Ceuta Crisis, Online Extremism & Denmark’s Pop Melody: LWID S6E1

Ceuta Crisis, Online Extremism & Denmark’s Pop Melody: Fionn O’Toole and new cohost Maite Cristina discuss the Ceuta migration crisis and Denmark’s political reaction, the rise of nihilistic violent extremism targeting young people online, and the Danish musicologist behind the viral “Gen Alpha Melody”, with a focus on what these stories mean for internationals living in Denmark. 

Topics:

 (03:00) Ceuta Migration Crisis

 (13:06) Denmark’s Schengen Reaction

 (19:32) Online Extremism & Grooming

 (33:11) The Gen Alpha Melody 

Our team:

• Cohosts: Maite https://www.linkedin.com/in/maitecristinall/ - and Fionn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/fionn-o-toole/
• Podcast Operational Manager: Bence - www.linkedin.com/in/bence-bodogan-b3830b5b
• Audio Editor: Steve - https://www.linkedin.com/in/stephen-larke-mejia/
• Graphic Designer: Sariah - www.linkedin.com/in/sariah-romero
• YouTube: Ahmet - https://www.linkedin.com/in/ahmet-akkoc/ and Lei - https://www.linkedin.com/in/lei-zhang-2409a1205
• Transcript Editors: Melissa - https://www.linkedin.com/in/melissalarson1/

👀 LWID Substack: English -Romanian - Polish - Spanish - Turkish - Italian - German - Hungarian - Ukrainian

🛍️ LWID merchandise:  https://last-week-in-denmark.tpopsite.com/shop

❓ Email:lastweekdk@gmail.com

Follow: 

https://www.instagram.com/last_week_in_denmark/ 

https://www.facebook.com/lastweekindenmark 

https://www.linkedin.com/company/lastweekindenmark 

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC74z1nBOfol1EiPxHPHiHnw

website: https://lwid.dk/ 

🎵 Music,Jack Leatherbarrow @ Wizmedia: https://wiz-media.co.uk/

Transcript

Copy

Fionn: Migration, online extremism, and the surprisingly familiar melodies shaping the soundtrack of pop music. I'm Fionn O'Toole, and welcome to the Last Week in Denmark podcast. Each week, we talk through some of the top stories that happened last week in Denmark, and we focus on how they impact internationals living here. So if that sounds like you, then welcome home! We're so glad to have you back. If you're a first-time listener, we have full, five seasons to explore in our back catalog, and now we are back with new episodes every week during this, which is the start of season six. Joining me this week for episode one is one of our brand-new cohosts, Maite Cristina.

Maite: Hi, Fionn!

Fionn: Hi!

Maite: It’s such a pleasure to be here with you, and I'm really excited to collaborate with the Last Week in Denmark team.

Fionn: We are so excited to have you. And this week, we're gonna be exploring the Ceuta migration crisis. Rising online extremist networks in Denmark; how they target children, and how some schools are attempting to combat that. And lastly, a Danish music graduate who has gone viral after identifying a melody used in hundreds of pop songs. Now, just a quick heads-up: some of the topics we discuss in this episode might contain references to violence, online manipulation, self-harm, and unfortunately, worse. So if that isn't your cup of tea or you're listening to this in the car with your kids, feel free to skip to the end to the final topic, which I promise will be a little bit lighter. And if you enjoy today's episode, please leave a review or share this podcast with somebody that you know. We're here to help internationals in Denmark stay informed and feel connected, so thank you so much for helping us reach more people just like you. So Maite, firstly, yeah, welcome to the podcast. It's absolutely great to have you join us as a cohost. Would you like to tell our listeners a little bit about yourself and your background?

Maite: Well, I am from Costa Rica. I have been here in Denmark for a year and four months or so, and I'm a sociologist by trade, specialised in human rights and peace education. 

Fionn: Wow!

Maite: And I have to say that since I moved to Denmark, I have a passion for podcasts as a way to inform myself and have critical conversations, and I immediately started looking for podcasts that would help me navigate my experience here in Denmark and quickly came across Last Week in Denmark. So it's been since the beginning of my arrival, and it's interesting to all of a sudden be here with you and with all of the Last Week in Denmark audience as well.

Fionn: We are so happy to have you. And I think, you know, just hearing your background, your expertise in sociology and human rights, I'm here feeling like I'm just some guy [Maite laughs] in his basement in Kastrup. So [laughs] you're, I think you're really helping us raise the game for season six and, yeah, as I said, we're delighted to have you. 

Maite: Thank you.

Fionn: I think we are gonna dive into our first topic this week, and that is the Ceuta migration crisis. I know we say “Ceuta” in, in English, but you are, I think, our resident Spanish speaker, so how would you actually pronounce that in Spanish? Is it the same or a bit different?

Maite: Yeah, it's a little bit different: Ceuta.

Fionn: Okay, okay, so not too far, but naturally English speakers… we mangle everything. But this story, it is a story about migration. It's also very much, I think, a story about information, European politics, and just how quickly an event at one, let's face it, small border, can actually become kind of a continent-wide political crisis. Now, I think the first thing we probably need to ask is, well, what actually is Ceuta and what actually happened? And many of our listeners may not be aware, but it is a Spanish enclave on the North African coast bordering Morocco. And along with Melilla, it represents the European Union's only land borders with Africa. And these are small enclaves, but they've been there for quite a long time. Am I right? They're, I think, kind of remains of Spain's colonial past?

Maite: Yeah, exactly. So at least a couple hundred years. But something interesting to add there as well is that, in regards of the relationships of Ceuta and Melilla, which are these both Spanish enclaves in this Moroccan or African continent territory, is that at the beginning of the '90s, there was a rise in the Sub-Saharan migration that begins to happen. And so this lands in 1999 a decision to raise this fence and these borders that were so visible in the news in the past couple of days and that have come into our visual imaginary to understand that these are enclaves that are completely gated in the Spanish territory, ah, or the Spanish claim to that territory, in the African continent. And it creates a clear division and a segregation that has, also, impacts on the local communities and the historical relationships between those communities as well.

Fionn: I think, so you mentioned this kind of rise in migration in the '90s, but this incident, right, it's not simply 70,000 people arriving steadily across from Morocco. So, if you were maybe living under a rock, basically what happened is in late July, border controls on the Moroccan side appear to have either collapsed or been potentially withdrawn, and tens of thousands of people crossed into Ceuta, many by swimming around coastal barriers or moving through, kind of, gaps in those border points that you mentioned. And reports suggest that roughly 72,000 people entered, and really tragically, these crossings were extremely dangerous. I think authorities reported around 88 deaths with further deaths reported on the Moroccan side. And as of yesterday, which was the 7th of August when we were, before we recorded this, there were more than 1,300 unaccompanied minors still, still remaining there. So, this is very much a crisis, whether you want to look at that from an immigration point of view or a humanitarian point of view, and I think that's something that shouldn't be forgotten in the wider discussion around this. But this was sudden, and something caused that sudden mass movement. So there have been reports from Spanish intelligence believing that a trigger was a false claim circulating on social media after a Spanish Supreme Court ruling. And Maite, I think you were looking into that Supreme Court ruling, and could you maybe give us an idea of what it meant and where people may have misinterpreted that or false rumors may have come out of it?

Maite: Right. So as far as my research has allowed me to understand, in July 8th of this year, there was a Supreme Court ruling that came out of the Andalusia Court that was suggesting that people or individuals who arrived by sea were not directly breaching territorial fences and therefore could not be returned in what is known as “hot returns,” which are immediate deportations. So they would actually have to create a process and honour some of those rights for these individuals or migrants that are moving from one area to the other. But this was the cause of a Algerian immigrant that was actually caught in the sea trying to make its way to Ceuta together with two other individuals. And when he was immediately returned on this so-called “hot returns” or immediate deportations, he actually sued, requested a hearing, and the hearing was ruled in his favor. But this was misinterpreted. It demonstrates that there might be a space in the law that doesn't recognise these sea territories, which now, because of the situation that we had last week, actually the Spanish government went and placed a whole sea territory that looks kinda like a massive inflatable snake across the ocean that would then protect them from that. The question is, is there going to be changes in their law or are they going to keep a inflatable? Are we in the era of inflatable sea…

Fionn: Inflatable sea serpents guarding the borders.

Maite: Exactly. And again, it doesn't… It's not just the fact that we have this court ruling, but also the information that was coming out from the social media-

Fionn: Hmm. 

Maite: As well as other geopolitical factors that may be all coming into play into a hot pot that would cause such an extreme movement of people to happen all at once.

Fionn: I think social media is very much part of this, and it's something that I'd love to touch on as well. But I think before that-- So you mentioned, of course, the geopolitical factors and, you know, Morocco has contested Spain's claim to these territories. Pedro Sanchez had visited Algeria, and there is something we could probably spend hours on in terms of the geopolitical situation between those, those different countries. But one of the key things was, well, how did the rest of the EU and, of course, how did Denmark actually react? And that was pretty strongly.

Maite: Very strongly. So the Prime Minister, Mette Frederiksen, came in to say that they should consider a suspension of Spain from the Schengen Agreement, which was an immediate reaction. Of course, we had Italy. I think Finland also supported that proposal, and Italy implemented air and maritime border control with Spain for 24 hours. But yeah, I think it's important to recognise in here that there is no provision in the Schengen framework for this kind of action, to actually suspend a country. What they have in their, in their agreement is a code that allows border checks to be restored temporarily if there are serious threats to internal security or public order. These border checks will happen in bordering nations with Spain. Perhaps the wording when we understand, “oh, if people come into Ceuta, they are in Spanish territory, then they are in Schengen territory, and we are all connected.” But the actual connection between Spain and Denmark or Finland in this case is… is quite long.

Fionn: You have a bit of distance.

Maite: Yeah, and another thing to keep in mind is also that, just like Greenland and the Faroe Islands, Ceuta and Melilla are not part of the Schengen agreement.

Fionn: Mm-hmm. 

Maite: So it is important, also, to be very clear about where the Schengen area is, who it's composed by, and what are the rules, before, perhaps, we go on and say, "let's do things that are not in the… in the possibilities of the agreement itself."

Fionn: Exactly. And I think, you know, this is, as I saw it, a real contrast between very striking imagery and big numbers, and then actually the facts. So that striking number is that 72,000 people entered Ceuta in, you know, a, a number of hours. But equally important is the number that roughly 70,000 of them had left again within a number of days. So Ceuta unquestionably experienced an enormous humanitarian and border control emergency. But this idea that suddenly 70,000 migrants had, you know, entered mainland Europe and were spreading throughout the Schengen area, it's simply not what happened. As you mentioned, Ceuta is not part of the, the Schengen. They, you know, this already I think with a little bit of reading would tell you that this isn't the kind of invasion that some outlets were pitching this as. But that didn't stop an enormous political reaction. And I think the imagery made... It was politically irresistible for many because, you know, huge crowds at the border, it looks like this existential crisis, if you want to term it that way. And as you mentioned, yeah, Italy introduced these border controls, and Mette Frederiksen was really quick to support that on those considerations. And yet just a few days later you know, the European Union had emergency discussions, and Denmark's immigration minister, who's called Morten Boskov, said he was very satisfied with Spain's handling of the crisis. And I think the question there is, well, what changed? And obviously, part of that is there wasn't this onward movement into the Schengen area. The vast majority of these people returned back to Morocco. And actually, the European Union's Migration Commissioner, Magnus Brunner, said there was no evidence, at that stage, linking Spain's regularisation program, which is a, a separate program that they've done, to the Ceuta events. What I think is interesting is the broader Danish political context. Denmark has spent years, if not decades at this point, really moving towards one of Europe's, kind of, toughest mainstream positions on asylum and irregular migration. And I think, you know, when you look at the domestic reactions to… to this, and particularly the domestic reactions to Mette Frederiksen, you have Enhedslisten's Per Clausen, so that's very much a party on the left, arguing that Mette Frederiksen had massively overreacted, pointing out many of the facts that, you know, I just have had. Whereas Dansk Folkeparti, on the other end of the spectrum, also criticised her for saying she hadn't gone nearly far enough and that she should also follow Italy in suspending Schengen cooperation. But what Mette Frederiksen herself actually explained was saying that Denmark would not accept a repeat of 2015.

Maite: Mm-hmm.

Fionn: And I think that's maybe the interesting part of this for me, actually, is, you know, this, the imagery was not necessarily about what was actually happening on the ground, but it triggered a fear, I think, in, in many that they, you know, remembered this kind of last wave of mass migration, and in some cases uncontrolled migration, across Europe and into Denmark as well. And I remember very vividly Danish border controls when I moved to Denmark in 2018. I lived, like, a couple of kilometers from the Danish border to Germany. But I mean, this is maybe a big question, but do you think when a prime minister sees images that maybe resemble the 2015 migration crisis, should they respond immediately like it's a worst-case scenario like Mette Frederiksen did? Or do they not have a responsibility to actually wait to understand the situation? You know, is there actually a threat posed to Denmark before they make these reactions?

[Music Begins]

Fionn: Did you know that the Last Week in Denmark newsletter is available in eight languages? Hey there, this is Fionn from the Last Week in Denmark podcast, and every week you guys are tuning in to hear me and my fellow cohosts talk about the top news of the week in English. But let's be real. We're all internationals, so not only are you speaking English every day, you're probably also speaking a bit of Danish. But you've probably also got your own native language as well, like the multilingual master you are. So why not treat yourself to the luxury of being able to read Danish news each week in your own native language? So head on over to lastweekdk.substack.com. That's lastweekdk.substack.com, and sign up for our newsletter delivered to you every single Sunday.

[Music Ends]

Maite: Well, I believe actually that the leaders of the countries, in this case our prime minister, have a responsibility to have educated and informed responses to the circumstances that are happening. And in today's world, what we are seeing, in general, happening all over the globe is a rise in alarmist kinds of leaderships that are using very much this, ah, strategy to shock populations and to push fear agendas so that they can also support parts of their governments’ desires. And as you have just mentioned, in Denmark, we are seeing a rise in anti-migration, ah, discourse that is taking place. And for me, Mette's response is actually a perfect example that the politics in Denmark see, to put into the table what would happen if we can suspend a country from the Schengen agreement? What happens if we can segregate? What happens if we can raise the gates? What happens if... And they keep pushing this rhetoric, and while it might seem illogical or not even within the framework of the legalities of an agreement itself, it does open spaces to continue building that world of segregation and exclusion. That doesn't tackle the root causes and the issues of migration really.

Fionn: No, not at all.

Maite: If anything, the, the, the conflict that we had at the, at the Ceuta border this week demonstrates that. It is a border that has been in there for twenty-odd years, and over those years we have had constant situations of conflict where people have trespassed the border itself, not to the dimensions that we had this last week, but to demonstrate that raising up a border is not going to solve the, the conflict of migration, and particularly not on a global level, not on an economic level, or political, but definitely not on a humanitarian scope.

Fionn: I think we need to start kind of wrapping up and moving on to our next topics. But I think just as a final point, really supporting what you're mentioning there, the counter disinformation organisation, 411, analyzed roughly 4.5 million posts, you know, around sharing information around this crisis, and they found that Russian links and Russian militarily-linked accounts were rapidly amplifying these anti-immigration and far-right interpretations of the crisis. And I think that's… actually, the way I first saw the, the images was from people sharing, and people I know, which really worried me, sharing far-right influencer images of this crisis and far-right commentary. And I think that, you know, obviously doesn't mean that Russia caused this migration crisis. The reporting doesn't establish that. But it does mean that, you know, we need to be very mindful that no one is denying a crisis happened, but that we don't let these things be weaponised as information against us and against European unity as well.

Maite: And to always just keep in mind that there is a human factor to all of this, and these conversations of humanity, of empathy, do not go in the discourse of far-right.

Fionn: Mm. 

Maite: And far-right is using the social media and the digital spaces to move agendas into these areas of violence, which actually connects us to our next topic.

Fionn: Very much so. And you may have heard stories about how three teenagers have been charged under Denmark's terrorism legislation with planning an attack on a school near Randers. And while it has not yet been proven, and there is an ongoing criminal case, an investigation, authorities believe that this planned attack may be linked to what are called “NVE communities.” And unfortunately, the concern is much broader than just those three teenagers. DR was reporting that Europol is actually cooperating with Danish police on dozens of cases that involve these kind of online networks. And not every case is necessarily with both a Danish victim and a Danish perpetrator, but Danish politicians from across the political spectrum are now really asking the justice minister, Nicolai Wammen, for an assessment on the scale of the problem. But what is NVE? Were you familiar with the term before this? Is it something you've come across? I have to admit, it was quite new for me, and then when I look at the newspaper reportings, there's stuff going back the last few years. So it's really something I've been blind to.

Maite: Yeah, I am a little bit familiar with some underground, ah, networks more related into other areas of my previous work-

Fionn: Mm. 

Maite: Particularly with sex work and sex trafficking. But I was not necessarily familiar with the nihilistic violent extremism or NVE. And more interesting for me is how there are whole communities; it’s a whole family tree that is coming out of these movements. And this one called “The Community” or “The Com” actually has many different degrees of these networks, digital networks, that are moving all over the world and really just lurking in the background of the digital spaces and bringing children or vulnerable communities into their, into their hands really, or their control, and putting them in these circumstances of vulnerability, which is actually what worries me most to understanding this; that to enter the cults, the person that is being groomed into these, ah, communities is then requested to do some sort of crime, and then this crime is used as a blackmail. So if you don't continue producing this terrible content, and obviously executing these actions towards yourself or other people in your community, then we will tell your community because now we have proof that you are a criminal. So the children or the people that come into these communities go from being victims to being perpetrators, and it becomes a vicious cycle.

Fionn: Absolutely. And so if we even take it back a second. So what these organisations are, you explained NVE, it's nihilistic violent extremism. And these are a huge group of many different sadistic online communities that are organised around nihilism, hatred, and violence itself rather than, kind of, conventional political programs. And they are what are called “accelerationist groups,” many of them. So their goal, if they have one, is to cause chaos and suffering and to accelerate the collapse of our current civilization so that something else can come after. Now, I have to admit, when I first read a lot of these phrases, it almost sounded like the Satanic panic from the 1980s. You know, “video games are warping your children's minds; Dungeons & Dragons is Satanist content.” There is, in fact, many of these communities that have Satanist teachings in them as well. It sounds so dramatic, and yet this is very real. It is something-- I mean, they are featured heavily in the Global Terrorism Index in 2026. There are a number of them that have been designated as terror organisations by multiple countries, and they are communities that are primarily young men, primarily between the ages of seventeen into their forties. And yeah, they pressure people online into self-harm, sexual humiliation, and suicide, but also sometimes causing chaos or destruction, so lighting fires or even, unfortunately, mass casualty events like school shootings. And there's been some really horrifying cases. There was a elderly woman in Sweden, I think last year, who was stabbed on a live stream to death by a fourteen-year-old. There was a woman in Romania as well who was similarly killed, and this is essentially to gain clout or status in, in these organisations. And exactly as you mentioned, they target children. And very often it's a sexploitation thing where they force or coerce a child into filming some sort of sexual content and then use that as a threat to you know, "we will release this to your friends and family if you don't do what we say." For example, and apologies to our listeners, this is heavy stuff, but it's popular to get young women to cut blood signs, so they'll cut the name of the group or the perpetrators into themselves and write blood on the wall. So this, it sounds incredibly dramatic, and it is really scary, I think, listening to it, and one of the key things I think is, you know, why are these groups recruiting children? Because we've seen reporting that, you know, even children under ten can end up encountering these networks. And the initial recruitment dynamic is often, like, very ordinary, right? It can-- It's typically online, and it is typically children who want to play with other children. Perfect example could be a game like Minecraft or Roblox where they're playing with somebody they don't know, and that is essentially an environment where grooming can, can happen. I don't know. I mean, I'm a dad. I have a son who plays Minecraft. I have absolutely banned Roblox from our house because I've heard so many stories, and I like to think I'm not that alarmist. I'm somebody who loves playing video games myself. You know, I feel like I'm a little bit clued in to, you know, what's nonsense and what's… what's an actual threat. And I would really just encourage any parents listening out there, you know, if your kid is playing kind of online multiplayer games, something like Roblox, 90% of the time it's going to be completely fine. But there are countless stories of it being used to groom children, or cyberbully, or, you know, in this case even worse. Yeah, I mean, you with such a background in human rights, I'm sure you have a lot of opinions on this.

Maite: Yeah, I think particularly and probably… perhaps, maybe it’s that the… the NVE, it gathers examples of extreme violence that are already present in our societies. So they're not showing up out of nowhere and proposing this new version of violence, but they're actually gathering already from sources of violence that we have in societies, and perhaps that is the, the root cause that needs to be assessed here. With the municipalities also in Sjælland before this terrible situation happened last week with the three teenagers, who are also 15, 16, and 16; these are very young people. It is just so heartbreaking to have such young people already radicalised to that extent or having to experience those levels of violence by becoming perpetrators themselves. But that aside, it, it resonates that there is already a rise in these digital networks of violence and of grooming young people and radicalising young people, and the need for the state and everyone that really is in charge of education, which is a combination of all of the state institutions as well as families, to come together and understand that this is a mirror of the violence that we have in our societies. And to be able to fight against that or to transform that is to have an education of peace instituted back into the spaces, as well as to have more thorough conversations, not just with children, but with adults.

Fionn: Mm-hmm

Maite: Because the digital gap nowadays is so big that the majority of parents are maybe not aware with how many gateways their children may have, even if they're just sitting on their phone. They think they are, oh, looking just at TikTok or funny videos, but a lot of those funny videos actually have subtext messages that are being moved to the children, and we have to, in a horrible, ah, I guess, word is to surveil them, but that is our job, is to take care of our children. We don't go to the ocean and allow our children to just go in unless we know they are professional swimmers. We are watching for them.

Fionn: Exactly. Yeah. 

Maite: And in the same way we need to watch their interactions in the digital era and have a conversation with all kinds of sectors of the society to propose more peace dynamics or, or peace values that allow children then to have the tools to notice when they might-- they are getting groomed. And I think many times we don't want our children to, to be exposed to the fear of what it's like to live in our societies, but this is the reality.

Fionn: Mm. 

Maite: And so the best way to protect them is to equip them, instead of ignoring a circumstance and just treating it when it is already too late.

Fionn: Yeah. And I think that's a really excellent point. You mentioned these schools in, I think, it's called Stevns og Vordingborg, who are starting to train teachers and other school professionals to kind of look for those early signs of online radicalisation. And one of the key things that they kind of say to look out for, particularly for parents, is change. So it's not necessarily that a kid has, you know, one kind of off-colour joke or a strange video that they, they've watched or an argument with a parent. That's not, you know, evidence of extremism. But, you know, understanding patterns. Is a young person becoming increasingly preoccupied with violent material? Are they changing their attitude or language noticeably? Or are they, you know, appearing distressed over something that's happening online? And I think, you know, that idea of prevention before radicalisation is incredibly important in any way, shape, or form, right? Not only with this nihilistic violent extremism, but you know, I think for parents, we have so many parents that are listening to us, they probably don't need to know the name of every extremist network that a child could encounter. But they need to have that kind of relationship with their child where they can, you know, guide them through what an online, a fine online friendship could look like, and have that literacy. I think that's really important and a responsibility for us as parents to have that kind of online literacy, to be able to not just put your kid out there. You mentioned, you know, a kid running into the ocean, but, like, it's an ocean full of sharks.

Maite: Mm-hmm. 

Fionn: There’s so much of the ocean that is wonderful for them to swim in, but there's so many deep dark places that are, are scary as well. And I think we really have a responsibility to, yes, monitor, and also just communicate. Because in so many of the cases that have been reported, and I think just to give the scale, it is small compared to many other things now, but still, Norway alone I think has dealt with more than 30 of these incidents this year. But so many of them have only been stopped when a child finally talks to a parent, when they finally break down, because they've been coerced into so many acts, and the next thing they're being coerced into is to take their own life. So I think just, you know, making sure you're communicating and that a child has that safe space, that even if somebody has horrible blackmail material on them because they've done something wrong, that your child needs to be able to come to you and, you know…

Maite: Find safety.

Fionn: Find safety. Exactly.

Maite: And a way to walk, ah, to walk back into a society that is not completely encircled by violence. So they need to be able to know that it's okay to find their way back to a… to a place where it is safe or where we are living with certain standards. Because even in the, in the proposals of some of these organisations is for them to be able to move away. They consider everything that is a social standard as mundane, and so they wanna reject everything that is mundane, and that's kinda like that core idea that they have. And I think it's important, perhaps, also to understand that we are working with group mentality in teenagers. Teenagers want to be part of things. They want to have privacy. There's a lot of different layers to these relationships, and to be able to have that open bridge relationship with your children as parents will probably be the number one thing that will allow your children to come to you and say, "I've gotten myself in trouble, and I need your support to get out of here and to, and to make amends if necessary."

Fionn: I think that has been a heavy topic, but we need to move on. And as we promised, our final topic is a lot lighter. So apologies if there's a bit of whiplash going from nihilistic violent extremism to pop music, although maybe for some people the two feel kind of the same sometimes. But our final topic today is about Carl Emil Martin, who is a 27-year-old Danish musicology graduate, who has gone viral after identifying a four-note melodic pattern that just appears again and again in popular culture. He has, according to DR, found at least 75 songs that contain the melody and roughly 200 other songs containing very close variations, and he's calling it the “Gen Alpha Melody.” Those include some songs like, APT, Reckless by Madison Beer, Ode to the Mets by The Strokes. It's really across everything. I have to admit, this story kind of snuck under my radar a little bit this week until, until I found it. But is this new? I feel like people have been saying pop songs all sound the same for, for forever, right? [Laughs]

Maite: Yeah, me too, actually. I think there is, every generation probably has [laughs] their, their own melody that they are working with. I think the interesting thing in, in this news is for these musicologists to be able to identify the particular melody and also the repercussions of that identification. So if you go now, for example, on Spotify and you search for “Gen Alpha Melody,” there are so many playlists [Fionn laughs], and of course the playlists are mostly the same songs. 

Fionn: Yeah. 

Maite: So it's kind of like an echo just moving through the digital space. But the interesting thing I find about the melodies in general is that they have the capacity to, um… they work with your cognitive, with your emotional triggers, your spatial memory networks.

Fionn: Hmm, that's fascinating. 

Maite: And they stick in your brain, and they're called, actually, “earworms.”

Fionn: Yeah.

Maite: And I found this particularly interesting because for me it’s… I have, like, a playlist of songs that are always living rent-free in my head.

Fionn: Oh wow.

Maite: And they’ll come up in different times of the month, and I'll be walking around the house, and then I'll start singing one part, and my partner will be like, "oh, we're on that song now?" And they're very old songs. They're songs mostly, perhaps, from back in the day or in my day, and not necessarily the new songs. So perhaps I need to check the Gen Alpha Melody playlist and incorporate some new music into my brain.

Fionn: What's one of the songs that is an earworm for you?

Maite: I, I, I wish... I'm so terrible with the names, but it's that really old song, and, that it's like, “it’s quite all right to want to be loved by everyone," you know? And it's, I don't even know if the lyrics are right because music is not my area, but it will run through my brain, and I'll be, like, walking around, and all of a sudden it'll come in again and again into my head.

Fionn: Probably for about 15 years, a song stuck in my head, and I didn't know what it was called. I didn't know the lyrics, but there's just a part of the song where a woman, like, vocalises, and it's really catchy. And it’s a kind of song you would hear in the background of an ad or, like, a compilation, you know, like, "oh, in 1987, people were doing this." And it... I couldn't get it out of my head, and I couldn't figure out what it was for me to even listen to it. And eventually, I was watching a documentary, an Irish documentary, which was like, “things that happened in this year in Ireland,” and it was, like, using archive footage. And the song came on, and I was like, "okay, now I have an in." So I ended up doing, like, a big Google search to find, like, what was the soundtrack of this episode, of this documentary from the '80s. And I eventually found that it was Right on Time by Black Box. So if anybody wants to listen to it, that's the song, and you will immediately hear what I mean when it's just a woman vocalising. And that part could get really earworm stuck in your head. But I swear, it must have been 15 years before I could figure out what it was, and it was killing me.

Maite: And it's so interesting because music, the same as smell, will impact you in a particular moment. So perhaps it's not even the song, but what you were doing in that moment, the music is in the background, and your brain connects that. So it has that historic memory that will bring you that, to, to that place of happiness or joy, whatever it is that you were experiencing, without you actually being so involved in who was singing or what were the lyrics.

Fionn: Absolutely. And I think the Gen Alpha Melody, the pattern itself consists of four core notes. So in C major, it's F, B, E, and A. And the thing I mentioned kind of upfront that I was like, I was sure I'd heard of this before, and I went back and I looked, and in 2009, you mentioned every generation has their version of this, there was like, I think like a comedy band called “The Axis of Awesome,” and they had a whole onstage routine, which was that they'd, you know, spent years trying to write a pop song and couldn't, and then one of them was like, "well, you just need these four chords." And they play, there's something like 70 songs in there that they just go through, just playing those same chords. So I think there are those things, you know, inside of us that music or the same kind of melody or the same notes or the same smells, as you mentioned, just trigger these emotional reactions and can make something a hit or make something so memorable. And I just think, you know, with everything we've talked about today, some kind of quite serious topics, but like information on social media and then online manipulation, and now on a much lighter front, the way an earworm can kinda hijack our brains and, you know, bring that connection to so many people as well is maybe a much nicer version than on some of the topics we've talked about. And I think the important thing as well is that Carl Emil Martin, you know, he spends so much time discovering these songs, but after identifying hundreds of them, he still likes the melody, so it must be okay.

Maite: Yeah, I definitely think the repetitive patterns, they create a sense of familiarity and joy, and it makes us feel at home. And I think that sense of safety makes them, the songs, more approachable as something that we would like over and over again. Even if, perhaps, we think we like the type of music, we actually may just be connecting to the melody itself.

Fionn: Yeah. Well, that's it. I mean, sometimes repetition doesn't ruin something. Sometimes that's exactly why it works, and that is why even as we draw to the end of this episode, we will be back next week again for another episode of Last Week in Denmark. Maite, it's been absolutely wonderful talking to you this week. I know we've gone through some heavy topics and some lighter topics as well, but it's been an absolute joy to have you on as your first episode joining Last Week in Denmark as a cohost, and we look forward to repeating that many, many more times to come.

Maite: Thank you so much, Fionn, and everyone from the Last Week in Denmark team, and of course our audience for welcoming me into this space. And I look forward to any ways that I can continue to collaborate and bring in my particular Latin American perspective perhaps.

Fionn: Amazing. We're looking forward to it. And so that's it for this week. Thank you so much for listening. If you loved it, please do share it with somebody. Please leave a review. All of that always helps us get more listeners and more visibility, and help more people in Denmark feel informed and part of the country that they live in. So thank you so much for listening. Have a great week ahead.

[Outro Music Plays]