this post was submitted on 16 May 2026
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[–] Visstix@lemmy.world 70 points 1 month ago (4 children)

I didn't even know it was on

[–] Wizard_Pope@lemmy.world 2 points 1 month ago

Same. Saw some results yesterday and was like 'huh? Eurovision happened??'

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[–] qevlarr@lemmy.world 68 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

Lifelong fan started my boycott two years ago. What Israel is doing, is beyond appalling. It has opened the eyes of so many people that Israel has always been doing this, that it will not stop doing this by their own initiative, so that it is our responsibility as international community to make them stop. Israel is a pariah state for me. All their enablers in Europe, including Germany and Austria, will find themselves on the wrong side of history. They have a historic responsibility to support the Jews, but that should not expand to Israel as a state. A state built on stolen land, with unequal rights, a fundamentalist theocracy, highly militaristic, unbelievable amounts of nasty propaganda, the whole country is beyond saving right now

[–] RIotingPacifist@lemmy.world 52 points 1 month ago (2 children)

Does anyone care?

Eurovision is cooked.

[–] Eldritch@piefed.world 15 points 1 month ago (4 children)

Not outside Sam. He generally seems to be pretty chill, awesome guy.

[–] Warl0k3@lemmy.world 6 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

Wow. That. Hmm.

I'm glad he seems to be having fun. Really, that's what matters.

[–] xSikes@feddit.online 4 points 1 month ago (2 children)

UK should have been in the top 5. They performance was great and fun.

[–] djdarren@piefed.social 4 points 1 month ago

Trouble is, we have a long and complicated relationship with the rest of Europe. To some extent it doesn't really matter what we send, because most people in mainland Europe don't think all that highly of us. And much of that is justified in my opinion.

Our people get drunk and lairy in their holiday resorts, we very publically opted to sever ties with the EU, and historically we've always been quite cunty.

I'm 45, and have only ever really known our national press to mostly shit on Eurovision. They treat it like a joke, so regardless of what we send, it's mostly seen as a joke by Europeans.

I felt terrible for our last few entrants, particularly Sam, and Olly a couple of years back. Last year's entry was dog shit, but they still didn't deserve no points at all. This year Sam made a genuine attempt at a song that showed a love for other European nations, and one which was a banger too, but ultimately he's fighting against 30 years of the UK's role in the EU sliding further and further into insignificance. And it's a shame.

[–] Eldritch@piefed.world 4 points 1 month ago

Sam is always entertaining to watch. I catch his YouTube channels fairly regularly. I listen to fairly niche stuff and Sam's Music isn't really my jam per se. He's definitely no virtuoso or genius musically but he's absolutely solid and a really good performer. I don't think most people watching realize how hard what he does is. Tuning, maintaining, and playing analog synth live.

I live in oceanway on the other side of the planet on a continent I think has no participation in the competition whatsoever? So I generally don't pay attention to it. But I was well chuffed to see that Sam was representing the UK. He's got enthusiasm and heart for days.

[–] itstoowet@lemmy.world 4 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Been watching Sam for years since he was living in unused commercial buildings and constructing diy mad scientist synths. He's a real and genuine guy, he deserved more.

[–] Eldritch@piefed.world 1 points 1 month ago

Yep, back in his circuit bending days. Pre furby organ.

[–] Orygin@sh.itjust.works 3 points 1 month ago

The only thing I watched of the contest

[–] Nora@lemmy.dbzer0.com 8 points 1 month ago

I don't watch eurovison, honestly I only ever hear about winners like this, and frankly this song is a banger (a bangaranga even) and the choreography is sick.

I watched it on Youtube since well, people were talking about it, and honestly I'm not gonna get this song out of my head for days.

[–] D1re_W0lf@piefed.social 45 points 1 month ago (1 children)
[–] Paper_Phrog@lemmy.world 25 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)
[–] Wispy2891@lemmy.world 43 points 1 month ago (6 children)

Israel always gets a billion votes at the contest and almost wins, but this huge success doesn't replicate on the streaming platforms where are far away in any charts

I'm guessing it's one of those:

  1. All music streaming platforms in the world are colluding to report less listening to those songs, because of some anti-israel agenda

  2. Eurovision public votes are allowing votes from millions of bots, because of some pro-israel agenda

[–] meejle@piefed.world 48 points 1 month ago

Not necessarily bots, but astroturfing, yes.

The Israeli government spends a lot of time and money on targeted ads and campaigning to get people to vote for their song. Not just in Israel, either, these are Israeli embassy accounts:

[–] CrabAndBroom@lemmy.ml 10 points 1 month ago

Also if you saw all the Moroccanoil sponsorship all over Eurovision this year - let's just say that company is not Moroccan

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moroccanoil

[–] hansolo@lemmy.today 6 points 1 month ago

They don't care because you pay to vote. Israel is (directly or indirectly) throwing millons of Euros at the EBU and only coming in at second place. Everyone knows about the ballot stuffing.

[–] RIotingPacifist@lemmy.world 4 points 1 month ago

Or 3 the boycott is significant so the far right are a significant part of the audience.

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[–] random_character_a@lemmy.world 27 points 1 month ago (4 children)

Well Finlands religious nutters and MAGA-style right wing Elon Musk fan boys were certainly provoked to vote for Israel... again.

Song was not that special and we ended up giving Israel 12 points... again.

[–] JohnEdwa@sopuli.xyz 5 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

We tend not to vote in the first place, especially when votes are the most expensive in the entire EU - cheapest was 0,13€ in Denmark, while it was 1,5€/vote here. Someone calculated that based on some previous years with 10 max votes, you could easily get the first place with just something like 1000 people voting the max amount. (And possibly even a lot fewer, as it was max 10 votes per payment method, so one person could use multiple to stack on votes)

[–] IndustryStandard@lemmy.world 3 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

A few hundred people can buy enough votes for an entire country. NYT released an article about it a few days ago.

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[–] WanderWisley@lemmy.world 27 points 1 month ago (3 children)

Congratulations Bulgaria, take that L Israel, also FUCK Israel.

[–] CrabAndBroom@lemmy.ml 19 points 1 month ago

Bulgaria's tourism minister must be shitting it right now though lol. "We have to host WHAT next year?"

[–] bramkaandorp@lemmy.world 5 points 1 month ago

Israel won by being allowed to compete.

[–] luipaard0011@lemmy.zip 4 points 1 month ago (1 children)

and FUCK Trump! I mean, FUCK Netanyahu and FUCK America!

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This is the first Eurovision I didn't watch since 2003. Well done EBU.

[–] some_guy@lemmy.sdf.org 21 points 1 month ago (3 children)

Israel isn't part of the EuroAsian continent. Regardless of whether they're committing a genocide (they are), they shouldn't be included. Also, fuck 'em.

[–] hansolo@lemmy.today 11 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Neither is Australia. They both got included way back when because of "large European diaspora."

Objectively, the Israeli songs always suck IMO, and a couple Aussie ones have been cheesy bangers.

[–] some_guy@lemmy.sdf.org 0 points 1 month ago (1 children)

I'm happy to hear that Aussies are musically gifted. They shouldn't be in Eurovision either.

[–] hansolo@lemmy.today 8 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Their entries are occasionally so laughably tongue in cheek, no one is ever upset by them. A million other things about Eurovision get people spun up.

Like, do you watch Eurovision? If not, why hold such strong opinions about this thing that doesn't affect you at all?

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[–] Tja@programming.dev 8 points 1 month ago

I say we kick out Israel and bring Canada or New Zealand or South Korea.

[–] Warl0k3@lemmy.world 15 points 1 month ago

Sure, and Israel came in second.

[–] Malyca@lemmy.zip 12 points 1 month ago

As usual we're in the news for all the wrong reasons.

[–] ThePowerOfGeek@lemmy.world 7 points 1 month ago (3 children)
[–] hopesdead@startrek.website 16 points 1 month ago (2 children)

Didn’t ABBA come to fame from a Eurovision win?

[–] FaceDeer@fedia.io 10 points 1 month ago (1 children)

I don't see how that impacts the meme.

[–] hopesdead@startrek.website 6 points 1 month ago

I was just asking.

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[–] Ioughttamow@fedia.io 12 points 1 month ago

PLAY JA JA DING DONG!

[–] merdaverse@lemmy.zip 6 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

Every year there's maybe one decent song and a bunch of generic pop crap. It's famous because it's a manifestation of modern chauvinism in musical form.

[–] hansolo@lemmy.today 2 points 1 month ago

I can't get past the abysmal mistake of Alice from Switzerland not even going to the Final.

[–] IndustryStandard@lemmy.world 2 points 1 month ago

TerrorVision

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