Päntsdrunk Is A Finnish Underwear Drinking Trend That Should Take Over The World

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I’m not huge on lifestyle trends. Sure, I decided to try 5:2 Intermittent Fasting, but the appeal of that was it’s a lifestyle I only need to follow two times a week. I’m not mentally tough enough to endure something like keto, or paleo, or become a vegetarian, or decide to say fuck it and become the fat guy. I just don’t have the commitment gene necessary for any kind of long-term lifestyle (I guess with the exception of becoming an athleisure guy).

But, I think there’s a new lifestyle trend I could get behind. It’s called ‘Päntsdrunk’ and it’s all about solitary relaxtion aka being left the fuck alone, and enjoy an alcoholic bevie. Seriously, this is a new thing. There’s a book about it. And I’m hundo P going to read that book, subscribe to the lifestyle, and see how things go.

Per Daily Mail:

A new Nordic lifestyle trend has encouraged people to strip down to their underwear when they get home and drink as a form of relaxation.

‘Päntsdrunk’ is a self-care phenomenon that encourages ‘a path to solitary relaxation, recovery and self-empowerment to help you face your future challenges,’ according to a book entitled Päntsdrunk: The Finnish Path to Relaxation.

Finnish journalist Miska Rantenen wrote the book about the new trend and explained it stems from people being trapped indoors during the harsh Nordic winter.

The ‘polar night’ refers to the wintertime stretch where countries such as Norway, Finland and Denmark experience limited sunshine in the colder months.

These cold spells can deter someone’s drive to step out and socialize, so instead they remain indoors where it is warm.

With Päntsdrunk, it encourages people to embrace this time by stripping down to their underwear after a hard day and relax on the couch by themselves.

‘Place savory or sweet nibbles within reach, by bed or sofa, alongside remote control and devices to access social media. Open a bottle or can of alcoholic beverage,’ Rantenen wrote.

His book, out June 5, is to help Americans understand the philosophy of Päntsdrunk, which is actually called kalsarikänni in Finland.

This practice is so routinely accepted in Finland that its own Ministry of Foreign Affairs introduced emoji characters participating in the practice.

The male version features a man in his underwear holding a beer while the female version illustrates a woman sipping on wine.

While the practice was invented because of the cold weather, these Nordic countries still have some of the happiest people in the world.

Countries such as Norway and Denmark have high taxes to help pay for universal healthcare and cheap (or free) college. This investment towards everyone’s happiness appears to being paying off.

So it should come as no surprise that the region would also invent a happy way to get through the winter months, like stripping down and drinking to survive the harsh cold.

Wow. A lot to unpack here. Is this the greatest lifestyle trend of all time? I mean, come on, I triple dog dare you to find me a better sitch. In your undies, a bit of booze, savory or sweet nibbles within reach, unfettered access to the clicker, and, the coup de grace, left the fuck alone. It’s reasons like this that the Nordic countries are the happiest on earth; they’ve got the most brilliant lifestyle choices known to man.

I do, however, have some serious concerns regarding the name “Päntsdrunk.” So, the practice is called “kalsarikänni” in Finnish, so, why the hell are we calling it “Päntsdrunk?” I’m pretty bamboozled by this: take something, translate it into English, but then mash it up so it kind of looks like it’s still in the original foreign language? And calling it “Päntsdrunk” when one of the central tenants is being pantsless? You see how I’m struggling to wrap my noodle around this one. Because this lifestyle requires you to be 1) drunk and 2) panstsless. They nail the first one, but go the exact opposite for number two. Sure, you could say “pants” is a euphemism for underwear in British English, but the more common British expression is “___ is the pants” which means it’s bad, which also does not help us in this linguistics conundrum.

The naming of this great lifestyle sounds good, but when you unpack it, it’s all wrong. It’d be like if we called siestas “las ñappas.” It’d be like if my buddies who went abroad came back and brought with them this amazing new invention called “Táco Tuesdáys;” it’s when you spend Saturday afternoon crushing tacos. Bee tee dubs, would hundo P be into a combined Táco Tuesdáys plus Päntsdrunk sesh this upcoming weekend, DM if interested. And if that doesn’t move the needle for you, might I suggest a Smøkestáand, where we of course sit around and smoke a little green, or, for the more reckless, perhaps a Kœkenaked, which is when you toot some marching powder fully clothed.

Which, I guess, all of this is to say that it’s probably wicked easy to start a wellness/lifestyle cult centered around doing lots of drugs. Oh wait a minute, didn’t they already do that in the seventies? For the eternity of time, drug people have been convinced that drugs are the key to happiness for a long, long time. Some drug people even think that drugs are the reasons humans even have the capacity for abstract thought! There was this dude Terrence McKenna who you may have heard about. A total Plan 9 from Outer Space. Homeboy was all about altering mental states with psychedelics. Also wrote a computer program called “timewave zero” that purported to show an increased density of “novelty” over time in human thought. The “novelty” reached infinity in December 2012 (coincidentally linking up with the Mayan calendar end of eternity). BUT, McKenna died in 2000, and it makes me wicked upset that he didn’t live to see his fucking shitty drug theory not come true.

PS – Don’t want those Emoji’s…NEED those emojis.

PPS – “‘Place savory or sweet nibbles within reach, by bed or sofa, alongside remote control and devices to access social media. Open a bottle or can of alcoholic beverage,’ Rantenen wrote.” One wonders if Rantenen wrote this book in broken English or if someone at the Daily Mail did a piss poor Finnish Google translate on the source text..

[Via Daily Mail]

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Boston Max

Spending my retirement fund at Trader Joe's and trying to remember to check my mailbox semi-regularly

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