Brazilians, the world's friendliest people. Or are they?

Written by Alvaro Antunes

It's widely known that Brazilians are the largest community in Orkut, Google's invitation-only social network. In fact, the number of Brazilian Orkut members is even larger than recorded, as many choose to register as if he or she was from a small country, like the British Virgin Islands, Nauru or so.

But why does this happen? Is this because Brazilians are naturally warmer and friendlier than other people? Do Brazilians really have more friends than anyone else?

Sadly, it seems that this is not the case. Take, for instance, how people join Orkut: in America, invitations to join are even auctioned off on eBay.

In Brazil, someone who tried this as a source of income would probably starve to death, as I know people who have simply posted on a newsgroup or mailing list something like "Whoever wants to join Orkut, just e-mail me." I myself joined Orkut through one such invitation. And I didn't even know the guy!

I believe that some people do that because of some kind of "most toys syndrome," that is, a desire to be able to boast that he or she has a great number of Orkut friends.

On the other hand, other people accept friend requests simply because they are asked (even by strangers), which takes us to the next point: at least for Brazilians, ________________?

Once again, the sad answer seems to be no. For instance, I joined some cat lovers groups. A couple of days later, I was added to the friends list of a cat! And no, this was not a person using a cat as an alter ego, but rather someone's pet! If its owners invited me to their friends list, I would understand. But why should I be friends with only their cat?

Worse yet, I checked the cat's friends, and they were almost all pets too (including many dogs, by the way). There were also many fake celebrities and even completely fictional soap opera characters who are Orkut members and have many friends.

OK, I suppose that this may happen regardless of country, as a kind of joke, but the fact is that, even browsing several communities in English, I never found any pet, fake celebrity or character that wasn't registered by a Brazilian (and a profile written in Portuguese is a clear indication).

On the other hand, even disregarding "unreal" Orkut friends, becoming friends with real people you don't actually know is very easy on Orkut, at least for Brazilians.

I decided to check this for real, randomly adding to my friends list people who I found on the friend finder page, communities I'm not a member of, and so on. A considerable percentage of those accepted me as a friend, even if they had absolutely no idea about who I am or how I found them!

To stir things up, I decided to join, for a while, some communities that might suggest I am someone with strange tastes and views. And this had almost no effect on complete strangers accepting me as a friend.

So what does this mean? That for many, perhaps most, Brazilians, an 'Orkut friend' is not what he or she would call a friend in the real world.

I don't know to what extent this is also true for members from other countries, but it surely helps inflate the number of Brazilian Orkut members.

So, if you take your Orkut friends list seriously, you think twice before accepting a stranger as a friend, as he or she be.

http://www.brazzil.com/content/view/9322/79

Os comentários abaixo refletem opiniões dadas por internautas acerca do artigo “Brazilians, the world's friendliest people. Or are they?” (texto 1).

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Written by Guest, 2005-07-02 01:36:46

Brazilians have ruined Orkut

The number of people who are not from Brazil are leaving Orkut at a very fast pace.

One of the biggest problems is the tremendous amount of Brazilians going to international communities where English is the official language and posting everywhere in Portuguese, causing people from outside Brazil to leave these communities.

Brazilians taking over country communities, strangely enough 81% of the posts in the Sweden community are in Portuguese, 90% of the posts in the Italian community are in Portuguese, 95% of the posts in the Argentina community are in Portuguese, Brazilians harassing people of certain nationalities, huge numbers of anti-argentinean communities, anti-american, anti-french, anti-japanese, anti-black, created by brazilians.

It is easy for non-brazilians to get a very bad image of Brazilians in Orkut, they are like roaches there, and many of them aren't very well behaved.

That's treu, but...

Written by Guest, 2005-07-02 16:42:21

This is a very good article. Your observations are all correct. But I'd like to register that Brazilians are too diverse to be generalized. There are Brazilian communities dedicated to people who don't agree with this nonsense of adding people who you haven't the slightest clue about. I my self take part in one. Also, many Brazilians, like myself, write in their profiles that they won't add people they don't know... this is not rare to find.

Bashful Brazilians - It's a crying sham

Written by Guest, 2005-07-02 02:47:20

As a Brazilian myself, I feel sorry that some of my countrymen on Orkut have helped spread the image abroad that we Brazilians are not well-behaved. It’s hard to accept this, but I have to give in and agree that Orkut is packed with“many” impolite Brazilians.

To exemplify what I mean, let me report something that happened to me: I joined a community named “Eu odeio Porto Alegre” (I hate Porto Alegre) just to find out why some people hate my hometown. The absurdities the community members wrote about Porto Alegre were so many that I was compelled to defend my city by showing them the good side of it. As a result, I was expelled from the community. In other words, I was kicked out of a community only because I was not bashing my hometown. What was irritating was not the fact that some people dislike Porto Alegre, but the way they express their viewpoints and the disrespectful way they address to people who don’t see eye to eye with them. My conclusion: some Brazilians are unprepared to participate in forums without using vulgar language and execrating those who have a different opinion.

(...)

Written by Rene Hass

Aponte a alternativa que NÃO apresenta uma informação verdadeira, com base nas opiniões dadas pelos internautas.