British Man Living In Helsinki Shares “Very Finnish Problems” And They’re Comically Accurate

We managed to get in touch with Joel Willans, and he told us that everything began while he was dancing in The Dogstar, a nightclub in south London.

"I felt a tap on my shoulder. Turned round to see a beautiful blonde Finnish girl in a shimmering silver dress, smiling," Willans explained to Bored Panda.

"'Can you buy me a beer?' she asked. Needless to say, I said yes. A year later, Anna and I moved in together. We lived in London for a few years, with both of us working in advertising."

However, the couple eventually got disillusioned with their careers and went backpacking around the world for a year.

"Following the sunshine from Southeast Asia to Australia and South America, I'd purposely got return flights to the UK in July for a British summer, but the weather when we landed in Heathrow was battleship grey and drizzling," Willans recalled.

"So, I suggested we go to Finland. When we arrived, it was the hottest summer in 200 years. 'Yay! Let's stay for a while,' I thought, expecting to remain just for the summer. That was over twenty years ago and I'm still here."

Avid Bored Panda readers might remember one of our earlier pieces on 'Very Finnish Problems,' in which Joel, who works as a creative director at a digital marketing agency called Ink Tank Media, revealed that the social media project is the result of a wager.

"I bet one of my clients that I could create a Facebook page with 10K fans in a month without spending a penny," he then told us. "The bet was made during the Finnish winter, which was typically dark and very, very cold. The pavements were super slippery, and it was taking me ages to walk to work. I remember thinking how winter is trying to kill me and what a very Finnish problem that is."

The Englishman in the far north then realized that he faced many more Finnish problems and launched the page, gaining nearly 20K fans in a month and winning the bet.

Now the Facebook page has over 517K followers, not to mention the hundreds of thousands of fans on other platforms.

"'Very Finnish Problems' content comes from a few sources. Approximately 75% is content I create, often inspired by real life or my two 'Very Finnish Problems' books," Willans said, letting us in on the process.

"Typically, that's short-form video for 'Very Finnish Problems' on Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube, and the occasional meme. My videos typically get hundreds of thousands of views, often millions."

"In the past, I had a team creating a wide variety of content, such as infographics, fun facts, illustrations, etc.," Willans added. "We also used these ideas for VFP merch in the 'Very Finnish Problems' shop. But now, because so much of VFP is video, we don't create as much new meme content."

"The rest comes from what people send me. There are now nearly 1.3 million 'Very Finnish Problems' fans, so I get sent a lot." The Helsinki-based Brit said there's also the VFP hangout, which is a Facebook group with 65K members. "Typically, we adapt if I decide to share it."

According to him, the criteria for sharing a particular snippet are quite simple: it basically boils down to whether Joel thinks VFP fans will like it and whether it will put a smile on people's faces. After 8 years of running the show, he's developed a pretty good feel for it.

As for the problems themselves, Willans said that in wintertime, the weather is the most talked-about. "As a result of the climate crisis, the whole country has been experiencing insanely cold temperatures, even worse than normal. I experienced hardcore arctic conditions skiing in Lapland and had a 'How I dress to ski in minus 28' (by wearing 6 layers) rack up 1.3 million views on Instagram. Another video comparing the names for winter storms got 11 million."

According to him, "The whole country has been caked in ice too, which makes walking tricky. So how Finnish winter tries to kill you is a theme that really resonates."

"In short, anything to do with extreme winter weather and how it messes with your life. Happily, we only have another 4 months to deal with before we get to enjoy our 15 minutes of summer," he added, laughing.

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