Eurovision 2021!

[Sheikah]

I said the Ireland thing sounds like lack of politics because... I figured you were saying they didn't vote for the UK when they usually do. And if their votes are political to begin with (assuming that's what you meant), then it would follow that the lack of them means they're not doing political votes this year. They must've used used the criteria that everybody else used instead.

It feels as though you're suggesting that zero points from Ireland means the bias is removed. But actually, if there was political bias to begin with, it takes political bias to remove it. 

Put it another way, let's just imagine some crazy, alternate universe scenario where Greece sank some Cypriot boats and the two countries find themselves on the verge of going to war. Next Eurovision they go from giving 12 points each to no points each. Now in this scenario you would say bias has been removed from their voting? Or would you say they are now negatively biased?

Back to the real world - the "cultural similarities" and shared music tastes probably mean that if they voted more honestly, Greece and Cyprus would give a few votes to each other each year if they both did mediocre performances; not 12 and not 0. So there is room to "take away" points, if you will.

But now, it sounds like you're implying that 40 countries unanimously agreed that the UK is a tad naff as a concept, so no points for them.

Not sure how you came away with that impression. I clearly said there was no conspiracy and people came to their own conclusions independently.

My general point is that nobody decides to give zero points. The last place in a competition is not the conscious decision of anybody in particular. Hence, "not intentional".

I never stated it was intentional, because bias can (and often is) subliminal. Negative feelings towards something can shape people's behaviour towards and perception of said thing.

Let's put this another way - there was no way Israel was winning this year, no matter the song. Now many of the countries near the bottom of the scoreboard have no political explanation for their score (and likely reflect bad songs), but you've gone and used those as examples to discard the whole idea, which doesn't really work. Because both can coexist - countries placing badly just because, and countries placing badly (or much worse than expected) because of political reasons. 

I am again going to say that there's obviously no proof that UK scored no points due to anything political, and it was by no means a stellar song, but I am saying we can't argue its score is definitively removed from politics, either. I don't think you can be so sure in your conclusion that it's a bias-free result, is all. [emoji4]

[bob]

12 hours ago, Jonnas said:

For a football analogy, if a bunch of countries got automatically qualified to the World Cup Quarter-finals, you'd see a lot of 7-1's at that exact stage.

 

To continue the football analogy - I always prefer the tournaments where England aren't in it. You don't have to deal with the overblown hype, boring games, and inevitable embarrassment of them crashing out to Iceland. The media attention gets spread out over all the other teams in the competition, and it's generally just a much better tournament.

I'd love it if the UK skipped a Eurovision or two. Or even just had to qualify like everyone else. I agree that it would probably bump the quality up a bit if they had to get past a semi-final first. Plus, maybe the other countries wouldn't resent us quite so much.

[Beast]

On 5/24/2021 at 4:59 PM, Goafer said:

Oh, it was absolutely prime for the bottom half, but getting zero points when there were some absolute shitters that at least got some points was what bothered me most.

This. This quote! That's what I'm talking about! The song wasn't the greatest at all but zero points? Come the fuck on! Half of the shit that was higher than us should've got less points! 

Also I agree with @EEVILMURRAY, Germany was a bop! Even now, I'm humming it! Catchy af and quite accurate.