Brands, Learn from Olga and Erika: The New Power is Vulnerable Sincerity
Journalist Hilla Körkkö and I share a strange affliction: we cry when a pop star crawls across the stage with glitter in their hair. Körkkö described this in Uusi Juttu, writing about her reaction to a rising Finnish artist called Olga. I found myself nodding along, remembering how my own eyes welled up when Erika Vikman, who represented Finland at Eurovision 2025 with her camp anthem Ich komme , hoisted herself onto a giant golden microphone and belted out the song’s title line. Eurovision has always been known for excess and spectacle, but what Vikman did felt different. Her performance touched something raw, unguarded and unexpectedly moving.
The Bosslady Era
Nobody cried in the bosslady era. The bosslady never cried. A whole paradigm emerged in the late 1990s and 2000s, rooted in neoliberal and “choice feminism” thinking, where empowerment was framed as an individual project. Every woman was expected to treat herself like a company to be managed, optimised and branded.
Power came from visibility. If you were seen in the right way, curated, disciplined and stylish, you were strong. The bosslady aesthetic meant tailored trouser suits, serious expressions, a deliberately lowered voice, and tightly controlled displays of emotion. Softness, vulnerability and playfulness did not fit the code. Success was possible only if a woman could play by rules borrowed from men. She earned her seat at the table by approximating masculine energy.
Elizabeth Holmes, the founder of Theranos, was the bosslady taken to caricature: armoured seriousness, an artificially deepened voice, and a black turtleneck borrowed from the male-genius uniform. And how seriously she was taken. Seriousness was the currency. Lightness, joy, shimmer were out of the question. Success was built on disciplined individual performance, not collective power.
That paradigm still shapes many brands today. It remains the dominant language. But alongside it, a different code has begun to emerge.
A New Code on Stage
Instead of the individual project, this new code frames womanhood as a collective experience, where strength comes from being together. It is also a response to the age of burnout and hustle culture: rather than forcing people to keep pushing on alone, power here is shared through joy, laughter and mutual care. Interdependence is no longer seen as weakness but as strength.
Körkkö linked her tears to solidarity. Not the solidarity we’re used to – pulling together in a fight against a common enemy – but something quite different. Solidarity through joy, through shared desire. I know the feeling. Watching Vikman, you sense she is teetering on the edge of embarrassment and at the same time rooted in courage. And the audience loves her for it.
The message at the heart of both Vikman’s and Olga’s performances is simple and profound: you belong here, and you are welcome to join in. It is an invitation to a collective adventure, where the point isn’t to look strong on your own, but to experience and experiment together.
This is what I call vulnerable sincerity. It doesn’t hide behind irony or act too cool. It risks rejection. It sweats with glitter running down its face. Where the bosslady gained power by mimicking masculine energy, this new solidarity draws on joy, friendship and a shared sense of healing. And that is exactly why it moves us – why a line like Vikman’s “Baby, you deserve only good” feels at once light and deeply true.
Nike x Skims as a Mirror
Take Nike x Skims, launched this year under the title Bodies at Work. Directed by Janicza Bravo, the campaign features over fifty female athletes, including Serena Williams, Sha’Carri Richardson and Jordan Chiles. The public message leans on inclusivity (sizes from XXS to 4X), body-sculpting fabrics, and the promise that women shouldn’t have to choose between performance and aesthetics.
But the images tell a different story. The athletes pose in garments cut to highlight cleavage, waists and buttocks. Camera angles spotlight body parts rather than shared movement. Power, yes, but no joy. Even though dozens of women stood side by side, no one looked at each other, no one interacted. Each is alone, body offered up to the camera.
It’s the same logic the bosslady era taught us: empowerment as an individual bodily project, measured through discipline and external display. The campaign talks the language of inclusivity and softness, but its grammar is still old-school. Empowerment is treated as a personal fitness-to-fashion venture, not a collective experience. The result is images that look polished but never stir emotion. Everything is posed; nothing vibrates.
Why It Moves Us
Olga and Vikman are serious, but in a different way. They break the rigid posture we were taught to maintain. They can laugh at themselves, and they show us that joy can be just as credible as seriousness, that play can be power. And crucially, they do it from a place of collective energy.
Attempts at this kind of joy have been made before, but culture has often crushed them. Finnish musician Paula Vesala, once half of the Finnish pop duo PMMP, described in a recent documentary how early in her career her joy was stripped away. She had started out free and happy, but soon realised how she would be treated, and so became “serious, a sharp fixer.” It’s a painful reminder of how quickly joy disappears – and why its return to the stage feels revolutionary.
Strip the Pinstripes Off Your Brand
The bosslady era taught us to play by a strict set of rules: wear the suit, lower your voice, never stumble. Brands learned the same logic: credibility was built on seriousness, control, and a sleek individual performance.
Now those rules are being broken – not with anger or cynicism, but with laughter, exaggeration, shared joy. The new code doesn’t dismiss joy as fluff. It makes joy a source of power. It can laugh at itself, shrug off setbacks with a whatever attitude, and still be taken seriously.
For brands, this poses a simple but difficult question: will you keep building your message around the individual project of control and optimisation, or will you root it in shared strength, friendship and joy?
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