What’s the thing about celebrating birthdays? And why do Swedes post so many photos of birthday kids in the newspaper? Columnist Paula Dubbink analyze this social network 0.5.
My Swedish corridor shares a paper and therefore I am the proud owner of 1/24th part of the daily Sydsvenskan. A percentage that might very well correspond with the amount of the paper that I usually read. After scanning the local news, I often end up staring at the ‘personal page’. In my country, this page is for ninety percent dedicated to obituaries, plus a small corner for births and marriages.
However, in Sweden the personal page looks like a photo book. Many proud parents and especially grandparents send pictures of their (grand)children to the paper, accompanied of a short message like “our dearest little Anna turns five years today. All hugs and kisses from Farfar, Farmor and all your cousins.”
The first time I encountered this phenomenon, I was simply appalled. When I had my birthday as a child, my grandmother would send a card and either come for a visit or give me a phone call. What would a paper announcement have added to that? But, so my Swedish housemates suggested –this phenomenon exists mainly for the grandparents. Farmor and farfar want to show how proud they are of their offspring and by lack of Twitter or a Facebook Wall, they show off in the paper, where thousands of people can gaze at it. A prehistoric social network, if you will.
But things get still stranger as I today discovered that there is a third category on the personal page titled uppvaktning undanbedes– which is simply untranslatable. Again my housemates rescued me from cultural confusion and explained that this is the place in the paper where people tell that they do not want visitors on their upcoming birthday.
Indeed. Apparently, if you belong to an older Swedish generation you don’t have to invite your neighbors for your birthday: they will show up in any case and expect to be served coffee and cake. If you rather feel like spending the day on your own, you’ll have to act. And again here the paper provides a solution for those people without Facebook or Google Plus.
Some of the please-ignore-my-birthday-announcements consist of one single word (bortrest – out of town) or of the simple ‘I celebrate it with my family’. Others use this opportunity to – between the lines – criticize their circle of acquaintances. For example, last Sunday one could read the following cryptic message: “I don’t want any attention on, before or after my birthday. Think of your mother instead.” I guess last year’s party might not have been the biggest success.
Not yet convinced of the link with social networks? There is even an equivalent to those people who will always reply to your event invitation with “I’m so sorry but I will be in New York/having a great party with my amazing friends/lying on a beach in Honolulu/just do something that is a lot cooler than whatever you invited me for.” That is, a 70-year-old woman writes that she “really regrets having to disappoint anyone but that she will be celebrating her birthday in the Dominican Republic”.
The Sydsvenskan personal page clearly is Facebook 0.5.
