Thursday, October 16, 2025

Polaris of Enlightenment

Inside the 2024 Helsinki book fair

Published 14 November 2024
– By Ivana Bratovanova
3 minute read

In the last days of October, Helsinki came alive with the annual book fair at the Expo and Convention Centre, drawing Finnish and international authors for discussions on literature, art, and society. Thousands of visitors streamed in to discover books, vinyl records, decor, and more.

Prime Minister Alexander Stubb, speaking at the fair’s opening, noted that “literature builds our identity”, a sentiment that resonated with the spirit of the event.

On a gray, crispy Sunday morning the streets of Helsinki are quiet. Finns have cozied up inside their homes clenching to their beloved cups of coffee or are enjoying the avocado toasts and eggs benedict of their local brunch places. But there is one place in the city that is full of life – the Helsinki Book Fair. Outside the Expo and Convention Centre, people are speed walking to make their way first to the queues. Babies in strollers, elderly with their canes, and youngsters with their hip outfits.

The fair was held at the Helsinki Expo and Convention Center. Photo: Ivana Bratovanova

After a quick scan of the ticket’s QR code I have also made my way inside. I take off my scarf and my coat, fold them neatly in my bag, and prepare for “The Future”, this year’s theme. As I walk towards the exhibition hall, I can already feel the overwhelming twist in my stomach as my eyes open widely to the immense amount of literature, art, music, and so much more than I could have expected.

People of all ages, backgrounds, and interests have gathered together to enjoy the 4-day annual exhibit in Pasila. As I was wondering why is it that Finns choose to spend their Sunday at the book fair, Markus, an attendee, replied:

“The book fair has received an increased popularity over the past few years in media, and that also caught my eye”.

Markus says the thing he was mostly looking forward to at the fair was the vinyl selection.

“I’ve been meaning to update my vinyl selection and I knew that here I could find good jazz LPs”.

Photo: Ivana Bratovanova

The fair attracts not only natives but people from all over the world – more than 30 international authors were present this year. Panel discussions with writers, politicians, and industry professionals stopped people from flipping through the book’s pages and take a seat to listen to what they have to say.

On its opening day, the Helsinki Book Fair welcomed the president of Finland Alexander Stubb. He answered questions from the audience about the importance of literature for the Finnish nation.

”That is everything. Literature builds our identity (…) In our collective thinking Finnishness consists of the interpretation of history and literature around it. Without literature, we would not be”.

Stubb’s reflections on identity set the stage for deeper discussions throughout the fair.

Alexander Stubb spoke about the importance of literature for the Finnish nation.

The most crowded panel I saw during my visit was held by Hanna Ylöstalo, Emma Lamberg, and Inna Perheentupa on Feminism in Economics. Despite the language barrier, the audience’s sharp focus on the discussion showed a strong engagement with what was being shared.

After a quick bite from the Wine and Food corner at the fair, I was already looking forward to next year’s book fair. Until then, I’ll hold onto the inspiration of being surrounded by so many works of art in literary form.

TNT is truly independent!

We don’t have a billionaire owner, and our unique reader-funded model keeps us free from political or corporate influence. This means we can fearlessly report the facts and shine a light on the misdeeds of those in power.

Consider a donation to keep our independent journalism running…

Unjabbed: For singles who didn’t take the COVID vaccine

The criticized covid vaccinations

Published 12 October 2025
– By Editorial Staff
"Don't give up. Anything worth achieving needs work", is the message from Unjabbed's founder Antonetta.
4 minute read

After conventional dating apps didn’t meet her needs, Antonetta decided for various reasons to start a dating site for people who didn’t take the COVID vaccine. On Unjabbed.net, people can meet others seeking love or friendship.

In 2023, Antonetta chose to use a popular dating app in an attempt to find love. Since she wanted to find like-minded people, she was also open about not having taken the COVID vaccine. This resulted in Antonetta’s account being repeatedly deleted. She doesn’t know why her account was removed, but she suspected it was related to her honesty about the COVID vaccine. Instead, she tried another app and chose not to explicitly state that she hadn’t taken the COVID vaccine, but used various hints such as “believe in natural health”, “avoid synthetic chemicals”, and “seeking people who took the red pill”. There she got a bunch of matches, but no one understood her hints and most of those she talked to had taken the COVID vaccine.

In the wake of this, Unjabbed.net was born, a dating and friendship site for those who didn’t take the COVID vaccine. Since 2023, it has attracted thousands of members from several countries, but users are primarily from the United States, United Kingdom, and Canada. In Sweden, there are a few hundred members at the time of writing. Worth noting is that the site only exists as a website, not an app. The app that exists with the same name is from a different creator, according to Antonetta.

Several dating sites also participated in marketing COVID vaccine campaigns during 2021, according to Antonetta. For example, Tinder created labels where people could fill in whether they had taken the COVID vaccine or not. After the site launched, she received responses from members that they had also had bad experiences on conventional dating sites.

After starting unjabbed.net, several members told me they couldn’t find anyone on conventional dating apps and as soon as they said they were unvaccinated they were either insulted or had their accounts deleted or felt their accounts were being hidden in search results or restricted in some way“, Antonetta tells The Nordic Times.

Financially challenging

Starting a new dating site is not always an easy path. To be visible, you need marketing and advertising – something that costs a lot of money. The site was free until last year when they chose to introduce a membership fee to afford reaching out to other singles who didn’t take the COVID vaccine. However, Antonetta wanted the amount to be affordable compared to many other dating sites and apps, which can cost up to 60 dollars for three months, and also charge for sending messages.

Our website just charges $16 USD for a whole year and we don’t charge for individual messages”.

The advantage of charging is also that many people think twice before creating an account, and it also prevents spam, says Antonetta. However, it’s possible to create a free account as well, but you don’t have all the features on the site.

Several have found love

Despite unjabbed.net being relatively newly started, Antonetta says she has received messages from people who found each other on her site.

One couple donated 50 dollars to us and told us they had met on our website and are now married. A woman contacted us and said she’s getting married to the man she met on our website. So it works!

Tips for finding the right match

If you’re planning to create an account, Antonetta recommends both writing something about yourself and having photos. If you want to be more anonymous, you can, for example, upload a picture in sunglasses or similar. She also suggests writing something that can create a conversation.

People can write anything. What are their thoughts on the future of the world? What line of work are they in? What are their hobbies? Favorite places in the world to visit? Funny stories”, she suggests.

She also advises that it’s more advantageous to write to people in your own country than outside the border. It partly signals that you’ve given up hope in your country, but it’s also very difficult to make long-distance relationships work. Furthermore, she also suggests spreading information about the site in your own city; there may be singles who didn’t take the COVID vaccine but missed that there’s a dating site for this purpose.

There is hope

Finding like-minded people can be difficult, and even though more and more people show understanding for those who chose not to take the COVID vaccine, there are still many who believe it was wrong not to take it. At the same time, Antonetta encourages unvaccinated singles to dare to go out and talk to people they meet in stores, in town, or on the bus. You never know who you might meet there. Finally, she also wants to say that you shouldn’t give up hope on love.

Don’t give up. Anything worth achieving needs work“.

Number of members at the time of writing on Unjabbed.net by country

  • USA: 1349
  • United Kingdom: 872
  • Canada: 984
  • Australia: 249
  • New Zealand: 68
  • France: 501
  • Germany: 705
  • Italy: 234
  • Belgium: 142
  • Switzerland: 70
  • Spain: 76
  • Portugal: 42
  • Denmark: 129
  • Norway: 204
  • Sweden: 479
  • Netherlands: 1019
  • Japan: 25
  • Ireland: 63

Moomin becomes new feature film

Published 10 October 2025
– By Editorial Staff
Moomin and his friends have spread warmth, security and adventure to generations of children and adults around the world.
1 minute read

Moomin is set to be produced as a new American animated feature film. This will be the first Hollywood adaptation of Finnish-Swedish author Tove Jansson’s beloved stories.

This year marks the 80th anniversary of the magical Moomin troll, something that has been celebrated in both Finland and Sweden, where the troll is a cherished cultural figure.

Moomin, created by Finnish-Swedish author Tove Jansson, was previously produced as an animated feature film in Japan in 1992. There was also a Japanese-Finnish animated series that first aired in 1990 and became very popular internationally.

Now Hollywood will interpret the idyllic magic of Moominvalley, where Moomin and his friends embark on adventures, writes Moomin Characters, which manages the Moomin rights.

“We are honored”

The film will be produced by media company Annapurna’s animation division, which was founded in 2022 by former Disney animation executives Robert Baird and Andrew Millstein and is known for the Oscar-nominated film Nimona.

We’re honored to bring Tove Jansson’s timeless vision to the big screen, say Baird and Millstein.

It will be written and directed by Rebecca Sugar, known for the Cartoon Network series Steven Universe. Additionally, it will be produced by Julia Pistor, who is behind animated films such as SpongeBob SquarePants and Rugrats.

Earlier this year, Norwegian game developer Hyper Games also announced that they will release a new Moomin game. The game will be called Winter’s Warmth and is based on the book Moominland Midwinter.

Nigerians flock to tax-funded Finnish culinary education

Published 8 October 2025
– By Editorial Staff
The majority of students in Vamia's international culinary program come from Asia and Africa.
2 minute read

The vocational school Vamia in Vaasa, Finland receives thousands of applications annually from Africa and Asia for its free culinary education program.

Of this year’s 4,059 applications, nearly half came from Nigeria, and now the Finnish government wants the education to become fee-based for non-European students.

Ebuka Mbanugo, 33, from Nigeria already has a degree in accounting from his home country. But that degree hasn’t been of much use to him in his hometown of Lagos, he explains. Instead, he chose to move to Finland to study on Vamia’s international culinary program.

The education is free of charge – that is, financed by Finnish taxpayers.

— Honestly, I wouldn’t be able to afford to pay a fee for my studies, he tells Yle.

He used his savings to travel to Finland and has received financial help from his family to build a life here.

Majority from Africa and Asia

In the practice kitchen at Vamia, the majority of students come from Asia and Africa. Of this year’s over 4,000 applications, 1,962 came from Nigeria, and overall the number of applications from outside the EU has increased dramatically in recent years.

Last year, over 12,200 people from countries outside Europe studied at Finnish vocational schools and 4,700 at upper secondary schools.

Principal Åsa Stenbacka says she doesn’t know exactly why the school receives so many applications from outside Europe, but she assumes that the free education plays a decisive role. It takes three people a full week to go through all the applications.

€7,000 per student

Each graduated restaurant chef provides Vamia with approximately €7,000 through the tax-funded state subsidy system. The government’s proposal means that students from outside Europe would have to pay this amount themselves to finance their education.

— This will significantly affect the number of applicants, says Stenbacka, who argues that both the school and companies that need workers will be affected.

She points out that many students already work alongside their studies to manage financially.

— If they also have to pay a fee of €7,000, it will become unsustainable for them, she continues.

About 75 percent of graduates find jobs in Finland’s restaurant industry. Some move to the capital region, Lapland, or Åland. At the same time, unemployment has increased in Finland in recent years, and the restaurant industry is notorious for its low wages and high staff turnover.

“The economy is strained”

Education Minister Anders Adlercreutz explains that a fee for foreign students is a way to save money for the state.

— At the beginning of the government term, the government made an assessment that a fee could be appropriate, since the economy is strained, he states.

He also highlights the problem of upper secondary schools and vocational schools attracting foreign students, often minors living without guardians in Finland.

Apprenticeship education, where students study in combination with work, will remain free of charge going forward.

YouTubers invest in their own businesses – ad revenues are unpredictable

Updated yesterday 12:24 Published 6 October 2025
– By Editorial Staff
Jimmy Donaldson, known as MrBeast, has the world's largest YouTube channel with 442 million subscribers.
2 minute read

More and more YouTube personalities are reducing their dependence on ad revenue and brand partnerships and instead building their own business empires. The reason is that advertising income is unpredictable and can disappear overnight when the platform changes its policies.

YouTube has evolved into a gigantic platform that has contributed over $55 billion to the US GDP and created more than 490,000 full-time jobs. But despite the platform’s success, many of the most successful content creators have realized that it’s risky to rely solely on ad revenue, writes TechCrunch.

Many of the biggest channels have now transformed into vertically integrated media companies with product lines, physical stores and consumer brands that can survive algorithm changes. In several cases, these side businesses are growing faster than the YouTube channels themselves.

MrBeast leads the development

Jimmy Donaldson, known as MrBeast with 442 million subscribers, is the platform’s most aggressive entrepreneur. His chocolate brand Feastables generated around $250 million in revenue in 2024 with over $20 million in profit – significantly more profitable than his YouTube content which lost approximately $80 million the same year. The first product sold over one million units and generated more than $10 million within 72 hours.

Donaldson also runs the food brand Lunchly, the toy series MrBeast Lab, the burger concept MrBeast Burger and the analytics platform Viewstats. Now he plans to establish his own mobile network.

Coffee and energy drinks as goldmine

Emma Chamberlain, with over 12 million subscribers, launched her coffee brand Chamberlain Coffee in 2019. In 2023, the brand reached approximately $20 million in revenue and in January opened its first physical store. Revenue is expected to grow by over 50 percent in 2025 and reach more than $33 million.

Logan Paul created the energy drink Prime together with KSI, which surpassed $1.2 billion in sales in 2023. However, sales have declined sharply, particularly in the United Kingdom where revenue fell by approximately 70 percent between 2023 and 2024.

Children’s audience and beauty products

Ryan’s World, hosted by 13-year-old Ryan Kaji, has expanded its brand through toys and clothing that reportedly generated over $250 million in revenue in 2020.

Within the beauty industry, Michelle Phan has founded the subscription service Ipsy and the makeup brand EM Cosmetics, while Huda Kattan built Huda Beauty which generates hundreds of millions of dollars annually. Other well-known makeup brands from YouTube influencers include Jeffree Star Cosmetics and Tati Beauty, showing that the beauty industry continues to be an attractive area for content creators who want to build their own business empires.

Our independent journalism needs your support!
We appreciate all of your donations to keep us alive and running.

Our independent journalism needs your support!
Consider a donation.

You can donate any amount of your choosing, one-time payment or even monthly.
We appreciate all of your donations to keep us alive and running.

Dont miss another article!

Sign up for our newsletter today!

Take part of uncensored news – free from industry interests and political correctness from the Polaris of Enlightenment – every week.