Hygge hygge hygge hygge hygge hygge hygge hygge hygge hygge hygge hygge hygge hygge hygge hygge hygge hygge hygge hygge hygge hygge hygge hygge hygge hygge hygge hygge hygge hygge hygge hygge hygge hygge hygge. You may have seen this Danish term popping up in tweets you haven’t understood and then ignored, as well as online articles you haven’t understood and then ignored. But what if you’d known what it meant?
Hm. It’s an interesting thought experiment. Would your life be different then, perhaps not due to hygge itself, but due to a series of events triggered by your comprehension of the term “hygge”? Would you be wealthier, sexier, and more at peace if only you’d clicked on any of those hygge articles and read the first paragraph? The first paragraph, which, no matter the article, always explains how to pronounce it and what it is? Oh my god. Would you be dead?!
It’s important to consider how our lives might be different if only we’d made different choices.
Hygge: What is it, how do you pronounce it, and does it matter? Let’s take a closer look.
Okay, so, hygge. What is it, how do you pronounce it, and does it matter?
Oh. Okay. “Hygge” is, according to Charlotte Higgins’ Guardian article titled “The Hygge Conspiracy,” a Danish word with no real English equivalent, but it mostly means coziness, or “a feeling of calm togetherness and the enjoyment of simple pleasures, perhaps illuminated by the gentle flicker of candlelight.” You pronounce it like this: hoo-gah. And if it matters to you, my friend, of course it matters to me. I love you.
I love you, too.
Thank you.
So do you do it? Or what. I don’t get it.
Well, we’re just getting started. I didn’t expect you to “get it” yet.
Yes, you do it.
Okay…
What?
Oh, my god. If you “do it,” how do you do it?
Okay. I feel like there is a lot of tension between us right now, which is a useful learning device because interpersonal tension is the opposite of hygge. You “do it” by being cozy, warm, and calm with your loved ones. Okay? Finding joy in little things. Get it? Wearing thick socks around a fire. Drinking hot chocolate during a snowstorm. Reading a book underneath a blanket. Hygge.
That’s it?
Well. I’ve read a number of articles on hygge in preparation for this piece, and yes, it seems like that’s it.
That’s just nice winter stuff that everybody already knows about.
Yeah, I don’t know.
Haven’t there been a number of books written about hygge?
There have been. Just for a small sampling, there’s The Little Book of Hygge: Danish Secrets to Happy Living by Meik Wiking, The Cozy Life: Rediscover the Joy of the Simple Things Through the Danish Concept of Hygge by Pia Edberg, How to Hygge: The Nordic Secrets to a Happy Life by Signe Johansen, and Hygge: The Danish Art of Happiness by Marie Tourell Søderberg.
So there must be more to it that you just don’t know.
I mean. Yeah, there is probably a lot about it that I don’t know, there is probably a lot to everything that everybody doesn’t know, but as a concept I’m pretty sure I’ve explained it to you. You know the basics.
So far all you’ve told me is that it’s peaceful coziness.
And how to pronounce it.
And how to pronounce it, yes. Is there one more fact you can offer?
Yes! It can be used as a verb, an adjective, or as part of a compound, like “Julehygge,” which means Christmas-hygge. Aww. Aren’t you feeling hygge just hearing about Julehygge?
I read that hygge is complicit with the rise of xenophobic populism. Is it?
Ahhhh. Ehhhhhhhh. [tugging at collar] [pulling collar over head] [pulling whole head into shirt] [pulling arms inside shirt] [wrapping arms around body] [kneeling on ground] [falling onto side] [curling body into ball shape] [somebody puts a blanket on me] Hygge!
So, that’s pretty much all I need to know about hygge, right?
Right.
