<http://schema.org/articleBody>
"S\u00C3O PAULO, Brazil \u2014 Employing a trick often used during Carnival, Brazilian men are feigning foreignness to boost their chances of hooking up with Brazilian women during the World Cup.\nSee also: 15 Pitch-Perfect World Cup Celebrity Doppelgangers\n\u201CPeople are much more likely to show an immediate, automatic interest in you, if you're speaking in English, when you go out in Brazil,\u201D S\u00E3o Paulo businessman Ed Carlos Leal, 30, tells Mashable.\n\nRelax, gringo... I'm legal! Hahaha with Aaron, Simon and... Forgot. #vilamadalena #gringo #CopadoMundo #CopaDasCopas pic.twitter.com/BVvuyjJbYY\n\u2014 Barbara Escher (@BarbaraEscher) June 25, 2014\n\nLeal 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. \nAnd some actually succeed \u2013- at least during the initial encounter. \nAs @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!\"\n\nsobre chegar em mulher se fingindo de gringo, j\u00E1 fiz mto qdo ia pra fortaleza. \u00F1 sei se \u00E9 baixa auto-estima, sei q \u00E9 mto divertido. haha.\n\u2014 alem\u00E3o uc (@alemaouc) June 22, 2014\n\n@agenteviajada 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\n\nA pior coisa da copa \u00E9 esses caras com cara de poconeano fingindo que \u00E9 Gringo! #EstamosDeOlhoSociedade\n\u2014 Tha\u00EDs (@agenteviajada) June 24, 2014\n\nAnd @pablopelleg moaned in the tweet below: \"Oh, these people taking advantage of the World Cup pretending to be gringos to pick up women...\"\n\nAh, essa galera se aproveitando da copa fingindo que \u00E9 gringo pra pegar mulher...\n\u2014 Pablopelleg, O Lindo (@pablopelleg) June 25, 2014\n\nIn S\u00E3o Paulo, bars are doing a roaring trade during the mega-event. Football fans \u2014 foreign, faux-foreign and proudly native \u2014 are everywhere, obligatory beer in hand. Among the revelers on  a recent night was student Jana\u00EDna Ribeiro, 21, who admitted she has a passion for foreign men. She added that Brazilians faking it are usually easy to spot.\n\u201C'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,\u201D Ribeiro said.\n\u201CWhen 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.\"\nIt'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.\n\u201CIt'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!\u201D Neto said in one of his near-daily vlogs. \nThe 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.\n\u201CWomen should be free to do what they want to do,\u201D he tells Mashable. \u201CI find that any kind of interaction between different nations \u2013- a kind of cultural exchange \u2013- is beneficial for everyone concerned.\u201D\n\u201CIn 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,\u201D Neto says.\nHowever, for most the 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.\nBusinessman Ed Carlos Leas, however, says he doesn't regret his pretense of having just flown in from London.\n\u201COne 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.\u201D\nFour days later, he came clean to her, expecting the worst. \n\u201CThankfully, she's now my girlfriend.\u201D\nHave something to add to this story? Share it in the comments.\n      window._msla=window.loadScriptAsync||function(src,id){if(document.getElementById(id))return;var js=document.createElement('script');js.id=id;js.src=src;document.getElementsByTagName('script')[0].parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);};\n_msla(\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\",\"twitter_jssdk\");"^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://mashable.com/2014/06/26/brazilians-go-gringo-to-hook-up-at-world-cup/>