If you look beyond the endless waterfalls and geothermal springs, living in Iceland can, at times, be just plain brutal. From wallet-draining bills when eating out to weather that triggers seasonal affective disorder (no matter the season), the reality of living on this “rock in the middle of the Atlantic” is far from the picture-perfect image that is often portrayed.
The creator behind the anonymous Instagram account “Original Sleepy Girl” captures the highs and lows of life in Iceland with a mix of sarcasm, self-deprecation and an unfiltered insider’s perspective — through memes.
I’m a snowboarder. I grew up skiing and snowboarding, and worked in the ski industry for a long time before ending up here five years ago. I make art and I’ve always been a creative person. The page started when I felt that social media was always showing me the same thing over and over again — just cookie-cutter stuff about Iceland.
I love it here, but it’s not perfect. Every joke I make is out of love for Iceland — I love the people here and there’s no other place like it, but I don’t think it’s perfect. I’m just opening up that discussion.
When I started, I was really struggling with immigrating here and I felt like nobody was talking about the challenges of living here. My friends were, of course, but from the outside, the content I was getting fed from Instagram was just “Iceland’s perfect. This is where you need to come if you want a better life.” It wasn’t realistic.
I started joking with people about things that are hard about living here. That’s how it started — a community of people talking about the realness of being here. It helps people feel less alone and just laugh about their experiences.
The birth of Original Sleepy Girl
I had a personal account with about 1.000 followers, where I had just been posting snowboard stuff or whatever. I didn’t focus on it. Then, I just renamed it.
I have narcolepsy, hence the name. There’s different levels of it, so mine is not so severe that it really debilitates my life, but I have sleeping spells where I get really tired. Basically I can just fall asleep at any time, any place.
There were people who were following me before who know who I am, but they probably stopped following me because now those things wouldn’t make sense — I don’t think the jokes make sense, if you are not living in Iceland or have spent some time here. Otherwise, I don’t tell people who I am. The reason I like to keep it anonymous is that if everyone knew it was me, I personally wouldn’t be able to be creative and make jokes like I do. I’d be worried about what people would think. Since nobody knows it’s me, I feel okay doing riskier things. I don’t worry about it and can be free to create whatever I want. I also don’t see the point — everybody’s face is on the internet now. It’s a meme page and it doesn’t need to have a face. But I also think there’s no mystery in the world or on the internet anymore. It’s fun to have a little bit of mystery. I’ve heard people talking about the “Original Sleepy Girl memes,” but nobody knows it’s me.
Keeping it real
I started by watching funny things on Instagram, then I’d show them to a friend and say, “Oh, it’s like this when this happens in Iceland,” and they’d laugh. I just started posting them and it immediately took off.
My background is in marketing, so I know what you need to do to get views. I’ll use some trending content if a video going around applies to what I’m talking about, or sometimes I’ll use one hashtag about Iceland. Besides that, I don’t really do any trending stuff, because I think most of it is pretty cringy, like when it’s a dance or people selling guides to Iceland. You can do whatever you want, but I definitely don’t want to do anything like that. I just want to talk about my experience. I don’t make money off of it and I don’t plan on trying to make money off of it, unless I tried to sell art or something tangible. But I’ll never sell a guide or try to make money that way. I think we have enough people doing that.
Supplied by Original Sleepy Girl
I’ve had brands reach out to me and ask for product placements or to make memes for them. But I’m not going to post any of that stuff on my page and I haven’t done any of it. I did one for free for the Deig bakery because I love that guy — he’s a friend. I want to stay away from it because I think the people who follow my page do so because it’s not like that. If I tried to monetise it for some reason, it would defeat the purpose of the account — which is about being real and discussing how hard it can be here sometimes.
My approach is pretty spontaneous. I’ll just be walking and think of something that’s funny, or if I see something that’s funny online, I’ll see if I can change it into something that fits what I’m thinking of. I don’t take it too seriously and I don’t spend too much time thinking about something. It’s more of a creative release.
Or, if I’m really pissed about something, like “Oh my god, Hlemmur is totally torn up. I can’t take a bus anywhere,” I could just make a joke and share about how Hlemmur is always messed up. It’s also kind of therapeutic for me.
I’ve heard the best way to do it is to make stuff ahead of time and have a schedule, but I just don’t work like that. It depends if I’m in a funny mood or not. Sometimes I’m in a bad mood and I just don’t post anything.
Meme-ingful impact
I’ve met a lot of talented, awesome people and have made a lot more connections and friends through my page. Some people I’ve been talking to for a while I’ve met in person. Most of them I haven’t met, but we’re still online friends.
I found it really hard to make friends at first here, especially when I didn’t know Icelandic at all. The account made me feel a lot less alone. People tell me they feel the same way about my page. They feel less alone here and can relate to some of the stuff I post.
A lot of Icelanders follow me, but also many people who have moved here from different countries. I think 90% of my followers are in Iceland. It’s probably mostly people who have moved here, but Icelandic people definitely understand [the jokes]; we’re all dealing with the same issues — the housing, the taxes, and so on. Once, Bubbi Morthens liked and commented on one of my videos. That was one of my best achievements because he’s so amazing and such a national treasure.
I get a lot more positive feedback than negative, but I definitely get some. I’m a really sensitive person, so at first I thought, “Oh, I’m not going to post anymore.” But it gets easier the more you receive. You just push through and get to the point where you’re just gonna keep doing it, no matter what. Now it does not really bother me as much.
I get a lot of messages from people that say, “This is really cool,” “You make a difference,” “I really appreciate it.” I try to focus on those rather than the negative stuff.
Bonding medium
I’ve been thinking about what else I could do with my page. I tried TikTok a little bit, but I feel kind of too old for it. I still use it a little bit, but the way TikTok’s algorithm works, it pushes content that I don’t want to make. I’ve been thinking about other options: possibly making a website, maybe trying to have meetups, or selling art. It would be cool if it could actually bring people together and people could actually make friends, since many people from the page already talk to each other.
The page has already surpassed my expectations of what I thought it would be. I don’t measure [success] or worry about how to get to a certain number of followers, I just wanted to reach a point where I feel like I’m doing something positive. Even though it’s sometimes through a negative approach, like complaining, it’s still an outlet for people. When the first person commented, “This made a difference to me,” I realised I had achieved my goal. Now I’m trying to figure out what the next step is. My goal was simply to make people laugh and feel better. I think I’ve done that.
For your daily dose of memes, follow @originalsleepygirl on Instagram.
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