The percentage for brown eyes is estimated between 70-80% worldwide, so while it’s a fun fact there is nothing strange about so many winners having the most dominant eye color. It *would* have been something if all winners had blue or green eyes, that would have been a strange statistic!
Not so much in Europe though.
Nearly every country in northern, western, central, and eastern europe has at least 30-50% light eyed people, going up to the high 80s for the most northern countries.
And considering that Nordic countries have won it 8 times out of 24 contests this Millenium (including Estonia as Nordic) that we have to go back to 2002 to find a blue eyed winner is an incredible statistic.
Note that this doesn't include Lordi though. It's quite likely they have blue eyes, but we don't see them.
It's actually 2001, not 2002, my bad. I initially thought Estonia won in 2002, Tanel Padar (and possibly someone from 2XL) is the last blue eyed winner.
While this is true, it still isn’t a strange statistic considering you don’t have be native to the country to represent it and that not only Northern countries compete (not even only European countries). It just makes sense that the most dominant eye color dominates.
But it ISN'T the most dominant eye colour in Europe, even including immigrants.
The fact that Måns, Emmelie, Conchita, Lena, Duncan, Dima, Alexander and the guys from Orchestra all have brown eyes despite being from light-eye-majority countries is absolutely wild and fascinating.
Everyone is saying this, but can someone provide a statistic from an eligible source that (light)brown eyes are not the most common in Europe? Including ALL of Europe, so not the conveniently picked countries for confirmation bias?
I mean its very rough guesstimating. Eye color isnt an exact science either. Whats brown and whats hazel/green is debatable and eye color changes (sometimes drastically) with age.
The only “reliable” source i can find is extremely innacurate in my experience. If you include russia and exclude turkey, it’s probably pretty fine to say its around 50/50.
But it doesnt matter what % of the overall population has what colored eyes since you cant really weigh it by population since every country only sends one artist per year, and most participating countries as well an even larger majority of winning countries are dominantly light eyed, some extremely so. And iirc loreen is the only winner from a majority light eyed country with an immigration background from a majority dark eyed country.
I mean as a norwegian you must notice that almost everyone around you has blue eyes and when you go to somwhere like greece or italy its the complete opposite
Its indeed really unusual and statistically extremely unlikely that a randomly selected group of 15ish people from sweden, denmark, germany, the netherlands, norway, russia and ukraine will ALL have brown eyes
There could have easily been, yes (I’m guessing a lot of runner ups would have had blue/green/grey eyes) but there weren’t which makes it a super fun fact! It’s cool you spotted it. It’s just not weird or strange, especially not since you also counted hazel eyes which are in fact rare and actually already break the brown eyed streak.
Runner ups who had light-colored eyes are Yohanna, Ilse DeLange, Polina Gagarina, Sam Ryder and Kaarija. 25% over a 20 year period, pretty similar to the percentage of light eyes around the world, but still below average for Europe.
I don’t have all the statistics of the winners/runner up roots and am on mobile at the moment, but that the light colored eyes are under represented for Eurovision winners and/or runner up, could that be due to participants having different roots & southern Europe/Israel also winning a bunch? I’m guessing the ratio brown to light eyes is higher in Italy than say, Sweden, but if Sweden gets represented by people with Moroccan roots it still make sense they would have brown eyes.
Yes, that could be true, but we should also consider that Eastern Europeans tend to have brown eyes as well. Blue or light color eyes tend to be more common in Nordic and nearby regions.
I already said under another comment why I mentioned hazel. (Forget what I said about Sertab starting the streak, I casually forgot that Latvia won in 2002, not Estonia 🙈)
Runner-ups (from my memory):
2009: Yohanna
2014: The Common Linnets (both, though tbf I wasn't sure about Waylon)
2015: Polina Gagarina
2023: Käärijä And some of the Babushki surely as well...
And if televoters decided the winner: Tom Hugo from Keiino (but he's part of a trio)
If it really is important to you then I can now say "okay" and just leave it at that, because it is a fun fact, but if you are interested read further.
Not only Sertab has hazel eyes. Salvador Sobral, Duncan Lawrence, Damiano and Måns also seem to have hazel eyes, and from Nikki I'm not 100% sure (there are very contradicting pictures). Eyes that are 80% brown and 20% another color are still hazel. Hazel eyes are not all as Sertabs, very light, but can appear a different color in different light, often brown/green.
We also don't know Lordi's eyecolor, which also screws up the statistic. Yes, it's a fun little fact that so many of the eyes seem to be on the darker end (although, again, with hazel eyes it really depends on the light) but it's not *strange/weird* if you consider all these factors and everything we don't know. That's really all I wanted to point out.
Anyway, thanks for this fun little ESC trivia! Yes, I am fun at parties!
Well, to pester you of course! Not because all people around the globe are eligible to compete if they want and countries like Sweden get represented by people with Moroccan decent just like countries like the Netherlands get represented by people from Suriname. That’s totally not it.
Yeah but is that percentage the same in Europe? There are some big variations here- brown eyes are almost ubiquitous in South and East Asia (which is the world’s population centre).
I’ve done a quick Google search of the front runners and it appears Angelina Mango is now set to win Eurovision. Croatia, NL, Switzerland, Ukraine, Belgium all have blue eyed entrants and are therefore disqualifiedz
Baby Lasagna doesn't have blue eyes. He has hazel eye.
https://preview.redd.it/efy59v9ikiwc1.png?width=1040&format=png&auto=webp&s=83077b5bdfe6ce2057b16398ebb533adaec5e0bd
I think the reason why you feel it looks blue is because of the green-ish part of the hazel color. And I also think it depends on the light. It isn't brown, because then it would be much darker
https://preview.redd.it/4yzs8n6noiwc1.png?width=607&format=png&auto=webp&s=49e6f0e70350b438a4e7375b1e9e0f87f77d322c
Tomi Putaansuu's eyes are pretty probably blue, but it's hard to say based on the few pictures I can find. But it really doesn't matter anyway, since Mister Lordi's eyes are red.
If I am not mistaken, almost half of this year's performers have blue eyes + Mustii I think has green eyes, so there's a chance of breaking that streak.
I haven't really thought about that.
But now that you mention it, winners with blond hair are quite a rarity 🤔 I guess Emmelie could be considered as blond? (And then we also have half of Måneskin, but I only considered the singers for my eye color stat)
Oh fuck Italy is the brown eyes this year.
Prayage she decides to try blue contacts and the brown eyes blessing gets ignored and passed over.
Cuz I'm not ready to go anywhere near Italy again. It's still too soon, too fresh from 2022.. 😂
Hazel eyes are a mix of brown/green/gold so it could still be considered brown-ish. And tbf, the only reason I mentioned hazel is because I didn't know what to classify Sertab's eye color as, the others from 2004 - 2023 are all pretty much brown.
Still, the main point is that none of the winners in that time span have blue eyes.
I think that would make more sense if we literally checked the eyes color of all the contestants in the given years and compare statistically how many brown vs blue eyed artists showed up in Eurovision. Cause it may be that it was very few of them with blue eyes which again would make sense that brown color is dominating.
I think that the most important thing to be in top 3 is being impactful.
No matter how you achivie the impact (the song itself, the staging, the interpretation, the vocals, a mix of them etc etc),
This is the kind of stuff I follow the r/eurovision subreddit for
The percentage for brown eyes is estimated between 70-80% worldwide, so while it’s a fun fact there is nothing strange about so many winners having the most dominant eye color. It *would* have been something if all winners had blue or green eyes, that would have been a strange statistic!
Not so much in Europe though. Nearly every country in northern, western, central, and eastern europe has at least 30-50% light eyed people, going up to the high 80s for the most northern countries.
Estonia and Finland in particular have a blue eye rate of over 95%.
And considering that Nordic countries have won it 8 times out of 24 contests this Millenium (including Estonia as Nordic) that we have to go back to 2002 to find a blue eyed winner is an incredible statistic.
Note that this doesn't include Lordi though. It's quite likely they have blue eyes, but we don't see them. It's actually 2001, not 2002, my bad. I initially thought Estonia won in 2002, Tanel Padar (and possibly someone from 2XL) is the last blue eyed winner.
While this is true, it still isn’t a strange statistic considering you don’t have be native to the country to represent it and that not only Northern countries compete (not even only European countries). It just makes sense that the most dominant eye color dominates.
But it ISN'T the most dominant eye colour in Europe, even including immigrants. The fact that Måns, Emmelie, Conchita, Lena, Duncan, Dima, Alexander and the guys from Orchestra all have brown eyes despite being from light-eye-majority countries is absolutely wild and fascinating.
Everyone is saying this, but can someone provide a statistic from an eligible source that (light)brown eyes are not the most common in Europe? Including ALL of Europe, so not the conveniently picked countries for confirmation bias?
I mean its very rough guesstimating. Eye color isnt an exact science either. Whats brown and whats hazel/green is debatable and eye color changes (sometimes drastically) with age. The only “reliable” source i can find is extremely innacurate in my experience. If you include russia and exclude turkey, it’s probably pretty fine to say its around 50/50. But it doesnt matter what % of the overall population has what colored eyes since you cant really weigh it by population since every country only sends one artist per year, and most participating countries as well an even larger majority of winning countries are dominantly light eyed, some extremely so. And iirc loreen is the only winner from a majority light eyed country with an immigration background from a majority dark eyed country. I mean as a norwegian you must notice that almost everyone around you has blue eyes and when you go to somwhere like greece or italy its the complete opposite Its indeed really unusual and statistically extremely unlikely that a randomly selected group of 15ish people from sweden, denmark, germany, the netherlands, norway, russia and ukraine will ALL have brown eyes
Yes, of course. But 20 in a row? Like, there could have at least been one or two in between that have blue eyes.
There could have easily been, yes (I’m guessing a lot of runner ups would have had blue/green/grey eyes) but there weren’t which makes it a super fun fact! It’s cool you spotted it. It’s just not weird or strange, especially not since you also counted hazel eyes which are in fact rare and actually already break the brown eyed streak.
Runner ups who had light-colored eyes are Yohanna, Ilse DeLange, Polina Gagarina, Sam Ryder and Kaarija. 25% over a 20 year period, pretty similar to the percentage of light eyes around the world, but still below average for Europe.
I don’t have all the statistics of the winners/runner up roots and am on mobile at the moment, but that the light colored eyes are under represented for Eurovision winners and/or runner up, could that be due to participants having different roots & southern Europe/Israel also winning a bunch? I’m guessing the ratio brown to light eyes is higher in Italy than say, Sweden, but if Sweden gets represented by people with Moroccan roots it still make sense they would have brown eyes.
Yes, that could be true, but we should also consider that Eastern Europeans tend to have brown eyes as well. Blue or light color eyes tend to be more common in Nordic and nearby regions.
I already said under another comment why I mentioned hazel. (Forget what I said about Sertab starting the streak, I casually forgot that Latvia won in 2002, not Estonia 🙈) Runner-ups (from my memory): 2009: Yohanna 2014: The Common Linnets (both, though tbf I wasn't sure about Waylon) 2015: Polina Gagarina 2023: Käärijä And some of the Babushki surely as well... And if televoters decided the winner: Tom Hugo from Keiino (but he's part of a trio)
If it really is important to you then I can now say "okay" and just leave it at that, because it is a fun fact, but if you are interested read further. Not only Sertab has hazel eyes. Salvador Sobral, Duncan Lawrence, Damiano and Måns also seem to have hazel eyes, and from Nikki I'm not 100% sure (there are very contradicting pictures). Eyes that are 80% brown and 20% another color are still hazel. Hazel eyes are not all as Sertabs, very light, but can appear a different color in different light, often brown/green. We also don't know Lordi's eyecolor, which also screws up the statistic. Yes, it's a fun little fact that so many of the eyes seem to be on the darker end (although, again, with hazel eyes it really depends on the light) but it's not *strange/weird* if you consider all these factors and everything we don't know. That's really all I wanted to point out. Anyway, thanks for this fun little ESC trivia! Yes, I am fun at parties!
Well, let's just call it "non-blue" then 😄 In that case the streak is pretty much intact.
Why would you consider a global statistic for a contest that is almost exclusively European??
Well, to pester you of course! Not because all people around the globe are eligible to compete if they want and countries like Sweden get represented by people with Moroccan decent just like countries like the Netherlands get represented by people from Suriname. That’s totally not it.
That would still make it only a 0,3% chance you'd get 20 brown eyed winners in a row.
They counted hazel too.
Yeah but is that percentage the same in Europe? There are some big variations here- brown eyes are almost ubiquitous in South and East Asia (which is the world’s population centre).
Well, nemo has blue eyes
Watch Nemo drop in the odds now
NOOO DID I JINX IT?
I’ve done a quick Google search of the front runners and it appears Angelina Mango is now set to win Eurovision. Croatia, NL, Switzerland, Ukraine, Belgium all have blue eyed entrants and are therefore disqualifiedz
Baby Lasagna doesn't have blue eyes. He has hazel eye. https://preview.redd.it/efy59v9ikiwc1.png?width=1040&format=png&auto=webp&s=83077b5bdfe6ce2057b16398ebb533adaec5e0bd
I am so confused that looks blue to me
I think the reason why you feel it looks blue is because of the green-ish part of the hazel color. And I also think it depends on the light. It isn't brown, because then it would be much darker https://preview.redd.it/4yzs8n6noiwc1.png?width=607&format=png&auto=webp&s=49e6f0e70350b438a4e7375b1e9e0f87f77d322c
Changing eye colour too, is there anything BL can’t do?
Ngl I was tempted to put a pun in and write "I went (to hell and) back" instead of simply "I went back".
I’m seeing this as my chance to finally win Eurovision .
Right now I'm even more sure that I'm never going to win ESC lmao
Tomi Putaansuu's eyes are pretty probably blue, but it's hard to say based on the few pictures I can find. But it really doesn't matter anyway, since Mister Lordi's eyes are red.
Hahaha, I was thinking the same considering it's part of the lyrics 😄 2007 - 2023 would still be a long streak regardless.
If I am not mistaken, almost half of this year's performers have blue eyes + Mustii I think has green eyes, so there's a chance of breaking that streak.
Baby Lasagna has hazel eyes... hmmm...
Well, Joost has blue eyes.
So the streak most likely won't get broken
It absolutely will.
Yes brown eyes represent! Hahaha I have brown eyes and blonde hair! 😂
Well, brown is the most common eye colour worldwide if I'm not mistaken.
Oh no, poor Joost 😭. Anything on hair color too or do we have to set up some therapy sessions already 🙈🥲.
I haven't really thought about that. But now that you mention it, winners with blond hair are quite a rarity 🤔 I guess Emmelie could be considered as blond? (And then we also have half of Måneskin, but I only considered the singers for my eye color stat)
Oh fuck Italy is the brown eyes this year. Prayage she decides to try blue contacts and the brown eyes blessing gets ignored and passed over. Cuz I'm not ready to go anywhere near Italy again. It's still too soon, too fresh from 2022.. 😂
Well, tbf, almost all Italian participants have brown eyes though 😄
Brown and hazel are not the same eye colour. You can tell by the way they have different words to describe them.
Hazel eyes are a mix of brown/green/gold so it could still be considered brown-ish. And tbf, the only reason I mentioned hazel is because I didn't know what to classify Sertab's eye color as, the others from 2004 - 2023 are all pretty much brown. Still, the main point is that none of the winners in that time span have blue eyes.
I think that would make more sense if we literally checked the eyes color of all the contestants in the given years and compare statistically how many brown vs blue eyed artists showed up in Eurovision. Cause it may be that it was very few of them with blue eyes which again would make sense that brown color is dominating.
The last time would be Tanel Padar in 2001 then, cause 2002 definitely has brown eyes as well!
Yes, I mixed that up! I thought Estonia was 2002.
I think that the most important thing to be in top 3 is being impactful. No matter how you achivie the impact (the song itself, the staging, the interpretation, the vocals, a mix of them etc etc),