In 2021, I came across the latest Netflix original TV show, Young Royals, a Swedish drama following the crown prince and his “taboo” relationship with another boy at his boarding school. Instantly, I fell in love with the show and everything about it. I must have rewatched the first season, consisting of a mere six episodes, at least 12 times. I became obsessive over it, watching every interview that came out with the stars, Edvin Ryding and Omar Rudberg, learning everything I could about their lives and their experiences on the show. I forced all of my friends and family to watch it. I had a saved folder on TikTok of hundreds of edits of the show.
This obsession with Young Royals soon grew into a self-guided journey into studying Scandinavian culture and even taking it upon myself to learn an entirely new language. In my last year of high school, I began teaching myself Swedish. I started the easy route, opening up the Duolingo app and starting the Swedish course.
Now, I’m not a Duolingo hater but I do realize that it’s not the same equivalent to learning a language professionally or in an academic setting. However, I sat down and finished the entire Swedish course over the next year, studiously working through every single lesson, practice session, listening and speaking exercises, and taking notes in a tiny composition book I had. I must say that Duolingo is actually not a horrific learning platform for new languages; you just have to stick with it to the end. Most users only do the first couple of lessons or so before deciding that it’s not really teaching them anything, but, if you actually finish the entire course, you get a fairly fleshed-out comprehension of the entire language. It’s only really lacking in correct grammar conventions, especially since Swedish does not follow the same processes as in English.
However, once I finished the course, I decided I wanted to take a more formal course in the language and ensure that I actually knew enough. I signed up for a free online course in Swedish through Lund University in Sweden and took the course over the summer before my freshman year of college. This class helped me solidify my grasp on the more technical aspects of the language, and I finally received a certification that I had officially reached at least basic proficiency in the language.
Returning to Young Royals, I watched the show first in the original Swedish with English subtitles and then rewatched it with the English dubbing and Swedish subtitles. I found that the second way helped a lot since I could actually read the Swedish captions and decode what it was and how the words are placed within sentences.
I also began to learn Norwegian, a very closely related language to Swedish. While I never hit the same level of proficiency in the language, I still enjoyed the process of learning new languages. Young Royals inspired me to take Scandinavian cultural classes at UC Berkeley and I began to find a new appreciation for Nordic traditions and culture. There’s a reason that people describe these countries as a form of borderline utopias, at least in comparison to the United States.
Young Royals inspired a new love of language and culture within me that I otherwise would never have found. I began to take linguistics courses and learn about the technical side of languages. When season two came out, I pulled an all-nighter in the middle of the school week, watching the entire thing and shedding many tears.
I bring this up now because season three has just come out. It’s the final season, and I don’t know how I’m going to let go of a show that has had such an incredible impact on me. There is something about its simplicity and beautiful story that captivated me from the start. The show depicts anxiety, depression, forbidden love, frustration against stereotypes and discrimination, class differences, and even things like physical beauty and acne with a nuance that remains one of my favorite things about it to this day. I have yet to finish season three because I’ve been putting it off to avoid the feeling of emptiness that I know will come when it’s over. The words “Have a nice Christmas” will forever mean something different to me and other Young Royals stans than it does to everyone else.
In the end, shows usually instill a pretty large obsession within me, but nothing has ever impacted me as much as this show. I highly recommend looking it up on Netflix and binging all of the short seasons. Jag älskar Young Royals med hela mitt hjärta. I love Young Royals with my whole heart.