white people who are incredibly enamored with the idea of Iceland and may have an idealized or inaccurate notion of what constitutes Icelandic culture and heritage.
This is not an unfamiliar concept: some non-Japanese people people fetishize Japanese culture, myths, and customs. Others fetishize Ireland, its legends (fairies, anyone?), and its landscape. This sort of thing is almost always
done with an inaccurate understanding of the country and culture, and often with no discernible explanation for why that person, who has no real reason to claim the culture for their own, would decide to do so.
And recently, there'
s been a bizarre wave of people fetishizing Iceland.
Usually it's
done by people who seem to think the entire country is populated by clones of Bjork and Jonsi Birgisson, and who
don't realize the beautiful photographs of the Icelandic landscape are all taken during the spring, because there is no sunlight for most of the
winter. Also this is a culture where fermented shark
meat is part of the traditional fare and if you
don't eat it people think you're a wimp. FETISHIZE THAT oh yeah baby, rub that shark
meat all over my face. Love that cheesy ammonia smell.
