Eurovision Song Contest candidates and self-criticism. They notoriously don’t go well together. The song festival is still a sickly sweet but addictive cocktail of bad taste, fraternization, uninhibited fandom and national pride.
In this unique, but sometimes confusing mix, independent journalism is usually the first to die. A look at the press center shows that as a reporter you don’t actually belong if you don’t wrap yourself in the national flag and applaud at the TV screen showing your country’s entry. It leads to a distorted view of reality, even among artists.
Although the Dutch journalists – they form one of the larger delegations in Malmö – are of a much more serious type, friction sometimes arises about how the national submission should be approached.
In that sense, singer Waylon made it the worst in 2018. After persistent rude comments about his alleged prize number Outlaw in ‘Em he informed reporters of it A.D – your current Stardust reporter – and the Telegraph can no longer be tolerated near him. He no longer wanted to answer questions at all. His manager had seen that the artists in other countries were ‘put on a pedestal’ for two weeks. Why couldn’t the Dutch press just commit to that, he wondered.
Confusion of speech
Back to the current edition, where there is also a strange confusion of tongues between the media and the national pride Joost Klein. After weeks in which Europapa was praised full-time, the first cautious criticism emerged on Wednesday afternoon.
The act all around Europapa was shown in its entirety for the first time and was simply a bit disappointing to the press. Perhaps due to the inflated expectations – the media used the cooking utensils themselves – perhaps because the image translation of the gabberstamper could have been a bit smarter. Also not useful in retrospect: creative brain Gover Meit who announced his invention in the media as something we had never seen before, a Eurovision equivalent of the ‘moon landing’.
A joke of course, but the words stuck. And so it was that Joost Klein was at times grumpy towards the assembled Dutch news before his performance in the semi-final on Thursday. The reporter from RTL Boulevard who asked what exactly was so special about what was happening on stage, got a sneer. “Have you seen many orphans who do something like me?”
Then it was the turn of a camera journalist from the Telegraph. This brought about the less than enthusiastic reviews in his own country. Klein did not elaborate on the content, but launched into a disapproving monologue about clickbait that he had observed online. “That doesn’t work, guys. Stay tuned for the truth.”
At the next camera he started talking about the Eurovision Song Contest as a ‘we thing’. At a loud volume to his audience: “We’re all in this together!”
Tiktok generation
In addition to a mild form of the Waylon syndrome, it also shows how Klein’s generation is completely unaccustomed to traditional, critical media. Klein (26) is an exponent of the tiktok generation. While older journalists expect interaction, Klein sees media primarily as broadcasting channels. If he has something to say, he will make a video of it himself. He doesn’t need a stranger with a camera or a notepad for that. And certainly no resistance at all.
About the author: Stefan Raatgever is a media and music journalist at Het Parool. He writes about television, radio and streaming, but also about pop concerts, music trends and new albums. He is also one of the reviewers of the Han Lips watches TV section.
