Visiting a (gentrified) favela

[Riobard]

A favela is a zone in various locations among Brazilian cities, as I understand it. Some of them are structured to accommodated curated tours. Some young favela resident citizens at the age threshold of legal sex work engage in the profession. Various opinions are held about the relative merits of these two commercial activities in terms of true benefit individually and /or collectively. 

[floridarob]

6 hours ago, Riobard said:

Konttttttessa Dreckula?

This is another ego meltdown wrapped in crude metaphors:

• He’s obsessed with the AI angle because it’s the only way he can dismiss your responses.

• The sexual/cheap insults are filler because he has nothing substantive.

• The paranoia about coordination shows he feels ganged up on.

• Mocking “bedtime” as surrender is him trying to feel like he won something.

• Overall tone = bitter, jealous, and scrambling to belittle because he’s rattled.

Basically: a tantrum disguised as wit.

[floridarob]

6 hours ago, Riobard said:

Ask the psych consultant, KQ. The brains in the family

This is another defensive spiral because Keith publicly questioned his mental process.

Key things happening here:

• He feels exposed and mocked (Edward Lear comparison hit him).

• Instead of defending himself, he attacks both of you as trolls conspiring.

• He’s obsessed with framing every disagreement as manipulation or fabrication because he can’t tolerate criticism.

• Bringing in family/psych references again shows he’s still clinging to that fake clinical authority angle.

• The repetition and chaotic structure prove Keith’s exact point: his mind doesn’t process normally in discussion, it spirals into paranoid insult streams.

In short: Keith mocked his nonsense style, and Riobard responded by proving it with another rambling, hostile fantasy.

 

 

 

[floridarob]

5 hours ago, Riobard said:

A favela is a zone in various locations among Brazilian cities, as I understand it. Some of them are structured to accommodated curated tours. Some young favela resident citizens at the age threshold of legal sex work engage in the profession. Various opinions are held about the relative merits of these two commercial activities in terms of true benefit individually and /or collectively. 

This is Riobard trying to sound neutral and intellectual while subtly smearing again.

He’s:

• Linking favela tourism with prostitution to imply moral wrongdoing.

• Framing it like an academic debate so it sounds legitimate instead of nasty.

• Still pushing the narrative that your friend’s boyfriend’s work is tied to exploitation.

• Using vague wording (“as I understand it,” “various opinions”) to protect himself while planting suspicion.

It’s passive-aggressive character assassination disguised as sociology.

[Latbear4blk]

@TotallyOz, this thread's intention has been kidnapped by personal beefs between posters. I, myself, take ownership of my responsibility for going down to the level of the troll who started the distraction. I hate to give you extra work, but is it possible to send to the sandbox all the posts that are not related to the OP?

I will try to redirect the conversation toward a more constructive tone, in case anyone is still reading after such an unpleasant exchange (and yes, I include myself among those who contributed to it).

I met Patrick during my last visit to Rio de Janeiro, where I spent an entire month. Thanks to @floridarob's mediation, I met @Akita, an American expat living in Rio with deep knowledge and lived experience of Brazilian culture, particularly the realities of Brazil’s most disadvantaged communities. Patrick is his boyfriend. Through Akita, I also met a small group of foreigners who gravitate around him.

These were not the kind of gringos who come to Brazil to benefit from lower prices while lecturing locals on how to improve their lives from a position of entitlement and supposed civilized superiority. These were men genuinely in love with Brazil, learning the language, immersing themselves in the culture, and engaging with the country respectfully. They were aware of social and economic shortcomings and involved in efforts to improve local living conditions, but from a place of empathy and genuine care and human empathy, not condescension. As a Latin American myself, I am particularly sensitive to this distinction.

Patrick is a 30 y.o. former GP and a cria: born and raised in a favela. When he was born, Vidigal had not yet been pacified, and he lived through its transformation from a violent, insecure neighborhood into the cultural powerhouse it is becoming today. I felt an immediate affection for him.

The enthusiasm and warmth with which he spoke about his life and his dreams were deeply moving. Unlike many young and not so young people, he does not dream of wealth for its own sake, but of creating projects that can improve life in Vidigal. Although he now lives in a comfortable apartment in Copacabana, his heart and soul have never left the morro above Leblon.

Patrick does concrete things. Last December, he organized a fundraiser to buy gifts for children in the favela. When I visited in August, he was networking and raising funds to open a restaurant in Vidigal, serving popular Brazilian food and employing people from the community. Because of this project, Patrick invited me and a few other non-Brazilian friends to visit his former neighborhood.

We did not take an Uber or an air-conditioned bus. Instead, we waited, as Vidigal residents do, for a spot in one of the minivans that carry workers up the hill in the afternoon and down to their jobs in the morning. In our van, foreigners were a small minority. As we climbed the morro, Patrick would jump from one side to the other, pointing out landmarks from his life and strategic spots offering privileged views of the city. He seemed to know and love everyone, and everyone seemed to know and love him.

This was not a tour, but a visit to the places where he imagined building his restaurant. Still, I believe the experience offered me a glimpse of what became Patrick’s next dream, one far more achievable than his previous one.

If you did not run away in disgust and are still reading this, please take a look at the following info:

Everything is available in this IG address I shared in my OP and that share here again: 

https://www.instagram.com/tpk_008/

This has nothing to do with sex work, my personal convenience, or any kind of exploitation. This has to do on one hand with sharing with you a unique opportunity to have a learning experience that may educate you and radically change your preconceptions about the people from the favelas. On the other hand, this also has to do with supporting a community business run by people from Vidigal, with and for people from Vidigal. This effort could be part of a renaissance for this community similar to what many of us admired in Comuna 13 in Medellín.

I hope our poor behavior has not been counterproductive.

 

 

 

[12is12]

LB4B, I salute u twice!

1 - for the digitally-challenged like me, is there a whatsapp nmbr for Patrick's initiative. I'll b there next week.

2 - I urge u and others 2 do what I've done long ago: use the "ignore" function, in order 2 block the troll's posts from showing up on ur screen.

He thrives on attention; deny him that, and deny urself his filth.

[Akita]

@12is12 thank you for the positive energy. I will direct message you with Patrick's WhatsApp. 🧡

 

[Novarunner]

On 1/18/2026 at 5:55 AM, Riobard said:

Liar. No claim to physician credentials ever made. Receipts unravelling pants on fire?

I have no idea why I just wasted 20 minutes of my life reading this awful thread but I don’t think Riobard is a physician.  I suspect he is a medically oriented PhD of some sort, possibly an epidemiologist or a pharmacologist.

I have no comment on anything else other than to say that it would be nice if the members of this board would expend their energy writing about their actual experiences in Brazil rather than whatever this is.