I wrote recently about lagom (a Swedish "not too little, not too much" concept) - a new wellness trend on the frontier that purportedly aims to challenge hygge (a Danish "comfy" concept) as the Scandinavian craze du jour.
Well, yet another Scandinavian fad has emerged and health conscious trailblazers are taking note. This new trend - Kalsarikännit (pronounced cal-sar-y-cuhn-eet) - is a Finnish term used to describe the idea of drinking at home alone in your underwear.
(Yes, you read that correctly.)
It's not exactly a concept that exudes a healthy lifestyle, but the intention is less about getting drunk and isolating and more about feeling OK about reclaiming those weekend nights when you don't feel like going out or didn't have plans anyway. It's about feeling empowered to march to the beat of your own drum and feeling comfortable in your own skin and with your own company. No pretenses and no pants.
Kalsarikännit has grown to become so popular that the word was included in a description of country-themed emoji by Finland’s Ministry for Foreign Affairs.
(Yes, you read that correctly, again.)
Interestingly, Finland is the first nation in the world to publish its own set of country themed emojis. According to the Ministry for Foreign Affairs' website. "The Finland emoji collection contains 56 tongue-in-cheek emotions, which were created to explain some hard-to-describe Finnish emotions, Finnish words and customs."
Personally, I couldn't help but wonder: Why this recent influx of new words? Well, it turns out that there is scientific evidence that as humans we feel a certain degree of satisfaction in putting a name to the highly specific emotions we experience. Take the French word "ilinx," for example, that describes “the strange excitement of wanton destruction,” or the German term "torschlusspanik," that refers to the panicky sensation of time running out.
It seems like the Finns' most recent contribution, then, is less an activity or an object and more a state of mind.
- So, how do you feel about Kalsarikännit? Do you feel differently about hygge or lagom?
- What are your thoughts on these new words (at least to the English language's schema)?
- What type of emoji would you want to design?