Finland does not exist: the history of the comic theory of the conspiracy about the Russian-Japanese secret, fishing and Nokia

The post on Reddit four years ago was conceived as a social experiment, which, it seems, has not ended so far.

At the end of January, Twitter published a thread with “arguments” in favor of the fact that Finland does not exist. Some users believed that such a conspiracy theory really exists, and it has real followers.

This is not entirely true - the theory was originally conceived as comic. Whether she had adherents, like the theory of flat earth, it is difficult to say - the irony has gone too far. TJ tells the story of creating a joke.

From the Cold War to the Trans -Siberian Highway and Nokia

The theory was set out in detail on Reddit. The masses of sushi, where, presumably, is Finland, does not exist. The space between Russia and Sweden is just an ocean. They came up with Finland during the Cold War, when they were gaining popularity in the environment of the environment. Russia and Japan began to cooperate in order to secretly obtain fish, without violating agreements on the preservation of the planet.

Soviet-Japanese relations were striking, but at the same time very secretive. Back in 1925, Japan and the USSR secretly cooperated on fishing fishing - then the Soviet Union gave Japan the right to fish for no apparent reason. Secret agreements continued to conclude up to the collapse of the USSR, Gorbachev himself traveled to Japan and talked about the fact that relations between states were improving, although the relations of the USSR and other countries only worsened.

Over the past hundred years, many questions have arisen about Russian-Japanese relations. Why during the Second World War the number of battles between Japan and the USSR was minimal? Why did Japan sign a peace treaty with Russia in 1941, a few months before their ally, Germany, declared the war of the USSR? Why, during the Cold War, the relations between Russia and Japan have always been good, despite geopolitical disputes?

The answer is simple. The countries united the general secret - Finland. Japan, whose inhabitants are very fond of land, allowed to engage in fish and whale fishing in the ocean between Sweden and Russia without consequences. After all, no one can assume that the norms regulating fishing can be violated on land, and not in the ocean. In exchange, Russia receives part of the fishing that it distributes between the population.

The Trans -Siberian Railway was built in order to transport fish from Sweden to Japan under the guise of Nokia goods. Therefore, the largest Finnish company Nokia is most imported into Japan, although almost no one uses the company's phone numbers in this country.

In addition to the technologies that Nokia allegedly engaged in, Finland is also known for the oil industry and the software supply industry. In fact, oil is collected on offshore platforms, where, according to all the inhabitants of the Earth, there is Finland. And companies making software simply redirect the IP address to the Finnish Sea.

The Finns themselves really believe that they live in Finland. However, they live in small cities of the eastern part of Sweden, either the western part of Russia, or the northern part of Estonia. The capital of the state of Helsinki is located in East Sweden. In addition, 99% of the territory of Finland occupies the forest - therefore, when compiling a map of the country, it is not necessary to take into account the landscape.

It is enough to look at the similarities of the Japanese and Finnish language to understand that the latter does not exist. It is amazing how much the languages ​​are similar, given the huge distance between the states. At the same time, supporters of the theory do not deny the existence of Finnish culture and do not try to insult the Finns. They admit that several million people define themselves as Finns and build a culture around this.

The fact that Finland itself does not exist does not mean that people cannot call themselves Finns.

Other countries initially supported the theory of invented Finland, since it was a sign of goodwill between the warring parties in the Cold War. However, since then, Finland has turned into something more - it has become the ideal of the state, which the rest of the countries strive for. No state can boast of the first place in education, healthcare, gender equality, national stability, freedom of printing and the minimum level of corruption. This is just a concept that everyone else is striving for. No country can be so good.

All satellite images, of course, are forged. Parts of Estonia, Sweden and Russia are called “Finnish zones” - in them GPS changes to Finland. And this was chosen for a fictional country, because fish have fins (in English-“fins”).

The joke got out of control

Of course, the whole theory is completely invented. It began with the publication on Reddit. In 2016, the Raregan user in the r/askreddit suck in the thread in the thread “tell you about the things that your parents showed you in childhood, and you considered it completely normal, but when you grew up, you realized that it is abnormal” outlined the basics of theory.

The answer gained popularity - soon a video with arguments in favor of the theory appeared on YouTube, and the post spread to Tumblr and 4Chan. Reddit created the r/finlandconspiracy suction. At first, many ironicized by users who pretended to agree with the theory, or, conversely, tried to “debunk” the myth. But in the end, really “believers” were found.

At the end of 2016, Raregan (in fact, his name is Jack, at the time of publication he was 22 years old) admitted that he had invented a theory. He noted that by the time his idea gained popularity, "it became impossible to determine who is joking and who argues seriously." According to the Law of the software, "it is impossible to create a parody of extremism or fundamentalism without a clear indication that this is a parody, so that there is no person who would take everything for the truth." Jack noted that his theory is a great example of this Internet rule.

I would say that 90% of people consider the theory of comic and parody. But 10% really believe that it needs to be “proved” or “exposed”.

Raregan

It turned out that the law on really worked: real supporters of the theory “moved” to a small subredredite R/Truefinlandconsipiracy . In the first posts, they listed “completely convincing” evidence and noted that the section for “real adherents, and not gathering of morons”.

Jack noted that the theory has inflated some users. He began to receive aggressive messages, the authors of which claimed that Finland is a real country. Some wrote messages consisting of one word - “Finland”. Jack deleted all the information about himself with Reddit, as the situation got out of control: they tried to find him in the real world.

Jack considers his theory a "social experiment." Initially, he became interested in how far his idea could go. Now Jack has a great story, which, as he says, can be told in the bar: “I am very proud of it. He told the story to all his friends - they consider it hilarious. Few people boast of responsibility for the launch of a popular conspiracy theory on the Internet that Finland does not exist. ”

The theory was again remembered in 2020

The user's thread @schizolingvo again attracted attention to the theory. Some practically managed to convince that she was true.

Others did not understand whether the comic theory or not.

Have you ever been to Finland yourself? Confident? Think about it.

#social networks #memes #Conspirology #History #Theory Recovery