You might be familiar with May Day meaning vappu, or in teekkari lingo, Wappu. Mayday, a distress signal, also known to many. This spring brought about a new meaning to the list: MAYDAY, the first-ever English-language Wappu magazine.
They were probably afraid of losing their potential.
Wappu magazines started in 1948, when Äpy magazine was published for the first time. These magazines feature jokes (like the one above), cartoons as well as all sorts of humorous stories and illustrations. They are typically put together by students or teekkari students of a specific university – students in Aalto University publish Julkku, teekkari students in Tampere University publish Tamppi and students in the University of Turku publish Pönkeli, to name a few.
So how did MAYDAY become the latest addition to the list? TEK Magazine reached out to the editorial team and got hold of Aaro Kuusinen, who describes himself as a founding member and also acts as the chairperson of the board in Illiterate Works ry, which publishes MAYDAY.
How did you come up with the idea to publish an English Wappu magazine?
I've started to spend more and more time with our international students and around 2025 Wappu me and a couple of friends realised that something was missing from their Wappu experience. Then I pitched the idea to a few friends. They thought it was crazy and that we should start doing it. And here we are. Slowly gathered people from around the campus to join in.
How did you find/create the content for the magazine?
We had lots of ideas at first, and they kept on coming. Everyone had their own sources of inspiration: internet, social media, studies, societal topics et cetera. People started working on the ideas that resonated with them the most.
A majority of the standalone one-liners people just posted to our chat when they had one in mind. That got the stone rolling and inspired others for similar jokes.
In the end we picked the best ones. Quite a lot was left out from the final product.
The most surprising part was that you really have to start working on a lot of content ideas and later see which ones thrive. Don't limit yourself in the beginning and be prepared to let go of your ideas even if they seem fun to you yourself.
Have you or the MAYDAY team been involved in Wappu magazines before?
Many of us are long-term campus actives with a lot of experience in different sections ranging from social media, graphic design, IT, hosting events, making magazines and so on. So it all really was quite familiar in a sense but just packaged in a different sort of project.
To my knowledge none of us have previously been involved in the more traditional Finnish Wappu publications. Although some of us might've been working on or producing content for smaller ones that go around during Wappu but don't have an editorial per se. People just like posting their jokes.
How does MAYDAY differ from Finnish Wappu magazines?
At least to my eye the content is a bit different. Perhaps more long-form "articles" than one-liners.
Article continues after the image.
What was the public’s response to MAYDAY?
The overall response was amazing! Everyone has been extremely supportive and wanting us to succeed in this. The public also seemed quite interested and we've gotten quite a few compliments on how MAYDAY looked and on the contents.
In the end we made 1,000 copies and each was dibsed to be sold by sellers. A few have been returned as we provided an opportunity to return a portion of the unsold copies. Other than that, it seems they were nearly ripped from our hands. I personally sold 30 and didn't even have to do active selling work for those.
Will we see you again next year?
Most likely yes.
Currently we're working on wrapping up this year and soon starting up again. This time we have something to base our operation on, so we'll see how it goes.
For more information: daymay.fi
Äpy website was used as a source for the history of Wappu magazines (apy.fi/apyt).