The Eurovision fandom's biggest beef with "American Song Contest" - and why they need to get over it

When it was announced at Eurovision Song Contest 2019 that Christer Bjorkman, Ola Melzig, and others secured rights to develop a United States version of "ESC," I reached for a pillow and tried to stay calm. This wasn't the first time something like this had come up in the past. Even before we began running 50 States of Song in 2016 to fill the void, there had been discussions to do something for the USA as early as the mid-2000's. I've been cautiously optimistic.

After all, today is February 21 - today was the day that the contest was supposed to be launching. However, it was moved back to March 21 due to COVID complications and additional needed production time.

In 2019, the response from Eurovision fans was very lukewarm. Many didn't want the USA to 'steal the concept', while others rolled their eyes at the USA yet again taking something from somewhere else and making it 'theirs'. Very few were genuinely excited, so I kept my feelings under wraps. I understood their criticisms: this thing was historically uniquely European, and it has remained that way for 65 years. I expand on this in a blog from last year.

I've seen other criticisms, and many are justified. This is just the nature of the Internet. I can't get too upset about every little thing. But every problem has been dwarfed by comparison to a single question, a comment, a complaint, one that which hundreds of Eurovision fans have asked repeatedly since I sipped that 2019 latte:

"WhY iS iT cAlLeD tHe AmErIcAn SoNg CoNtEsT iF iT dOeSnT iNcLuDe ALL oF aMeRiCaaaaa??!?!?!"

If you're involved in any social media related to Eurovision, or on Reddit, or are reading the comments posted on YouTube videos or Twitter - you're going to see this question asked, without fail. Time and time again, people feel the need to ask this question. And I even touch on it a bit in the original announcement blog.

But the question just keeps being asked, over and over and over and over again, to the point that nobody actually wants to have an answer.

Now I've been careful to write 'the United States' or 'the USA' instead of 'America' or 'American' in this blog. But I don't know why I have to be cautious: like it or not, this is America.

We call Canada, the USA, and sometimes Mexico "North America". We call Mexico, Guatemala, Panama, Nicaragua, Belize, Honduras, Costa Rica, El Salvador, and the Caribbean island countries "Central America". We call everything on that big continent that's southeast of Panama "South America". And in the United States, we call the three of them together 'The Americas'.

Sure, you can call all of them together 'America'. But there's only one country that you use the demonym 'American' for, and that's the version of the word being used in the title. It's not being egocentric or xenophobic, it's just another situation where one word has multiple meanings - to understand better, go ask a Macedonian.

Some people are asking this question in place of another question that's derivative of Eurovision itself - they want a competition like the OTI Festival. They want to see as many countries on this planet be able to participate in a Eurovision-like contest. You know, like the Eurovision Asia concept... the totally-successful, easy-to-assemble, perfectly thought-out concept that ignored all political quibbles and hatred.

A Eurovision-like song contest that would involve all 35 nations in the Americas is a financially risky concept, difficult to organize, ignores the cultural and organizational challenges many of these countries face, and would likely be uninteresting to people living in the USA or Canada - that's just reality. I have nothing against the people of St. Lucia, or Paraguay, or Guadeloupe - but having the USA compete against them musically just seems arbitrary. The USA is not producing this contest to be exclusive on purpose; there just isn't the same motivating factors in place that were in Europe in the 1950s.

At least with the 50 states of the USA, college sports already fuel friendly competition on the regular, so there *will* be rivalries and jealousy and whatnot that mirrors that in ASC. It's a major step forward for the producers to include acts from the six territories on equal footing. We have a very high chance to hear Samoan, Hawaiian, Spanish, Chamorro, English, and several Native American languages on one stage alongside the expected abundances of rap, folk rock, and country that permeates the nation. And if that isn't enough for you, Hispavisión has been announced by TVE, which may give many Spanish-speaking nations a chance to have something like the OTI Festival again. That is exciting news!

But let's back up a bit - not every one is conflating these two issues together. Let's return to those who are strictly and only concerned about the name.

You should accept that the name "American Song Contest" wasn't specifically chosen to demonize other nations in the Americas. While it's true that they could have chosen "United States Song Contest" instead, the terms 'United States' and 'America' are seen as synonymous in this country and in much of the rest of the world. We have the United States Football League, and the American Football League. We have the game of 'American football', and 'Canadian football', but most Americans will just call their own version 'football' - even though that's a loaded term everywhere else.

So think about it like the word 'football'. The term 'America' means something different depending on where you come from. I don't think some average television viewer in Argentina is going to be seeing the American Song Contest and ask, "Hey, where is my country's song? Why aren't we in this contest?" and that's because they know by now what 'American' can mean - especially if written in English.

That's my answer. Most people online are just complaining for clout. Americans, as you think of them - from Brazil, to Venezuela, to Cuba and Canada, and the United States itself - just don't care about this issue. There's nothing more to the story, and that's why you need to get over it.

Because I know that when something makes the USA look bad, it's alright by you to use the term 'America' to talk about the United States. I don't remember Childish Gambino being asked why his song title excluded Chile and Jamaica, or why the American Airlines is not the United States Airlines, or why a multitude of other things are named the way they are. I was taught to say 'Je suis américain' in French class, not 'Je suis etats-unisien' or whatever... so its likely acceptable in your language too but you're choosing to be hypocritical.

This is such a stupid thing to get ornery about, and the critiques are misplaced and unwarranted. At least until the contest actually starts... (please don't mess this up, NBC.)

If the USA has their own contest, then you shouldn't have to worry about the USA participating in Eurovision itself. That alone should be reason for celebration, so go give your wolf some bananas and eat some salad.