En masse, celebrity stan accounts posted tearful farewells over the weekend as X was suspended in Brazil amid a showdown between Elon Musk and a Supreme Court justice. Many of their hundreds of thousands of followers learned only then that their favorite celebrity’s most dedicated English-language fan accounts had actually been run by Brazilians.
Brazil does fandom like no other, the avalanche of goodbyes unearthing a wide array of accounts for Taylor Swift, C-list celebrities and the long-dead alike.
“I came to realize how strong our digital power is in this last minute, because we tweet in English so people don’t know that we are Brazilians. But we are a lot, we are everywhere,” said Aianne Amado, a University of Sao Paulo doctoral candidate who studies Brazilian fandoms. “I think that we will be missed and it’s not going to be the same network.”
An academic from Belo Horizonte, Samira Spolidorio has studied fansubbing — where devoted viewers come together to subtitle. She has a simple theory for why Brazilians are such engines of fandom, using a word that came up in interview after interview: Brazilians are just “passionate.” They’re also looking for a sense of belonging, she said.
Posted by cmaia1503
5 Comments
>Brazilians are just “passionate.”
100% true. We really do feel with intensity. In the same way we are passionate fans, we are also passionate haters.
If I had a few million dollars I’m hiring some Portuguese speaking coders and making Twitter 2.0 lol. Get those 30 million users hooked on my app before they find another alternative
All my Brazilian moots moved to Bluesky, and i feel this may be the direction fandom will take, even if Bluesky has its share of problems. That, or the children will start yearning for tumblr again.
Goodbye Hunter Schafer Brazil. You were a real one (even though I never understood you), made me briefly consider brushing up on some Portuguese, at least I now know ‘bastidores’ means ‘behind the scenes’.
it would be a blessing in disguise if this makes fandom twitter migrate to another app, let Elon to rot with his million bots.