Finnish Nightmares

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Finnish Nightmares
Logo
Author(s)Karoliina Korhonen
Websitefinnishnightmares.blogspot.com
Current status/scheduleOngoing
Launch date2015

Finnish Nightmares is a webcomic by Karoliina Korhonen, presenting the daily life and struggles of Matti, a

personal space
struck a chord with people living in crowded cities.

Overview

Matti gets anxious when people around him are loud in public.

Finnish Nightmares is an English-language

Quartz noted that Matti seems introverted even by Finnish standards.[2]

Popularity in China

Privacy and personal space are often unfamiliar luxuries to people living in crowded Chinese cities. Finnish Nightmares became strongly popular on Chinese online platforms in 2019. Matti's fear of crowds and small talk resonated with many Chinese readers who experience anxiety in the overpopulated streets of Chinese cities. Many of these readers are appealed to Finnish culture as presented in the webcomic; a culture in which privacy and personal space are considered important and commonplace. Fans of the webcomic coined the Mandarin word jīngfēn (Chinese: 精芬; lit. 'spiritually Finnish'[3]) to describe people who, like Matti, dislike socializing and long for more personal space.[4]

Korhonen was surprised by her webcomic's popularity in China. Writing to Sixth Tone, she said "I thought Chinese people might be used to crowded places." Korhonen supports the term jingfen, noting that "everyone can have a little bit of Matti in them, regardless of where they are from."[5]

Publication

Korhonen launched her webcomic in 2015 on

Blogspot. The webcomic was adapted into a comic book in 2016 and published by Atena. A second adaptation of Finnish Nightmares, titled Matti in the Wallet, was published by Atena in Q2 2019. Both books were listed on the Bookstore Federation charts for several months in 2019.[6] The webcomic was internationally published in August 2019 as a 96-page humorous guidebook, titled Finnish Nightmares: An Irreverent Guide to Life’s Awkward Moments.[7]

Finnish Nightmares was translated into Chinese and Japanese, and has possibly also been translated into Korean. Sales expectations in these regions were high, as Atena received exceptionally high advances on translations.[1] Matti is Still Depressed Today won a Gaiman Award in Japan in 2017.[8]

References

  1. ^ a b Gustafsson, Miia (2018-08-06). "Finnish Nightmares villitsee Kiinassa – kiusallisten tilanteiden Matti poiki kieleen jopa uuden sanan". Yle.
  2. Quartz
    .
  3. ^ ""精芬"成最火新词，网友：芬兰真是社恐者最想移民的国家……_马蒂". Sohu.
  4. ^ Yu, Verna (2018-08-05). "Why do millions of Chinese people want to be 'spiritually Finnish'?". The Guardian.
  5. ^ James, Andrea (2018-07-26). "How a quirky Finnish comic came to resonate with Chinese millennials". Boing Boing.
  6. ^ Isoniemi, Jaakko (2019-11-07). "Finlandia-ehdokkaat julki, niitä ei vielä ole myyty paljoa: Näitä kirjoja ostettiin eniten lokakuussa". Marmai.fi.
  7. ^ Graver, David (2019-08-12). "Finnish Nightmares: An Irreverent Guide to Life's Awkward Moments". Coolhunting.
  8. ^ "結果発表:センバツ作品賞". gaiman.jp. 2017. Archived from the original on 2019-12-13. Retrieved 2019-11-12.
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