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every american podcast/youtube channel that wants to have an episode about eurovision should be obligated to have an actual hardcore eurovision fan in the room who presses the wrong answer buzzer every time the host gets something wrong

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2025 results have convinced me that Russia would've won the televote over Iceland in 2020

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as i go into hibernation till the 2026 season, it's time to shamelessly plug my other blogs: @chronicarchivist - 99% meme reblogs, 1% original content @owlzumi - art sideblog, updated once every blue moon because taking photos of my drawings makes me depressed

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This fandom's vendetta against pianos sure is one of the in jokes of all time.

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imagine going back in time to 2023 right after the Eurovision final and telling the fandom that in 2025 we'll be: - relieved that the jury favorite won the whole thing - upset that the second jury favorite was ignored by the televote - mad that Sweden got only 4th place

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t-shirt that says "my country got invaded and all i got from it was an unfair advantage at a song contest and this lousy t-shirt"

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ESC 2025 predictions: How many did I get right?

So last year I posted these predictions for Eurovision 2025, so I thought it'd be fun to go back over them to see how many I actually managed to get right.

Let's see what happened, eh?

🇧🇬 Bulgaria: Teases a return on social media. They announce their non-participation a day later. At least I don't think so. I'm willing to be proven wrong.

🇲🇨 Monaco: Someone famous from there who is not a singer announces they’ll compete if Monaco enters. They are swiftly shot down by TV Monaco. See above.

🇽🇰 Kosovo’s request for an invite is ignored. Pretty sure this happened the day after I posted my original predictions.

🇱🇮 Lichtenstein: Someone at 1FLTV breathes the word “Eurovision”, setting the news sites alight. They do not compete. Radio silence once again, alas...

🇺🇦 Ukraine: Jury favourite wins Vidbir. They’re soon disqualified after breaking some immigration law the Ukrainian government pulled out of its ass and the televote favourite gets sent instead. I actually think Vidbir went off without a hitch this year??

🇸🇪 Sweden: Same old, same old, clean polished pop song nobody aside from Swedish people, the ESC jury and normie televoters like. 6th place. Oh how wrong I was.

🇧🇪 Belgium: Goes back to an NF. Fan favourite entry (see: something with nothing noteworthy about it other than being in French) doesn’t get sent. Cue butthurt. Idk what happened in the NF but I feel like the fan favourite won.

🇫🇷 France: Does what they did last year and pulls a random bestselling artist out of a hat. Top 10 finish. Bang on. Feel like they're gonna keep this up for 2026 too, seems to be working well for them.

🇮🇹 Italy: Usual schtick, sends something which does gangbusters on Spotify and Apple but is ultimately held back by crappy staging and weak live vocals. Comes top 10 regardless. Actually I liked the staging and vocals, I'm taking this as a miss.

🇲🇩 Moldova: It’s their turn to be the next Käärijä or Baby Lasagna. Top 3 finish. Well...

🇵🇹 Portugal: Sends a breathy-voiced Billie Eilish wannabe with a murky blue stage. Does surprisingly well. I swear if I make my 2026 Portugal prediction "sad looking man with a guitar" and they send a diet Billie Eilish I'm gonna bite something.

🇮🇪 Ireland: Cruachan finally get into the Late Late NF Special. They lose out to some Voice UK reject and a song written by a music student from London with an Irish surname. The fandom is not pleased. Some day they'll get in.

🇸🇲 San Marino: Holds another dismally long NF full of the usual rejects from other, more popular, NFs. Doesn’t qualify. Well I'm pretty sure I was on the mark with the dismally long NF part at least.

🇬🇷 Greece: Hires a stable full of Melfest regulars to write a song for some bi-national diaspora born and raised anywhere in the world but Greece to perform. Nope, fully Greek performer with a Greek songwriting team. Nice.

🇨🇾 Cyprus: See above, just replace the bi-national with “some Australian with Greek heritage”. Nope, as folks were quick to point out they actually had a Cypriot artist this year. Song was still written by Scandinavians though.

🇬🇧 United Kingdom: All the good artists got scared off again so we’re back to one hit wonders from 20 years ago and/or absolute nobodies destined for the right side of the scoreboard. British tabloids have a field day. Oh they're having a field day alright.

🇩🇪 Germany: Unser Lied undergoes yet another format change only to line up the usual gamut of faux-Britpop and single token German language schlager entry. Final position depends on whether Måns Zelmerlöwe decides to shoehorn himself into this year’s competition or not. Yeah I actually don't know what was in Unser Lied whoops.

🇮🇱 Israel: The EBU takes absolutely no hints from this year and they’re welcomed back with open arms. None of the broadcasters protest this decision. No comment.

🇨🇭 Switzerland: Decides they REALLY don’t wanna have to host again for another 30 years and sends the worst shit you’ve ever heard. Subjective I guess, though they got no televote points I know a lot of people were upset by that, so I'll bow out and say I was wrong.

🇪🇸 Spain: Sends an endangered language witchy folk song that makes the fandom wetter than Irish summer. Second last in the final. Was gonna say I was half right but then remmebered they were third last instead.

🇲🇹 Malta: Randomly selects a teenaged JESC alumnus. Hooks them up with some MelFest-rejected song that does nothing to showcase their singing ability. Last in semi final. Nope, I was way off lol.

🇦🇲 Armenia: Folk rave song. Fandom loses its shit. Top 5 in final and a popular “personal winner” amongst fans. I need to add "roided up gym bro with a debatably homoreotic performance" to a Eurovision bingo list I swear.

🇬🇪 Georgia: Weird trippy rave song. Fandom doesn’t give a shit. Bombs in the semis. Well they bombed in the semis at least...

🇦🇺 Australia: Sends Jaguar Jonez with some insane staging setup and finally justifies their presence at ESC. Boooooooo send her in 2026 if you haven't fucked off by then boooooooo

🇦🇿 Azerbaijan: Gives up on writing their own music and goes back to stealing from Sweden again. Actually looks like they got Azeri writers in for this one. Huh.

🇷🇺 Russia: Tries to revive Intervision for the 3rd time. About 5 countries show interest. Yep. They did it (Though apparently around 8 or 9 countries have publicly shown interest, but whatever I'm keeping this as a win)

🇧🇾 Belarus: Is one of the 5 countries showing interest in Russia’s aforementioned Intervision revival. Yep. They're there.

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AND ONCE AGAIN SERHAT REMAINS UNDEFEATED

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and remember: the real Eurovision winners are the songs you've added to your playlist along the way

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fucking CACKLING at the people on ukrainian twitter being mad at Israel's televote while claiming that Ukraine's televote result was not influenced by the diaspora in any meaningful way

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Final thoughts:

at least i've correctly predicted Austria winning

btw, JJ got the lowest score of ANY winner since the split voting system was introduced

let's hope that we won't see an increase in opera entries next year

anyway, juries NOT dickriding exactly one entry while the other ones are fighting for scraps is very refreshing

to the people who screech about the jury abolition: please look at the televote results

to those who would answer with "televote results would've been fine if they had banned Israel" i say: do you really think Tommy Cash deserved to win then?

i was dreading Israel winning, but the statistics nerd in me was like "oh wow, the first sub-400 points winner, that's interesting"

Estonia in the jury top-10 just shows that being famous means more than being good

the biggest robbery of the night was, undeniably, Switzerland's televote

second biggest robbery was Finland not getting a top-10 result

name a more iconic duo than Lithuania and a respectable mid-table result

the biggest "grower" song for me this year is definitely Baller

i'm back to being mad at the Ukrainian diaspora. i like Bird of Pray a lot, but that was not a top-10 worthy performance, guys

the worst part about Ziferblat's staging was not the filter but the running, because the singer has been consistently fucking up at that moment throughout rehearsals and yet nothing was changed about it. was it too hard to move the starting mark a meter or two?

i really like that they've kept the "choose your fighter" part of the postcards since last year

i was spot on about the UK's results

meanwhile Croatia doing the best out of the ex-Yugo countries was not on my bingo card

overall, we've got mid results and a mid winner from a mid year, who would have thought

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*monkey's paw curls*

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now for my favorite part: FUN WITH SPREADSHEETS

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I have never been so FUCKING happy to see a popera entry do well

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welp, could've been worse

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They back from Madagascar I guess