Känd eller ökänd? Old guy rant...

In Swedish there is a word for famous - "känd" - and it has (or at least used to have) a positive meaning. The opposite is ökänd. I guess the English equivalent to ökänd would be infamous?

For a long time there was a clear distinction between känd/ökänd - famous/infamous. English not being my native language - I feel that ökänd mayby is a bit stronger than infamous? Ökänd is when you have done really bad things.

In the 80-ies and 90-ies the distinction between känd and ökänd started to get fuzzy. It has been a sliding scale since and today the difference is nil.

Today in media there is just känd. And if you are känd you are a celebrity.

When I was young (pre 1990) you were känd (famous) for something you were good at and in a positive scence. It could be anything but if you were känd it was for a positive thing. If you had done something awful you were ökänd (infamous).

Today you seem to be a celebrity and famous regardless of for what. It could be getting drunk and fornicating in a TV reality show or filming yourself doing weird and stupid things - and publishing it on youtube or tiktok.

Today there is just känd. Regardless if it is a positive or a negative.

When someone were famous earlier it was paired with achievement.

I remember some years ago there was a documenatary on TV here in Sweden where they had gathered reality show celebrities - asking them about their experiences. There was a guy performing by singing one of his songs in the show. Afterwards the TV host asked him how he felt being there with all these other reality show celebrities...
He answered - "well I am at least know for something I am good at - I can sing - I do not need to get drunk and f*ck on TV"...

One could see the panel of Big Brother/Paradise Hotel type of celebrities just choking...

Long rant...

Is the distinction between famous and infamous going the same way in the rest of the world?

That's what older generations said during the 60s.

Topic aside, perhaps, notorious might work for ökänd?

Känd eller ökänd, det är ingen skillnad eftersom "det finns inget sådant som dålig publicitet", eller hur? 😒 😵‍💫

I think the media might want people to think that reality TV participants are famous, and perhaps they are to some degree, for a while, a while being as long as whichever TV show they are part of is on TV.

I am trying to think of some names from such TV programs, but no names pop up. I can't really remember who was on X factor or who won one of those cooking shows, or fashion shows, or whatever shows.

I know that I don't watch those TV shows, but I don't listen to Country Music, or Rap Music, or Heavy Metal either. But I can name the more famous artists from those genre because, irrespective of how I feel about those types of music, I can appreciate their lasting musical talent.

Those who are Känd/ kjendiser or whatever usually fade pretty quickly without actual talent.

Thanks Tony, that was an awesome post!

LOL, sorry, I couldn't resist. 😀