A Tale of Two Festivals
I hope you will excuse me paraphrasing Charles Dickens to introduce the trivial topic of today, but I could not resist. What I am talking about in fact are two popular song festivals: the Eurovision Song Festival and the Festival di Sanremo.
The first one is a Europe wide broadcasted international song festival loved and followed by millions in the old continent (and beyond I am told), the second is the most famous Italian song festival loved and followed by millions of Italians.
I grew up with the second, which is in Italy a way more popular than the first (mostly because for many years during my youth Italy did not participate to the Eurovision). Now I am living my adult life with the first (amazingly popular in the Netherlands). I should better say though that I grew up trying to avoid the Italian one and now I am living my adult life trying to avoid the international one!
The main question is of course why? Why going through the trouble of avoiding doing something that somebody else does. Why having to live year after year through that one day (the first school/work day after the festival final) when everybody is talking about something that you on purpose avoid? I can tell you one thing, most of the times it does not make you any friends, although I am sure I am not alone in this struggle.
Of course I could also reverse the question, why does everybody else watch? What does it make you follow or abhor these popular shows. Maybe I can make my question even more sophisticated: do people watch because they like, making then something popular, or do people watch because it is popular therefore they like?
I think the right answer in this case can be found in the most celebrated theory of nature versus nurture. This is a clear case of nurture. People love to (or abhor to) watch these festivals because this is exactly what their close environment has always done. My parents as well as my husband are "non watchers", I am a "non watcher", my children will be "non watchers". Same can be said for the "watchers". One thing that I have started thinking since a while is that there are very few people that really swim against the tide.
Since this is something instilled in us from very young age, we suspend our judgement while going through the experience (we do not care about the inherent quality about what we watch/miss). We on the other hand do not suspend our judgment about the other group (the ones that do not do what we do). With all the consequences of the case!
The first one is a Europe wide broadcasted international song festival loved and followed by millions in the old continent (and beyond I am told), the second is the most famous Italian song festival loved and followed by millions of Italians.
I grew up with the second, which is in Italy a way more popular than the first (mostly because for many years during my youth Italy did not participate to the Eurovision). Now I am living my adult life with the first (amazingly popular in the Netherlands). I should better say though that I grew up trying to avoid the Italian one and now I am living my adult life trying to avoid the international one!
The main question is of course why? Why going through the trouble of avoiding doing something that somebody else does. Why having to live year after year through that one day (the first school/work day after the festival final) when everybody is talking about something that you on purpose avoid? I can tell you one thing, most of the times it does not make you any friends, although I am sure I am not alone in this struggle.
Of course I could also reverse the question, why does everybody else watch? What does it make you follow or abhor these popular shows. Maybe I can make my question even more sophisticated: do people watch because they like, making then something popular, or do people watch because it is popular therefore they like?
I think the right answer in this case can be found in the most celebrated theory of nature versus nurture. This is a clear case of nurture. People love to (or abhor to) watch these festivals because this is exactly what their close environment has always done. My parents as well as my husband are "non watchers", I am a "non watcher", my children will be "non watchers". Same can be said for the "watchers". One thing that I have started thinking since a while is that there are very few people that really swim against the tide.
Since this is something instilled in us from very young age, we suspend our judgement while going through the experience (we do not care about the inherent quality about what we watch/miss). We on the other hand do not suspend our judgment about the other group (the ones that do not do what we do). With all the consequences of the case!
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