The rivalry started with a comedy sketch from New Year's Eve 2012-2013. Televised comedy shows on New Year's Eve is a Dutch tradition, comedians make jokes about the past year, and are widely watched. This comedian pointed out that Finland often beats us by a small margin, and the sketch also names a bunch of things where Finland beats us. It was referenced on /r/theNetherlands a few times and it grew from there over the years. Eventually it expanded to European subreddits, particularly /r/Europe, and from there eventually all over Reddit.

• The sketch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vAOxW5dzGjk
• Show by Erik van Muiswinkel, assisted by Rob Urgert and Joep van Deudekom.

Translation of the sketch

We top the fun lists! We have the highest density of children's freight bicycles in the world! Our Royal Family beats the others at toilet throwing. We still hold the world record for a free fall. An Austrian, mr Baumgartner, has tried to take that away from us, but he failed! The world record for free fall is still in the hands of the Dutch christriandemocratic party, by far! A 20 year-long non-stop downward trajectory is unheard of anywhere else!

Furthermore we score very well at reintegrating criminals using public television, that's possible almost nowhere else. We are high on the list of countries that dare send someone dressed as an Indian to the Eurovision Song Contest. And every year we are high on the list of happiest people on Earth. When I read that I always get a warm feeling inside, us Dutchies are very happy apparently! One small irritation that I have is that in many of those lists we are always below Finland. No idea why. Happiness too, the Finnish are happier than we are. Why? I don't really understand.... yeah, I know they drink themselves into a coma every day, that's a strange way to become happier.
 
- It's a little bit more nuanced than that!
* Ah there they are! My fact checkers Urgert and Van Deudekom. That's fun! Fact checking is typically 2012. We first saw that in the talkshow Pauw & Witteman.
- No, no, no. It started at News Hour
* Yes, it started with News Hour. Fun concept that came over from the UK
- No, no. It actually comes from the USA.
* Yes, of course. A typically American thing. But at least it typifies 2012!
- Not really, no. It has existed for a while. (Accompanying image)
* Well, you've noticed! My fact checkers are quite good.
- No, no! We are the very best! We won a prize!
 
- So, we checked mr. Van Muiswinkels statement. Are the Finns really happier than the Dutch? We'll take a look at this map of the world's happiness. The orange countries give themselves a happiness score between 6.5 and 7.5. There's only one country that gives itself a higher score, and that's indeed Finland. So the statement is true. We then checked why the Finns are happier, and it turns out that's because they like beating the Netherlands with these lists.
- We checked some other statements of mr Van Muiswinkel. We are obviously not the country with the most criminals on public tv, that's Russia. And regarding countries that sent an Indian to the Eurovision Song Contest he seems to have forgotten Finland's entry last year. And the year before that. And 1997. And 1963. In fact, at the very first Eurovision Song Contest the Finns already sent an Indian!
- But are we always below the Finns? Nooo! We found some lists where we are all the way at the top. We are at the top of the list, above the Finns, of western countries that spend least on primary education. And since this year we are the country with the most injuries from television. And we are the only country in the world where a movie about a disaster was considered worse than the disaster itself. Even better, it's the only movie about World War II where everyone hopes the Nazis are going to win.