Growing up, portable cassette players were always called “freestyles” here. I never knew it was a marketing thing, or that some other countries also objected to the naming.
this is “original research”, which means i dicked around on the internet archive for half an hour. it may be wrong.
Swedes love freestyle skateboarding. 2 in particular might be responsible for the sport still existing in Europe at all, Stefan Akesson and Denis Sopovic.
oh wow, stefanie is even from the same area as me and i had no idea