3w ago

Friday's papers: Ruined Moomins, Finland unprepared for future warfare, and where's the beef?

I'm interested on others' thoughts on this. I got into Moomin after Finnish family started gifting me mugs, and I now have a sizable collection. To me as a foreigner, the mugs were my gateway to the actual books. Is your experience that the children around you are getting burnt out on Moomin before they're old enough for the books?

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Huh, that must be a Finnish thing. In North America, I don't think I've ever seen a Moomin-branded product in the wild.
- Yeah, we have Moomin mugs, Moomin towels, Moomin bags, basically Moomins on everything you can put a Moomin on. I think that most households have at least one Moomin item. Sometimes mozzarella is called Moomin meat.
  
  Sometimes mozzarella is called Moomin meat
  This is unsettling.
- Moomin mugs is a wildly collectable item in whole of North Europe lol. It's kinda crazy how popular they are. People sell old limited edition mugs for top dollar on the marketplace
- I'm in the US, and they opened a US based online shop this year. They were also doing a big Barnes and Noble push around summer, but when I visited most recently all the moomin stuff had been moved out of a prime location and been heavily discounted.

As a finnish person, I've never heard of anyone who is "done" with the Moomins.
Everyone who knows any of the characters, loves them. People who don't are either indifferent or find the designs immediately appealing.
But basically everyone here either thinks they're "neat", don't mind them, or adore them.
It's kind of incredible how inoffensive they manage to be, while at the same time the stories Jannsson wrote tackle some very serious subjects.
In Finland there is an air of respect towards the franchise, and deference towards the wisdom within the stories.
Merch is usually made with real attention to quality. The mugs in particular aren't cheap, and when taken care of, will last longer than their owners. Even when regulary used.
Though I do find some of the branding of consumable goods to be quite crass, and I can't say I see anyone buying the stuff... I suspect it will fall flat with most people, and soon stop being a thing.

I didn't even know there were mugs (until 3 or so years ago, when my mum got me one) or the books (until about a year ago, when I found this community).

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