Brazil: Elation or Separation?

The World Cup is finally here and the whole world has their eyes firmly locked on Brazil. But what side of Brazil are they really seeing?

While the World Cup is undoubtedly the most highly anticipated football event in the world, it has been made blatantly obvious by the media that not everybody shares the same sense of excitement that all football fans possess.

As a huge football fan myself, the sport has been well and truly ingrained into my life. Even from being a child I knew how to do bicycle kicks before I knew how to ride an actual bicycle.

As Brazil is such a vibrant and colourful country with such a distinct culture, this played to the advantage of certain protestors who have made it their mission to convey their utter disgust with FIFA.

Paul Ito, who is a Brazilian street artist, took it upon himself to graffiti this iconic image on the grounds of a school in Pompeia.

Whether you appreciate the art or view this as a criminal offense, the message is clear and extremely powerful. Brazil is divided.

The astounding fact here though is the influence that social media had on the awareness of the image. While the original post only had a considerably small reach, through the image being posted on the Facebook page of TV Revolta (a popular Brazilian TV channel), the post has now astonishingly exceeded 50,000 likes.

Social media has also inadvertently found itself as one of the primary platforms for protesters to voice their objections towards the World Cup on.

As well as the vast influx of controversial street art sweeping the streets of the host nation, citizens participating in the anti-World Cup protests are also turning to social media to spread their message to the rest of the world. This is being done, quite extraordinarily, through Twitter’s hashtag tool.

Of the various images that have been flooding the internet in recent weeks, several contain some form of banner or poster with the hashtag “#FIFAGoHome” being proudly presented for the entire world to see.

This resilient message of rebellion then went beyond one hashtag, with many Twitter users also changing their user names to “FIFAGoHome” to really communicate the seriousness of the topic.

The matter continued to spread like wildfire across the internet and soon enough, blogs and articles were being published and featured on various websites such as; The Sydney Morning Herald, The Atlantic, Guardian Liberty Voice and the story even made it onto Buzzfeed on more than one occasion.

So what does this mean for the World Cup?

Whilst Brazil may have its problems, the passion displayed by the majority of the nation is nothing short of inspiring.

We may have introduced Brazil to the sport, but what they have given us in return is exciting and dynamic displays of finesse throughout the years, producing some of the most iconic players to have ever lived.

They have won the tournament a record-breaking five times and are the only team in the history of the World Cup to have played in every single tournament since it began.

They are the quite simply the embodiment of football passion.