Brazilian Men Are Pretending to Be World Cup Tourists to Hook Up With Brazilian Women

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A recent World Cup party in Sao Paulo. Two of the men are American, one is Brazilian. Guess who's who.

Image: Cedar Attanasio

By Ben Tavener2014-06-26 18:52:36 UTC

SÃO PAULO, Brazil — Employing a trick often used during Carnival, Brazilian men are getting their gringo on, feigning foreignness to boost their chances of hooking up with Brazilian women during the World Cup.

See also: 15 Pitch-Perfect World Cup Celebrity Doppelgangers

“People are much more likely to show an immediate, automatic interest in you, if you're speaking in English, when you go out in Brazil,” São Paulo businessman Ed Carlos Leal, 30, tells Mashable.

Leal is able to impersonate one of the estimated 600,000 tourists in the country for the World Cup because he speaks fluent English, having spent three years in the UK. But even those with the faintest grasp of English have been known to give it a go as a fake American or Brit.

And some actually succeed – at least during the initial encounter.

As @alemaouc bragged in the tweet below: "Chatting up women by pretending to be gringo: I've done it lots when I went to Fortaleza. Don't know if it's low self-esteem, but I know it's really fun! Haha!"

@alemaouc tweeted the below hashtag warning: "The worst thing about this World Cup is these guys who look like they're from the [Brazilian outback] pretending to the gringo! #WeAreWatchingYou

And @pablopelleg moaned in the tweet below: "Oh, these people taking advantage of the World Cup pretending to be gringos to pick up women..."

In São Paulo, bars are doing a roaring trade during the mega-event. Football fans — foreign, faux-foreign and proudly native — are everywhere, obligatory beer in hand. Among the revelers on a recent night was student Janaína Ribeiro, 21, who admitted she has a passion for foreign men. She added that Brazilians faking it as gringos are usually easy to spot.

“'Hello... What's your name? My Portuguese is not very good...' is what they say. Normally you can tell in a split second. Sometimes they say they're Greek or Italian to try to explain away the cracks in their linguistic skills,” Ribeiro said.

“When you get talking with a real foreigner, it's not about having sex with a gringo, as some people say; we're just curious about the unknown," she said. "A lot of Brazilians haven't traveled. And now with the World Cup, there is plenty of opportunity to meet people from all over the world."

It's a topic that's been hotly debated on social media in Brazil over the past few days. Not least because the country's top vlogger and Internet celebrity, 26-year-old Felipe Neto, weighed in on the topic.

“It's not just one or two cases here in Rio de Janeiro. We're seeing hundreds and hundreds of people talking about how they're using this tactic and swearing that Brazilian women are like putty in their hands!” Neto said in one of his near-daily vlogs.

The young Carioca was Brazil's first YouTube vlogger to break through the million subscriber mark. He now has nearly 3 million subscribers and almost as many followers on Twitter (@felipeneto) and is an influential voice for young people in South America's largest country. He says Brazilians are often judgmental of women who prefer foreign suitors.

“Women should be free to do what they want to do,” he tells Mashable. “I find that any kind of interaction between different nations –- a kind of cultural exchange –- is beneficial for everyone concerned.”

“In fact, I think it's one of the most positive outcomes of this World Cup in Brazil. People are spending hours just chatting with different groups of tourists and learning more about their countries,” Neto says.

However, for most the gringo tactic appears to be more of an icebreaker than a serious attempt to deceive, and plenty of Brazilians sharing their experiences online admit the act doesn't work in the long run.

Businessman Ed Carlos Leas, however, says he doesn't regret his pretense of having just flown in from London.

“One night I was out with my friends and I met a local woman called Liliane, and I introduced myself in English to impress her, and we really hit it off.”

Four days later, he came clean to her, expecting the worst.

“Thankfully, she's now my girlfriend.”

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Topics: US & World, World