So Finnish culture and stereotypes about Finns

@Lemurian: Could it be that you learned that through a certain Touhou comic?

Talking about Finnish things I learned through Touhou comics, this is a thing.

edited 5th Jan '13 3:14:40 AM by Nyarly

^Thats... One sketch from that comedy show which's name I don't remember anymore(was it Kummelit?). Rather lame one, youtube description has translation for it Also, it shows how in Finland UFO = Synonym for aliens.

So anyhoo, how known things Moomins are?

@Nyarly: It could very easily be.

@Moomins: Very much so over here.

@Grim: In Quebec, I guess we have "uh" that is a very widespread tic, but never heard "heh" as punctuation or else.

We swear for punctuation.

edited 5th Jan '13 12:32:52 PM by QuestionMarc

Ah. Quebec would do it. Quebec is entirely different to the rest of the country. Love it there, though.

Spooky: All but two Finns I've met were long-haired heavy metal people, yes.

I was a big metal guy in high school. Still am, but my tastes have also diversified.

Side note to that, actually: Swallow the Sun is an awesome band from Finland. Especially live.

@Grimview: Explains it, clearly long haired metal music people are short!

Only in Finland.

Alexi Laiho especially, though. I mean, goddamn, he is tiny. Seeing him on stage was hilarious - all the "WE ARE METAL BADASSES" attempts come off far more ridiculously when the guy doing most of the talking with the crowd is under 5'4".

I suppose our heavy metal fan population never reached height of rest of population

Seriously though, so if I want to summarize Finnish stereotype as absurdly as possible... Unsocial heavy metal drunkards with knives? ...Nah, doesn't sound good enough. Do you guys have better versions of that?

Basically, from a Canadian point of view, Sweden and Finland are both Canada: the Platinum Package. All the same beautiful scenery and free health care, but with a government that's less fucked up and a school system that can brag about more than just being better than America's

Minus a little racial tolerance, though.

^Was that referring to Canada or Finland? .-.

He'd be right to imply Finland is less racially tolerant than Canada. Over here, a politician can say that it's a racial trait of the Somali people to steal and rape, and his political career isn't over that second.

edited 7th Jan '13 7:49:40 AM by Kerrah

I'm rather surprised Best Of hasn't appeared here yet.

edited 7th Jan '13 8:08:18 AM by carbon-mantis

I'd been wondering about the same thing. Is there a stereotype that they're always late?

Actually no, we are the ones who are supposed to be on time while its in countries like italy more common to be late because of different culture's ways of thinking about time.

@Kerrah: Anyhoo, that was still rather big scandal and I would say that we are actually rather racially tolerant Well, as racially tolerant as culture that was mostly homogeneous ethnicity wise(Unless you think that Sami people and Swedish-Finnish people don't count :P) before globalization(sp?), but we do have same problem that every country has: When you need scapegoats, people always blame the foreigners/immigrants/minorities. Hence why people are getting rather bad at Greek right now.

edited 7th Jan '13 8:46:20 AM by SpookyMask

Well, my stereotype about finns is that they are all short blonde boys with stupid hats, swords and yellow talking dogs.

Finland was described to me once as:

Forest. Forest. Forest. Forest. Forest. Forest. Forest. Forest. Town. Forest. Forest. Forest. Forest. Forest. Forest. Forest. House. Field. Forest. Forest. Forest. Forest. Empty highway. Forest. Forest. Forest. Forest. Forest. Forest. Forest. Forest. Forest. Forest. Forest. Forest. Forest. Cows! Forest. Forest. Forest. Forest. Forest. Forest. Town. Forest.

What, no lakes?

Hakkaa päälle!

The only Finn I've ever met was an exceedingly quiet, small-of-stature bespectacled fellow.

edited 14th Jan '13 12:40:18 PM by pagad

The only Finns I've had any contact with were ones I met via online games, namely EVE Online. Were I to form a stereotype from the limited amount of time I spoke with them, I'd assume they were vastly intelligent and employed entirely in technology industries.

No Finn is Named Helga or Sven, Finland isn't even part of Scandinavia :P

Whenever someone mentions Finns, the first thing to come to mind is usually Lothlorien elves.

I do believe that Linux, Angry Birds, superhuman levels of coffee consumption and wild offroad rallies are supposed to fit in somewhere.

Just imagine those things (along with excessive consumption of alcohol and the highest suicide rate in the western world) done by the Lothlorien elves and you've got a pretty accurate idea of how it is.

edited 29th Jul '14 7:25:39 AM by Xeroop

I have not encountered either real Finns or their stereotype in practice, but I've been told the most prevailing image is that they are utterly mute. As in.◊

Politically, there's also the idea that their government hated the soviets while toeing their line in foreign policy, and that some of this has carried over to Putin's Russia.

I can tell you that I do not think latin american countries have any opinion whatsoever of fins at all, and we probably just pit them together/confused them with the dutch, the swiss and the swedish. All just blonde, blue eyed people.

I honestly know nothing of any perception, wish I could be of more help.