17 MAY-NORWEGIAN CONSTITUTION DAY CELBRATION WITH A BITTER AFTERTASTE.

By FB - Petter Farstad-Human Synthesis-18 May 2026

While ordinary people march in children’s parades, grill sausages, clean up after volunteer work, and try to give their kids a nice 17th of May celebration, Norway’s celebrity crowd stands outside Grand Hotel Oslo waving as if they were royalty. And the media? They swarm around like royal correspondents, all fighting for the attention of A-, B-, C-, and D-list celebrities.

Photos are taken as though these people have done something great for the country simply because they show up in traditional dress holding a glass of champagne. Influencers, reality TV personalities, and washed-up celebrities are treated like some kind of elite. Honestly, what exactly qualifies these people for such elevated status?

That they appeared on Paradise Hotel? That they have 200,000 followers on social media? That they participated in a reality show or have overflowing bank accounts? Apparently, that is enough in today’s Norway. The whole thing has become a kind of parade for a media and celebrity bubble that has completely lost touch with reality.

At the same time, there are thousands of people who actually keep society running. People working night shifts in nursing homes, truck drivers, fishermen, teachers, single parents, craftsmen. People who are never invited to the Grand, never photographed, and never handed free champagne or celebrity status. But without them, Norway would grind to a halt within three days!

To me, the real 17th of May hero is not an influencer or a tax exile from Switzerland standing on the balcony of the Grand Hotel. It is the father of small children who shows up for the school marching band at six in the morning after finishing a night shift. It is the grandmother baking cakes for the Constitution Day event. It is the volunteers who make the whole day possible.

The rest of the Grand Hotel crowd mostly comes across as a Trump-like self-absorbed media circus that long ago lost touch with ordinary people.