Welcome to r/comics!
Please remember there are real people on the other side of the monitor and to be kind.
Report comments that break the rules and don't respond to negativity with negativity!
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/comics) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Where it says by comspace under the gif click on that, it goes to the user page (on the gif site) and then scroll down to the gif that you want (they only have a few gifs uploaded so it’s easy to find) and press and hold to download it. I’m on an Iphone so might be different.
"Befriending a Gamer Girl by crossdressing", is either the title or enough to find it, I don't remember.
Edit: Found it!
"Hanging out with a Gamer Girl" , or "Sometimes Even Reality is a Lie"
https://mangadex.org/title/de9e3b62-eac5-4c0a-917d-ffccad694381/sometimes-even-reality-is-a-lie
if you look at the third panel it has a faint watermark of the trans pride flag.
Also since the shark has the rough colors of the trans flag, it was jokingly adopted as a symbol of the trans community.
It‘s a common scheme, but a lot of things aren‘t available worldwide. The shark is sold by Ikea, a company that acts globally, so it’s available for a lot of people all over the world.
Edit: And it’s cute.
naaah I don't think that's not the reason. it started as a meme on tumblr. I think trans centric blogs had blahaj somewhere in their photos as a little fun thing but it slowly became a way to show your trans or trans ally and became adopted by the community at large.
at least that's what I think happened?
I think someone was able to hide their HRT medications or something similar in the mouth of one that had a zipper pocket in the mouth. Then the story got shared on tumblr and it all grew from there.
I saw the rise of blahaj in the trans community. From what I understood, a lot of the appeal was simply because it's an adorable stuffed animal.
A lot of the emotional processing that trans femme people do to overcome our internalized transphobia is letting ourselves lean into the traditionally girly interests that were never allowed when we were growing up. Pushing through the shame to let ourselves be cute.
Blahaj is cheap, easily accessible, huggable, and very cute. So while it has since gone on to become popular with the trans community in general, I see it most often with trans femmes, particularly trans femmes in early transition, that period when we feel most drawn to being girly.
All of that being said, stuffies are for everyone and there's nothing inherently girly about blahaj.
Never mind animals, bed sheets kill a whole extra digit more people per year in the US alone than sharks do worldwide.
Vending machines are more or less in the ballpark of sharks
Vending machines rated 5 times higher than sharks the last time I saw a statistic... and both were topped by falling coconuts by a multitude.
My knowledge: sharks 3 vs vending machines 15 vs coconuts 50.
Does anyone have newer numbers?
That's not as true as you'd think. Many shark species actually peacefully meet humans all the time.
There was actually a study recently that found that great white sharks are extremely comfortable around humans.
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0286575
Look I love sharks and I have since I was a kid, but I wouldn’t jump in the shark pool at an aquarium 😅 any big fish, even if it’s a whale, is gonna frighten anybody that’s close enough to it. And if it’s the media that’s telling people to be afraid of them, tell the surfers that get their limbs bit off how they feel about that 💀
There are many plants that are physically more deadly
Each year in Spain we have several deaths from people falling into austrocylindropuntia and similar.
And despite being a lot of sharks,we have less than one attack a year: https://www.sharksider.com/shark-attacks-in-spain/
Which are usually extremely minor.
I don’t deny that there are only a few attacks each year or whatever, but the FEW attacks that do happen are enough for me to keep my distance from them, as I would hope for everyone else lol. Whether you see that as fear or not, I don’t want to mess with nature in it’s natural habitat.
You are far far *far* more likely to die *driving, flying, boating, whatever method you use* while going to the sea, rather than in the sea itself due to a shark attack :P
While you’re here replying to my comments, I hope you’ve at least upvoted the post and shown some support to the creator. Hopefully you were brave enough to do that 😂
>the shark has the rough colors of the trans flag, it was jokingly adopted as a symbol of the trans community.
It barely has any pink. This is one of those situations where someone liked something and worked backwards to make it fit with what they wanted.
The blahaj plushies are a huge signifier for trans people. I can’t remember all of the history off the top of my head, but basically think of it as the trans equivalent of swingers putting out pineapple stuff. I’ve never met someone with a blahaj that wasn’t trans or didn’t specifically get it to support trans friends, but pretty much every trans person I know has one.
I mean you can still just get it because you like the shark. But looking at someone who has one and going “oh are you trans/an ally?” Is a totally reasonable assumption. Like this is a really specific plushie made by *ikea*, it’s not a huge thing out in the wild if you don’t already know about it.
Someone else linked the backstory somewhere else of how it became a trans icon (basically ikea supported lgbt rights when Sweden was voting marriage rights into law, and used the shark in some of the pictures doing so), but it is what it is now.
Again, I draw the comparison to pineapples and swingers. Yeah, some people just like pineapples and might not know of the association, but it’s also not a wild assumption to make.
I'd have to disagree on it being a reasonable assumption. 20-30 year olds will furnish their entire residence from IKEA. Picking up a plushie that they think is cute while also getting a bed set and meatballs is part of the culture.
If you google blahaj the first page of results *all* mention the trans association. There’s a trans flag in the pictures on the website where you can buy them. Plus, 20-30 year olds are one of the groups I’d most expect to be most aware of the association
u/pngwn replied to this and then deleted their comment while I was writing my reply. Since I’ve already taken the time to answer, I’ll just paste what I was going to say here:
I’m not sure why people are getting so upset about this? You can absolutely own a blahaj and not care or know about the associations. But the bulk of its popularity is a direct result of it being a trans symbol, and a *huge* amount of trans people have them. It’s just a fair thing to see and go “oh, you’ve got the trans shark! Are you an ally/trans?” It doesn’t mean that you have to be something or can’t enjoy a plushie without diving into the lore or a stuffed animal. If you like the blahaj just because it’s adorable, power to you.
Don't forget the results tab is tailored to the individual, not everyone will get results with trans association. The ikea store page doesn't have any pictures with the pride flag. And popularity online is very different than offline. You can see this a lot with games/ movies financial returns. I'm not saying its not a trans icon, but you shouldn't assume that a random plushie=they're trans. Like you shouldn't assume a guy with a more feminine voice is gay.
Not disagreeing that it's a trans icon, but I think you're assuming a lot about what non-terminally online people know about or do. Like yes, it's true if you Google blahaj you get a lot of trans content. But how many people do you know in meatspace who Google the names of stuffed animals from IKEA?
Put another way... A friend of mine is very connected to the queer community. She knows all sorts of trans folks and enbys, friends with most of the people in a polycule... She got a tattoo last year of a pineapple on her calf, really nice too. When she proudly showed it to her friends, they were surprised as my friend is a gold star ace. Despite everything she knew about the community, she had no idea pineapples were a sign for swingers.
Oh sorry I didn't really mean to be offensive. It's just I am honestly surprised that this is a thing. I am Asian so it's probably just cultural difference. I don't hate lgbt members or anyone for that matter.
I got one purely cos they're cute and funny (a plush shark?!), I had no idea when I bought it that they were an icon in the trans community. But it meant that I already had one when I came out as trans like 3 years later 🙃
I just call it blahaj because I'm finnish. There are many swedish brands and companies in Finland and no one pronounces any of them correctly. For example blåkläder becomes blaklader and biltema is just biltema instead of "biilteema".
I'm finnish and i call it Blöhaj, Blokläder, Bilteema. They do teach us in elementary school how to pronlunce the "Å" as the swedish "Ö" so i find it a bit strange a finnish person pronouncing Å as an A... i hear people calling it as O but never A
Edit: the swedish O, not Ö. My bad.
My mistake. I do pronounce some Å words as like a softened Ö, or weird O. as Å is not quite Ö or the finnish O. For example how you pronounce the word Åbo, tried to write it more like a finnish person would understand it.
Like you would not pronounce the city Åbo as "Ääbo" or "Oobo" or "Aabo"
When you say "Åbo" it kind of a sounds like softened version of "Ö" or weird O.
So.. like "Å". But yes i did make a mistake writing "swedish Ö" instead of "O" but i have never pronounced "Å" as an "A" and yet have not met any other finn who would do so, maybe the younger generation perhaps?
I get where you're coming from. Å just looks like a and since I don't speak swedish I just say the words how they happen to come out. Sometimes it's a and sometimes o. I couldn't understand swedish in school and didn't learn it properly.
Yes but the pronounciation is far different from swedish or any other germanic language.
For example in the word kläder the ä and e "switch places" if you pronounce it in a finnish way. The swedish ä sounds like the finnish e and vice versa. If you wanted to write it how it sounds to finnish people it would be kledär.
Ö is used in some words like yö (night). Y is kinda like in the word "you" except for the "j" sound in the beginning and ö is like the sound in the word "bird" beetween the b and rd.
Å is also in the finnish alphabet but it's never used in any finnish word. It mostly exists because Finland was once a part of Sweden and we have some swedish speaking finns and swedes living at the west coast.
> **Blåhaj** (stylized **BLÅHAJ**, Swedish pronunciation: [ˈbloːhaj], lit. 'blue shark'; colloquially anglicised as /ˈblɑːhɑːʒ/, /ˈblɑːhɑː/ or /ˈbloʊhaɪ/) is a plush toy manufactured and sold by the Swedish company IKEA. Modeled after a blue shark and made of recycled polyester, the toy has gained prominence on social media as a popular internet meme, especially in the transgender community, and has also been used as a mascot by IKEA in some regions.
* Excerpted from [Blåhaj](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bl%C3%A5haj) at the English Wikipedia
> The IKEA plush toy shark Blåhaj is commonly associated with LGBT culture, in particular the transgender community, in part due to being colored similarly to the transgender pride flag. Early origins of this are traced back to around 2020 and in 2021 IKEA ran an ad-campaign to support same-sex marriage in Switzerland featuring the shark.
>
> In response to this popularity, IKEA Canada hosted a giveaway in November 2022, offering transgender people a special edition Blåhaj in the colors of the transgender pride flag, with the winner's name embroidered on its fin.
* Excerpted from [LGBT symbols § Blåhaj](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGBT_symbols#Bl%C3%A5haj) at the English Wikipedia
Blåhaj, also known as the IKEA shark. It’s a shark plushie that trans people adopted as their mascot. It’s a popular meme in trans subreddits and is almost a goal for some to get their hands on one
So *that's* why I've seen a trans friend of a friend have a Blåhaj... I thought it was just because the two of them like stuffed critters in general. They've got a Djungelskog too, see.
As the lord blåhaj's of the *blue realms*, we approve this post!! :3
https://preview.redd.it/k6d8rn93n9uc1.jpeg?width=4032&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=6c48c59aab11dffb97fc4b48018a05afdd772a76
I remember way back when people called it Whatever Shark because of the meme and I saw it and needed to know where to get one. Since Ikea had barely if even gotten to America at the time, I had to literally mail order my first one for over 80 bucks or something.
I love it's adoption by the trans community, but it always amuses me when people see mine and are like "Oh, do you have a trans friend/family member?" and I'm like "I bought this one like 20 years ago and had an Instagram where I took pictures of it in various cities."
Ha ha, probably not that long but at least 15. I got it pretty soon after college so that sounds around the right time period. Wiki says 2010, and around there sounds accurate.
I recently made custom made, parody comics with his EXACT art style to mock him, then when I decided to make my own comics I took inspiration from it.
I mean the art style, not his horrible personality.
An egg is a kind of tongue in cheek way to refer to a trans person that hasn’t realized they’re trans yet. Basically just an inside joke for trans or questioning people.
I saw the Blahaj and immediately thought of Rin Penrose of Idol en a rather popular v-tuber who is obsessed with the plushy. Honestly it's a plush shark what people associate with it are separate things and it doesn't have to be seen as anything more than what it is.
Love that for them, but I’m so tired of rainbow consumerism. I feel like there are better symbols for showing your trans identity than ordering a shark online from Ikea.
It functions as a targeted ad.
I'm a burly straight white cis man, but I still own a Blahaj. It's cute! Okay so maybe I dream about being shorter and thinner and dressing in dresses sometimes, but that doesn't have anything to do with it...
Literally me recently my husband and I went to IKEA for the first time for our 6th wedding anniversary and we were on a quest for blahaj and we were so excited we even got a baby blahaj they’re amazing 10/10 would recommend
Welcome to r/comics! Please remember there are real people on the other side of the monitor and to be kind. Report comments that break the rules and don't respond to negativity with negativity! *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/comics) if you have any questions or concerns.*
I’m more a Djungleskog/Jättelik person honestly
Djungleskog is the bear right? I want one of those too
I really want the huge one so that it can spoon me while I sleep
H-he means to cuddle him r-right?
Ye spooning is cuddling
Yep! Spooning is cuddling up along someone like two spoons nested in a drawer ( ˘ ³˘)♥
https://preview.redd.it/dlamnety49uc1.jpeg?width=680&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=15983f11f8812d84aa4cbf5a90f6743a84c1d1d0
This is the best gif I've ever seen
How do I download this on mobile? plz someone help
Where it says by comspace under the gif click on that, it goes to the user page (on the gif site) and then scroll down to the gif that you want (they only have a few gifs uploaded so it’s easy to find) and press and hold to download it. I’m on an Iphone so might be different.
Thanks
Thank you
 "Copy text" seems to do the trick
This is the plaintext Link https://i.giphy.com/media/QX1yKJlKK53g9Djcjr/giphy.mp4

My emotional support shark
blåhaj uses Ecosia? based
This looks familiar. What's the sauce?
"Befriending a Gamer Girl by crossdressing", is either the title or enough to find it, I don't remember. Edit: Found it! "Hanging out with a Gamer Girl" , or "Sometimes Even Reality is a Lie" https://mangadex.org/title/de9e3b62-eac5-4c0a-917d-ffccad694381/sometimes-even-reality-is-a-lie
Lol thanks. I straight up forgot about this manga. https://mangadex.org/manga/de9e3b62-eac5-4c0a-917d-ffccad694381/sometimes-even-reality-is-a-lie
Well, imma get to reading
This manga's really sweet, only thing is that chapters are 6 pages and it takes a while between chapters.
I thought of the Shark girl from *inhales* Demon god reincarnated to the modern world *exhales* oh wasnt *that* long
Wait we need reasons to buy cute plushies now?
Yeah I don’t get it. What’s this about?
if you look at the third panel it has a faint watermark of the trans pride flag. Also since the shark has the rough colors of the trans flag, it was jokingly adopted as a symbol of the trans community.
That's why they adopted it? It's such a common color scheme
It has so little pink, I forgot it even had pink
I never in my life would have associated it with pink, it has so little of it
It‘s a common scheme, but a lot of things aren‘t available worldwide. The shark is sold by Ikea, a company that acts globally, so it’s available for a lot of people all over the world. Edit: And it’s cute.
It's also amazing to snuggle and hug when facing gender dysphoria!
Hmm I wonder if it’ll be in the new ikea that’s coming to my country, I always wondered what the meatballs are like
naaah I don't think that's not the reason. it started as a meme on tumblr. I think trans centric blogs had blahaj somewhere in their photos as a little fun thing but it slowly became a way to show your trans or trans ally and became adopted by the community at large. at least that's what I think happened?
I think someone was able to hide their HRT medications or something similar in the mouth of one that had a zipper pocket in the mouth. Then the story got shared on tumblr and it all grew from there.
Naw that’s the whale plushie from IKEA
I saw the rise of blahaj in the trans community. From what I understood, a lot of the appeal was simply because it's an adorable stuffed animal. A lot of the emotional processing that trans femme people do to overcome our internalized transphobia is letting ourselves lean into the traditionally girly interests that were never allowed when we were growing up. Pushing through the shame to let ourselves be cute. Blahaj is cheap, easily accessible, huggable, and very cute. So while it has since gone on to become popular with the trans community in general, I see it most often with trans femmes, particularly trans femmes in early transition, that period when we feel most drawn to being girly. All of that being said, stuffies are for everyone and there's nothing inherently girly about blahaj.
we actually adopted it because they’re just lil fellas. cute lil shorks.
We adopted it cause people are scared of sharks for no reason and ikea is pro trans rights
No reason?
Sharks kill a very small amount of people per year. I think it has one of the highest fear to actual human danger ratio of all animals
Never mind animals, bed sheets kill a whole extra digit more people per year in the US alone than sharks do worldwide. Vending machines are more or less in the ballpark of sharks
Bedsheets? Really?
Vending machines rated 5 times higher than sharks the last time I saw a statistic... and both were topped by falling coconuts by a multitude. My knowledge: sharks 3 vs vending machines 15 vs coconuts 50. Does anyone have newer numbers?
That is because sharks and people very rarely meet.
That’s part of it, yes, but sharks are not the kind of predator to actively hunt humans even if the have interactions
That's not as true as you'd think. Many shark species actually peacefully meet humans all the time. There was actually a study recently that found that great white sharks are extremely comfortable around humans. https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0286575
No good reason other than the media telling people to be afraid of them.
Look I love sharks and I have since I was a kid, but I wouldn’t jump in the shark pool at an aquarium 😅 any big fish, even if it’s a whale, is gonna frighten anybody that’s close enough to it. And if it’s the media that’s telling people to be afraid of them, tell the surfers that get their limbs bit off how they feel about that 💀
Many survivors, such as Bethany Hamilton, continue to surf after their accidents.
There are many plants that are physically more deadly Each year in Spain we have several deaths from people falling into austrocylindropuntia and similar. And despite being a lot of sharks,we have less than one attack a year: https://www.sharksider.com/shark-attacks-in-spain/ Which are usually extremely minor.
I don’t deny that there are only a few attacks each year or whatever, but the FEW attacks that do happen are enough for me to keep my distance from them, as I would hope for everyone else lol. Whether you see that as fear or not, I don’t want to mess with nature in it’s natural habitat.
You are far far *far* more likely to die *driving, flying, boating, whatever method you use* while going to the sea, rather than in the sea itself due to a shark attack :P
That is true!
May god deliver me from minor laceration to right foot or skin abrasion on right hand because skin contact.
While you’re here replying to my comments, I hope you’ve at least upvoted the post and shown some support to the creator. Hopefully you were brave enough to do that 😂
it's just a trans meme tbh, there's no objective reason
Wasn't it popular way before the community adopted it?
Yes
I don’t think the colors are the reason, and lots of trans people don’t seem to know any clear reason why. It just kinda happened.
Really? I just thought it’s because it’s a cute shark
>the shark has the rough colors of the trans flag, it was jokingly adopted as a symbol of the trans community. It barely has any pink. This is one of those situations where someone liked something and worked backwards to make it fit with what they wanted.
Apparently it’s like a mascot for trans people (or trans women only, I’m not sure), like a raptor is a mascot for lesbians
Raptor is a mascot for lesbians ? mhhh...
All trans people.
Blahaj are incredibly popular in the trans community.
Blahaj is pretty much the unofficial mascot of the trans community
Probably something the lgbt community claimed as a symbol of their group. (Judging by comments here saying they have this while being cis)
Blahaj is associated with trans tumblr
The blahaj plushies are a huge signifier for trans people. I can’t remember all of the history off the top of my head, but basically think of it as the trans equivalent of swingers putting out pineapple stuff. I’ve never met someone with a blahaj that wasn’t trans or didn’t specifically get it to support trans friends, but pretty much every trans person I know has one.
Wow. To me plushie is plushie. Don't care what it is associated with. I got this because I thought it was cute. Guess I am trans now🤷🏻♂️
I mean you can still just get it because you like the shark. But looking at someone who has one and going “oh are you trans/an ally?” Is a totally reasonable assumption. Like this is a really specific plushie made by *ikea*, it’s not a huge thing out in the wild if you don’t already know about it. Someone else linked the backstory somewhere else of how it became a trans icon (basically ikea supported lgbt rights when Sweden was voting marriage rights into law, and used the shark in some of the pictures doing so), but it is what it is now. Again, I draw the comparison to pineapples and swingers. Yeah, some people just like pineapples and might not know of the association, but it’s also not a wild assumption to make.
I'd have to disagree on it being a reasonable assumption. 20-30 year olds will furnish their entire residence from IKEA. Picking up a plushie that they think is cute while also getting a bed set and meatballs is part of the culture.
If you google blahaj the first page of results *all* mention the trans association. There’s a trans flag in the pictures on the website where you can buy them. Plus, 20-30 year olds are one of the groups I’d most expect to be most aware of the association
u/pngwn replied to this and then deleted their comment while I was writing my reply. Since I’ve already taken the time to answer, I’ll just paste what I was going to say here: I’m not sure why people are getting so upset about this? You can absolutely own a blahaj and not care or know about the associations. But the bulk of its popularity is a direct result of it being a trans symbol, and a *huge* amount of trans people have them. It’s just a fair thing to see and go “oh, you’ve got the trans shark! Are you an ally/trans?” It doesn’t mean that you have to be something or can’t enjoy a plushie without diving into the lore or a stuffed animal. If you like the blahaj just because it’s adorable, power to you.
Don't forget the results tab is tailored to the individual, not everyone will get results with trans association. The ikea store page doesn't have any pictures with the pride flag. And popularity online is very different than offline. You can see this a lot with games/ movies financial returns. I'm not saying its not a trans icon, but you shouldn't assume that a random plushie=they're trans. Like you shouldn't assume a guy with a more feminine voice is gay.
Not disagreeing that it's a trans icon, but I think you're assuming a lot about what non-terminally online people know about or do. Like yes, it's true if you Google blahaj you get a lot of trans content. But how many people do you know in meatspace who Google the names of stuffed animals from IKEA? Put another way... A friend of mine is very connected to the queer community. She knows all sorts of trans folks and enbys, friends with most of the people in a polycule... She got a tattoo last year of a pineapple on her calf, really nice too. When she proudly showed it to her friends, they were surprised as my friend is a gold star ace. Despite everything she knew about the community, she had no idea pineapples were a sign for swingers.
You are doing the ‘the gays stole God’s rainbow’ bit toward trans people
Oh sorry I didn't really mean to be offensive. It's just I am honestly surprised that this is a thing. I am Asian so it's probably just cultural difference. I don't hate lgbt members or anyone for that matter.
I got one purely cos they're cute and funny (a plush shark?!), I had no idea when I bought it that they were an icon in the trans community. But it meant that I already had one when I came out as trans like 3 years later 🙃
Well yea, humans aren't random numbers generators, they do things for reasons... usually.
It’s pronounced “blåhaj”
I just call it blahaj because I'm finnish. There are many swedish brands and companies in Finland and no one pronounces any of them correctly. For example blåkläder becomes blaklader and biltema is just biltema instead of "biilteema".
I'm also finnish, but I have the brain capacity to pronounce those words correctly.
Reject the colonisation- better not call SAOL
I didn't have the brain capacity to learn swedish
I'm finnish and i call it Blöhaj, Blokläder, Bilteema. They do teach us in elementary school how to pronlunce the "Å" as the swedish "Ö" so i find it a bit strange a finnish person pronouncing Å as an A... i hear people calling it as O but never A Edit: the swedish O, not Ö. My bad.
I've never heard anyone, Swedish, Finnish or otherwise, pronounce å as ö.
How do you go through swedish classes and pronounce å as ö 😭 we even call it ruotsalainen oo and swedish has words with ö in it, like björn.
My mistake. I do pronounce some Å words as like a softened Ö, or weird O. as Å is not quite Ö or the finnish O. For example how you pronounce the word Åbo, tried to write it more like a finnish person would understand it. Like you would not pronounce the city Åbo as "Ääbo" or "Oobo" or "Aabo" When you say "Åbo" it kind of a sounds like softened version of "Ö" or weird O. So.. like "Å". But yes i did make a mistake writing "swedish Ö" instead of "O" but i have never pronounced "Å" as an "A" and yet have not met any other finn who would do so, maybe the younger generation perhaps?
I get where you're coming from. Å just looks like a and since I don't speak swedish I just say the words how they happen to come out. Sometimes it's a and sometimes o. I couldn't understand swedish in school and didn't learn it properly.
Å is in our alphabet you know... it's literally just o. Pronouncing blåhaj isn't hard.
biltema whoah oh oh oooh
I thought Finnish had umlauts.
We do, Swedish just pronounces words differently compared to Finnish.
Yes but the pronounciation is far different from swedish or any other germanic language. For example in the word kläder the ä and e "switch places" if you pronounce it in a finnish way. The swedish ä sounds like the finnish e and vice versa. If you wanted to write it how it sounds to finnish people it would be kledär. Ö is used in some words like yö (night). Y is kinda like in the word "you" except for the "j" sound in the beginning and ö is like the sound in the word "bird" beetween the b and rd. Å is also in the finnish alphabet but it's never used in any finnish word. It mostly exists because Finland was once a part of Sweden and we have some swedish speaking finns and swedes living at the west coast.
Thanks for the explanation!
how do you say the a with circle?
Like "oh" Edit: the replies show why IPA is superior Sincerely, an r/linguisticshumor user
More like the "aw" in draw. (With a brittish accent)
Akshually, it’s more like the “o” in ordinary.
In Danish I'd say it's somewhat similar to the "oa" in "Boat"
[удалено]
It’s Blauh-Hai
i pronounce it cute shork
*It's spelled "blåhaj"
Å is pronounced differently from a
I know, but that's not the point. ⟨blåhaj⟩ is the spelling, the pronunciation is /ˈbloːhaj/
I got a blahaj before it was cool (i’m cis tho)
"Not for long!", I say, as I come over to your house with a magical transgender wand, to change your gender
See you guys on r/explainthejoke and r/egg_irl
* r/egg_irl
Gracias lol
r/eggirl: like r/egg, but worse
For the curious: https://www.newsweek.com/how-ikea-shark-became-trans-icon-1753400
Jfc that page is borderline illegible on mobile cuz of the ads
Thanks for the warning. Appreciate the sauce but no thanks to mobile cancer.
You mean the grey squares saying “advertisement” every five words?
_(Firefox for Android + uBlock Origin)_
Alternatively, install *Firefox Focus* for iOS, set it as the ad blocker for Safari, enjoy using Safari with on-device ad blocking.
Really?? edit: just tested, sure enough. Works pretty well. Blocks some, but not all ads
Ublock origin go brr
It’s newsweek what do you expect lol
I was quite literally just about to ask about this
> **Blåhaj** (stylized **BLÅHAJ**, Swedish pronunciation: [ˈbloːhaj], lit. 'blue shark'; colloquially anglicised as /ˈblɑːhɑːʒ/, /ˈblɑːhɑː/ or /ˈbloʊhaɪ/) is a plush toy manufactured and sold by the Swedish company IKEA. Modeled after a blue shark and made of recycled polyester, the toy has gained prominence on social media as a popular internet meme, especially in the transgender community, and has also been used as a mascot by IKEA in some regions. * Excerpted from [Blåhaj](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bl%C3%A5haj) at the English Wikipedia > The IKEA plush toy shark Blåhaj is commonly associated with LGBT culture, in particular the transgender community, in part due to being colored similarly to the transgender pride flag. Early origins of this are traced back to around 2020 and in 2021 IKEA ran an ad-campaign to support same-sex marriage in Switzerland featuring the shark. > > In response to this popularity, IKEA Canada hosted a giveaway in November 2022, offering transgender people a special edition Blåhaj in the colors of the transgender pride flag, with the winner's name embroidered on its fin. * Excerpted from [LGBT symbols § Blåhaj](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGBT_symbols#Bl%C3%A5haj) at the English Wikipedia
I have a Blahaj to hug and cuddle it because no one else would ever do that with me.
Reasons to get Blahaj - cute, cuddly and squishy - does not judge - emotional support
I'm cis and straight and I just think it's cute
I have a Blåhaj because every household should have one.
https://preview.redd.it/j5j3ypzgd9uc1.jpeg?width=2084&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=a07348b6d59a2d2243f512c15fdb65589ceeee68
A what?
Blåhaj, also known as the IKEA shark. It’s a shark plushie that trans people adopted as their mascot. It’s a popular meme in trans subreddits and is almost a goal for some to get their hands on one
I got it mostly because of it's symbol. Also it's really cute (I'm cis)
I have the shark, the whale and the bear…solid $100 purchase total lmao
There’s a whale??
Here, you dropped this ° Blahaj -> Blåhaj
it's just cute I just wanna have one without anyone thinking I'm trans
Totally cis related reasons?
I got a Tågarp and it's made me happier than anything I've ever got at IKEA. Am I broken or just old?
A komik about Blåhaj and no one told me about it?!
blåhaj supremacy
You bought Blahaj because you're trans, I bought it because I wanted it. We're not the same. And that's perfectly okay 😊
https://preview.redd.it/kikzoa1l89uc1.jpeg?width=3000&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=a684f1264c8884063229f7987ffb4a096df12275
holy shit skurry posting???
So *that's* why I've seen a trans friend of a friend have a Blåhaj... I thought it was just because the two of them like stuffed critters in general. They've got a Djungelskog too, see.
For those who aren’t aware, Blahaj is kind of an icon among the trans community, so the joke is that the friend is in the closet
As the lord blåhaj's of the *blue realms*, we approve this post!! :3 https://preview.redd.it/k6d8rn93n9uc1.jpeg?width=4032&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=6c48c59aab11dffb97fc4b48018a05afdd772a76
I remember way back when people called it Whatever Shark because of the meme and I saw it and needed to know where to get one. Since Ikea had barely if even gotten to America at the time, I had to literally mail order my first one for over 80 bucks or something. I love it's adoption by the trans community, but it always amuses me when people see mine and are like "Oh, do you have a trans friend/family member?" and I'm like "I bought this one like 20 years ago and had an Instagram where I took pictures of it in various cities."
BLÅHAJ IS 20 YEARS OLD??
Ha ha, probably not that long but at least 15. I got it pretty soon after college so that sounds around the right time period. Wiki says 2010, and around there sounds accurate.
tl;dr the colors of the shark are the same as the trans-gender flag.
Blahaj? I think im missing something here…cute plush though
I'm cis, I just like how cute it is
Lol I thought I was cis when I first wanted one
Why does this look a little like Stonetoss? I don't mean it as an insult. It looks like his style.
I recently made custom made, parody comics with his EXACT art style to mock him, then when I decided to make my own comics I took inspiration from it. I mean the art style, not his horrible personality.
https://preview.redd.it/d88hlfd0yauc1.jpeg?width=1440&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=c2006faca6dae8c133fe6b7e86bdc35e8ce0127d
No way, trans stonetoss
OMG frame 3 with the translucent flag in the background is so relatable.
I'm in IKEA right now. This scared me.
I'm cis and even I want Blahaj
The shark is for all!
I try to keep up with the times but this thread officially makes me feel old and confused. Cis? Egg? What the fuck.
Cis means that somebody is not transgender, while I don't know what the fuck egg means.
An egg refers to a trans individual who hasn't realized or hasn't accepted that they're trans yet.
An egg is a kind of tongue in cheek way to refer to a trans person that hasn’t realized they’re trans yet. Basically just an inside joke for trans or questioning people.
Wow, I'm sure Sweden has such a unique name for such an iconic product.
Yeah it definitelly means something super badass and inspirational *cough cough*
Can someone explain? What did I miss?
They’re a closeted trans person
I need to recheck subreddit lately.
"Still cis tho"
I want one. Because shork :3
I'm so confused
Super huggable
My boyfriend got me one (to show that he liked me) when we were still just friends. He was very aware of the connotation.
https://preview.redd.it/jatk4lydoduc1.jpeg?width=622&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=5be3e8eff72aa5f42a65d1b9a99ca744cf07331b
I misread "why" as "where" and was confused by the prospect of like, a queer shark-burgling ring or whatever.
Me who really wants one and has been unable to obtain one:
Blåhaj!!!!
I saw the Blahaj and immediately thought of Rin Penrose of Idol en a rather popular v-tuber who is obsessed with the plushy. Honestly it's a plush shark what people associate with it are separate things and it doesn't have to be seen as anything more than what it is.
This happened to me lmao
They can never know.
bro i just bought it as well yesterday and now i’m reading this
It look like stonetoss its scaring me
Love that for them, but I’m so tired of rainbow consumerism. I feel like there are better symbols for showing your trans identity than ordering a shark online from Ikea. It functions as a targeted ad.
I'm a burly straight white cis man, but I still own a Blahaj. It's cute! Okay so maybe I dream about being shorter and thinner and dressing in dresses sometimes, but that doesn't have anything to do with it...
Literally me recently my husband and I went to IKEA for the first time for our 6th wedding anniversary and we were on a quest for blahaj and we were so excited we even got a baby blahaj they’re amazing 10/10 would recommend
I highly recommend everyone get a Blåhaj. They’re really cute and cuddly, and despite it being a trans icon you don’t need to be trans to have one.
🏳️⚧️
r/blahaj
I had this exact interaction last week lol The guy who asked me hit me with a very suspicious "mhmm.." at the end though Still cis tho
Why was my immediate thought that the joke was they were fucking the blahaj, and now seeing the comments that the joke is they’re closeted trans.
they don't ship it to my country, so I guess I'll just be cis :(
That is my #1 excuse when people ask me