For the longest time I’ve been wanting to write a series of posts about the small details of Skam that haven’t been widely talked about. All the key dialogue has been analyzed to death, but there’s still pieces that a lot of people have missed or are confused about. Some of these things are because of Culture, things that are obvious to a Norwegian audience isn’t always obvious to an international audience. Some of the things are blink-and-you-miss-it moments, they flash by, and you only see it if you are really paying attention. Some of the things are subtext, that which is hidden in the dialogue, and not explicitly said. But you can figure it out because of how the characters are saying it, or because of what the characters aren’t saying.



Culture: The series starts in September 2015. The school year starts in August, which means that all the characters have been at their new school for about a month.



High-school is a clean break from elementary school, and most of the other students will be people you don’t know, since you choose schools by what you want to study, and not by where you live. Some students at school will be ones that went to the same elementary school as you. Eva, Jonas, Isak, Sara, and Ingrid all went to the same elementary school together.



Blink and you miss it: It’s Chris’ laughter that pulls Eva’s attention to the girls walking, because Chris and Vilde have apparently made friends with Ingrid and Sara. This also shows that Ingrid and Sara have been making new friends, while Eva isn’t.



Culture: Grades are on a scale from 1 to 6, where 1 means fail, 2 that you barely passed, and 3 that you passed, but should do better. 4 means you did good, 5 means you did really good, and 6 that you aced it. The plus and minus modifiers are unofficial comments from your teacher, and 5+ basically means “Keep this up and you’ll get a 6.”



Cinematography: Eva feels alone, and the scene’s ending shot establishes this visually. Even though she’s in the schoolyard, surrounded by people, she’s all by herself.



Blink and you miss it: Eva’s paper is clearly marked 3+, but she told Jonas and Isak she got a 4-.



Blink and you miss it: Ingrid and Sara’s fake lashes. The photo caption simply says “Lashes ftw”.



Subtext: In the dialogue with Isak, we learn that he knows Ingrid and Sara from earlier, and knows what happened between Eva and Ingrid.



Culture: The poster says: “First revue party of the year. Friday September 25th. Buy tickets here.”

The Revue™ is a big thing at many Norwegian high schools. It’s an extra-curricular activity that results in a theater production that usually premieres in January, which means you have about four months to produce it. A revue is a multi-act variety show featuring comedy sketches, song, and dance, usually with some sort of unifying theme, and always referencing current events and zeitgeist. At Nissen, the revue typically engages 150 students out of the 700 total each year. Different groups in the revue are responsible for different aspects, the students at the table are part of the party group, who organizes parties, advertises them, and sells tickets, all with the purpose of having fun and raising money for the production.



Culture: Students at high schools are organized by year, programme, and class. Your class is the ~25 students that you will spend the majority of your time with, since you are all in the same year, studying the same programme, taking the same subjects. Ingrid and Sara are in 1STA.



1: First year.

ST: Studiespesialisering, “College prep”,

A: If there are many students in the same year and the same programme, you split them into several classes and simply label them A, B, C, etc.



The next year, Ingrid and Sara’s class will be called 2STA, and their final year 3STA.



Culture: The revue needs you! Since students leave school after graduation, the revue needs to recruit new students each year to do all the work and keep the tradition going. Argentina and Igor are presumably second-year or third-year students who participated last year, and are now recruiting first-year students, using the time-honored tactic of peer pressure. The revue lays the foundation to your social life! You don’t want to go around being a nobody, do you?



Subtext: Eva doesn’t have opinions of her own, which is why she is just repeating what Argentina said verbatim to Jonas.



Subtext: I can bring a friend and you can bring a friend is a normal trade in normal circumstances, but here it’s a problem, because Eva doesn’t have any friends any longer, which Jonas seems to either have temporarily forgotten, or he’s just an ass.



Culture: The autumn break is one of the five standard school breaks in Norway, together with Christmas break, winter break, Easter break, and summer break. It’s typically one week long.



Blink and you miss it: The notification that causes Eva to pull up Instagram on her phone is that her mom, Anne-Marit, liked one of her posts.



Blink and you miss it: Photos of Ingrid, Sara, and Eva, being best friends, sometime in the past.



Culture: This is Eva’s secret stash of alcohol, two small bottles of white wine. Drinking age is 18, Eva is 16, which means she had to have someone else buy these for her, and she’s stashed them under her bed because she doesn’t want her mom to find out and take them.



Culture: The revue party is being held at a real bar somewhere in Oslo, that has been reserved for this private event. Some students at the party will be 18 and allowed to buy alcohol at the bar, but most students won’t be. This is why pre-parties are such a thing, because it’s the only and/or cheapest way to be drunk at the actual party. Eva didn’t go to the pre-party that the stage group hosted, which is why she is pre-warming alone, by drinking both bottles of wine.



Eva’s behaviour is seen as completely normal in Norway, no-one would consider her an alcoholic.



Subtext: Eva has no opinions of her own, which is why she’s removing the eyeliner that Ingrid said made her look like a slut.



Subtext: We’ve seen Vilde with Ingrid and Sara, both at school, and in Instagram photos. When Eva and Ingrid are at the bar, some girl comes up to Ingrid and says that Vilde snapped. So this moment is when Vilde was thrown out of the Pepsi Max russ bus.



Culture: Bus groups also need a lot of money to finance their bus, and one common way is to buy items in bulk and re-sell to friends, family, neighbours, and other suckers. Everyone knows it’s a bad deal compared to just buying the items at a store, but you do it anyway to support the kids and their buses.



Subtext: Toilet paper worth 40.000kr is way more than a single person can use or sell in a reasonable time, you need an entire bus group to pull it off, which is why Vilde is so upset, because she is now financially screwed.

