I’m done pretending to know what Eurovision is. When I hear Eurovision, I imagine Europeans, who are a different species than us, doing strange musicals on stage wearing ridiculous costumes. Maybe I’m conjuring up Will Ferrell in the Eurovision movie that I never saw, Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga.
I don’t know if I’m right or wrong and honestly don’t care. But I also do because I have FOMO and it looks like everyone is having a great time watching this.
Besides it being wildly entertaining (depending on your definition of entertainment, I guess), it’s actually a really cute story how it all started.
In an attempt to bring the war torn countries together, the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) held its first musical contest in 1956, initially with seven countries competing. It’s grown now to 40 countries, including Morocco, Jordan, Israel, and most recently, Australia.
Each year the country that won the previous year gets to host. Ukraine was the winner last year but for obvious reasons was in no position to host an international singing contest this year, so the UK did the honors in the home of the Beatles, Liverpool.
Looks like this year for the first time fans from all over, including those not participating (like the greatest country of all time, the US of A) can vote. Shit’s about to get real, guys.
So it’s like a really big American Idol but bigger, better, and instead of Simon Cowell being a dick, they have professional juries assigned to each of the countries participating. It’s a whole thing I’m not going to get into but it’s enough to know that this is actually a legit singing contest with some very talented, eccentric, and sometimes hot performers.
In conclusion, my assumption was correct. Eurovision is one big musical slut fest and I’m here for it.
