bakery during a green room interview.
• WE WILL NEVER ESCAPE MÅNS!^ExplanationA phrase said by fans whenever Vienna 2015 winner Måns Zelmerlöw makes an appearance in a contest following his win, since he is the one that has appeared in the most contests following his victory.
  • It's May, time to free Måns from the EBU basement.^ExplanationA similar meme stemming from the above fact, joking that the EBU holds Måns prisoner and only lets him out once a year to perform in the Contest's interval acts.
• 2016 was generally full of this, with gems such as Poland's entry being called anything from Sirius Black to Jesus, Croatia's outfit looking like something a boss from Dark Souls or Final Fantasy would wear, Germany's entry being a blatant otaku, the fact that Australia almost won that year, and many more.
• In 2017, Croatia's Jacques Houdek became a meme thanks to his visuals and how his song was a duet... with himself.
• Israel's 2018 entrant and winner Netta has been referred as the "chicken lady" due to the clucking sounds in her song "Toy".
• Cyprus' 2018 entrant Eleni Foureira drew comparisons to Shakira and Beyoncé. The former because of her wavy long hair, the latter because of her dance moves, and also because the designer of her infamous costume, Vretakos Vrettas, has LITERALLY designed Beyoncé costumes. Also, her joking about the simple fact Fuego means fire, when promoting her song during the final week, made her a meme even more.
• Ukraine opened the show in 2018 with the country's participant, Mélovin, rising out of a piano like a vampire from his coffin, only to then have the stairs leading to said piano light up with fire. Eurovision fans, and in particular Tumblr, rejoiced upon setting eyes upon what has now been deemed the love child of the Romanian 2013 gay opera vampire and Austria's 2015 "burning fake piano", as immortalised by Sweden's 2016 interval act "Love Love Peace Peace". Ukrainian Dracula indeed.
• In 2018 there were a lot of gifs of Hungary's AWS, especially frontman and lead singer Örs Siklósi with his surprised reactions to being chosen as Hungary's entry and to qualifying for the final.
• People having fun at the titles of 2019 songs:
  Denmark: Love is Forever
  Sweden: Is it too late for love?
  Iceland: Hatrið mun sigra (Hatred will prevail)
  • Something similar happened in 2021, where the tone and lyrics of Germany's whimsical pop song "I Don't Feel Hate" ("So you can wiggle with that middle finger, it’ll never wiggle back to you") clashed heavily with the next act's, Finland's hard rock song "Dark Side" ("Put your middle fingers up, take a shot, throw it up and don’t stop").
• Users posting a "corrected" version of Duncan Laurence's performance from Tel Aviv 2019 where his piano is on fire, as a reference to the "burning fake piano" line from "Love Love Peace Peace" interval act from 2016.
• Iceland 2018 vs Iceland 2019 ^ExplanationIceland's 2018 entry was Ari Ólafsson's peaceful ballad "Our Choice", which ended up dead last in the semis. Mood Whiplash ensued in 2019 when the Icelanders followed it up with Hatari's "Hatrið mun sigra", which means "Hatred will prevail" and could not be any more different than the adorable song about love and peace.
  • In 2020, Iceland had an even more extreme meme than even the Hatari, as singer writer Daði Freyr and his band Gagnamagnið (which includes his wife and his sister), a previous selection process (Söngvakeppnin) runner-up, and who wear pixelated pictures of their likeness on their sweaters, won its 2020 iteration in style and got championed by renowned actor Russell Crowe, TV presenter Dara O'Brian, and journalist Robert Peston. A bizarre music video allowed the song to garner cult status before it had even won the selection.
• Downplayed with Darude, who represented Finland in 2019 alongside vocalist Sebastian Rejman. There was initially speculation that the memetic success of his 1999 hit "Sandstorm" would push him to the final thanks to name recognition (similar to how it benefited SunStroke Project in 2017 when they returned after the Epic Sax Guy meme blew up). However, given that the song was significantly less memorable than "Sandstorm" (and that Rejman's shaky live vocals didn't help), Finland actually finished in last place in their semi-final.
  • That scenario, however, was played very straight in a Eurovision-specific way in regards to San Marino's returning contestant, Serhat. He became a meme in 2016 thanks to "I Didn't Know," which started life as a bizarre ballad before being changed to an uptempo, surprisingly catchy (if quite dated) disco number. Serhat's charming demeanor, all-magenta outfit (including a dapper fedora), and - most notably - very deep and gravelly voice (some compared it to Leonard Cohen trying his hand at disco) made him stand out in his semi, but an unsurprisingly poor showing with the juries saw him top out at twelfth place. His return in 2019 was greeted with joy by Eurovision fans (particularly given some unsavory rumored contestants, which made Eurovision fans not necessarily thrilled at his return at least grateful that he wasn't the alternative), and his song "Say Na Na Na" was championed by fans online (particularly on Reddit and Twitter), who made it their cause to send San Marino to the grand final, using the hashtag #Serhat4Saturday. In spite of a poor performance in his semi, the campaign worked, and San Marino scored its best result to date, making it to the final for the second time and finishing in 19th place there.
• Valentina's Backyard ^ExplanationA joking suggestion thrown around by fans in the case that San Marino wins a contest and has to host the next one, despite lacking the adequate venues since it's a microstate — Valentina being Valentina Monetta, four-time Sammarinese representative, solving the issue by hosting the contest in her own home. This usually comes out when an entry from the Titan Republic generates hype, like Serhat's return in 2019 or Senhit's song in 2021 unexpectedly featuring Flo Rida.
• The Satellite Dish of Doom ^ExplanationThe YouTube video of Jon Ola Sand announcing the cancellation of the 2020 contest due to the COVID-19 pandemic had a picture of an EBU-branded satellite dish as its thumbnail. Subsequently, whenever the EBU releases other news using the same image, fans will recoil in terror as if expecting another apocalyptic event.
• Memes from 2021:
  • Flo Rida or No Rida? ^ExplanationSan Marino's participation was a ride. To recap, when Senhit's song "Adrenalina" was first released in March 2021 the fans were positively shocked at it being a well-crafted banger, with a polished music video and featuring a verse from American rapper Flo Rida of all people. The unexpected awesomeness of it all, from a country which is usually the Butt-Monkey of the contest, led to San Marino shoot upwards in the odds, including being the favourite to win it all for a short while. Later on, the question became whether Flo would be joining Senhit on stage in May, given the COVID-19-related travel restrictions. Senhit and the Sammarinese delegation refused to either confirm or deny his participation until the last minute, teasing the fans with vague answers and including stickers of Flo Rida with question marks on her costume during the rehearsals (with a stand-in singer delivering the rap verse). At last, the answer was confirmed to be yes when Flo Rida arrived in Rotterdam two days before San Marino's semi-final. To top it off, the reason for which Flo couldn't have been in Rotterdam for the initial rehearsals was that he was judging a bikini contest in Miami.
  • Cyprus is Head and Shoulders above the competition ^ExplanationThe music video for "El Diablo" featured a couple of shots with blatant Product Placement, including Elena Tsagrinou using a Head & Shoulders shampoo bottle. The product placement was removed from the version of the video uploaded on the official Eurovision channels.
  • Broccoli ^ExplanationIt's practically impossible to talk about the Dutch entry, "Birth of a New Age" by Jeangu Macrooy, without someone claiming that it's about broccoli. It's actually a Mondegreen of a line in sranan tongo, the lingua franca of Jeangu's homeland of Suriname.
  • In Russia, dress wears you. ^ExplanationThe Russian performance had Manizha in an oversized traditional dress that moved against her wishes, as a metaphor for the treatment of women. Russian Reversal jokes were quick to spring out.
    • Manizha is Mom ^ExplanationManizha eventually freeing herself from the dress by opening a panel in the front and stepping out was widely compared to Futurama character "Mom" removing her grandmotherly fat suit in a similar way.
  • Greece's song is Just Dance ^ExplanationGreece's stage show for "Last Dance" included dancers in green suits, so that Stefania appeared to be dancing along invisible men and/or autonomous articles of clothing in front of a neon cityscape. The song title and the final presentation immediately drew comparisons to the famous dancing video game.
  • Gjon bopping ^ExplanationIn the preview clip of Gjon's Tears second rehearsal for "Tout l'univers", he appears to be dancing in a way that doesn't really fit the style of the song. Thus the many edits where the clip was paired with audio from a hip-hop song or a similar genre.
  • Natalia's note ^ExplanationAt the end of "Sugar", Natalia Gordienko (Moldova) holds an incredibly long but also incredibly flat note, which was compared to everything from a mosquito buzzing around a room to a refrigerator running. Her stiff pose only invited even more humour.
  • Damiano's press conference antics ^ExplanationReferring to Måneskin's lead singer Damiano David (Italy) during the winner's press conference, obviously high on the excitement from the win and somewhat sloshed on the complimentary refreshments, like him screaming into a microphone◊ or raising his bare leg◊. One of the most common uses of the second image was to superimpose the leg over a map of Italy, which happens to be in the vague shape of a high-heeled boot.
• "Instead of meat, I eat veggies and pussy!" ^ExplanationThe R-Rated Opening to Citi Zēni's "Eat Your Salad", a raunchy Green Aesop song competing for Latvia in 2022. It's become a catchphrase among vegetarians and vegans, especially those who are queer women.
• During the qualifiers' announcement in the first semi-final of Turin 2022, host Laura Pausini had problems pronouncing the word "sixth" (as in "the sixth qualifier is..."). Her impromptu, frustrated exclamation of "porca vacca!" (a mild swear comparable to "holy cow!") quickly made the rounds on Italian social media.
• "Bejba" ^ExplanationThe first line in Poland's 2023 entry "Solo" starts with the word "Baby", however the odd pronunciation from singer Blanka led to many Eurovision fans (mostly from Poland itself) interpreting the line this way.
• "Hello? Game Over." "Bitch!"^ExplanationDuring the Spanish Eurovision pre-party, Serbia 2023's Luke Black sang that line in his song "Samo mi se spava" in this manner sounding seemingly drunk. Since then every time that line appears, expect the audience to chime in with that word in reference to that event in a similar manner to Latvia's Citi Zēni the year before.
• Finland 2023 gave us Käärijä and his very catchy song Cha Cha Cha. How much of a beloved national meme is he in Finland? This much, ranging from rewriting the lyrics to quoting his very quotable Character Catchphrase "It's crazy, it's party".
• Sweden 2023: the parallel, horizontal LED screens that formed an integral part of Loreen's performance of "Tattoo" — both the original used in Melodifestivalen and the reduced-scale version they brought to Liverpool — have been pretty unanimously referred to by fans as a "panini press".
• Finland: No Rules! EBU: Actually there's some rules...^ExplanationMany people have made fun of the "Rules Applied Version" of "No Rules", Finland's 2024 entry by Windows95man, which is basically the same as the normal version except for the blurred Windows 95 logo due to the "no Product Placement" rule, meaning that even a song about not having rules still had to follow the rules.
• The "I feel it coming" line in Iceland's 2024 entry "Scared of Heights" has been used as a meme.
  • In another song in that year's Iceland selection, a mondegreen in its own language version led to Sigga Ozk and her song being called "Go Tiffany".
• Isaak says "This is fine".^ExplanationThe staging for Germany's 2024 entry "Always on the Run" featured Isaak in a living room that caught on fire. This drew immediate comparisons to the well-known "This is fine." meme, commonly used when events start spiralling out of control, which is unfortunately an apt description of that year's edition of the contest, including the entire controversy surrounding Israel, the fiasco of the Turquoise Carpet, the disqualification of the Netherlands' Joost Klein, and so on.
• Vsauce goes to Eurovision.^ExplanationMarko Veisson of Estonia 2024 bears a striking resemblance to You Tuber Vsauce, leading to many comments and memes.
• "Why is Israel in the contest if it's called EUROvision?"^ExplanationMany people who opposed Eden Golan's inclusion in the 2024 contest asked this. This question has been asked for years (often directed at similarly non-European entrants Armenia, Azerbaijan, Australia and former participant Turkey) but it became more prominent that year in light of the controversial circumstances surrounding the contest and the large-scale Israeli invasion of the Gaza Strip.
• Nemo sure is good at breaking things. ^ExplanationSwiss non-binary contestant won in 2024 with the song "The Code" (where the lyrics go "I broke the code") and after performing the winning song, Nemo accidentally broke the ESC trophy when putting it down on the stage, leading to comments like the one above.