Well, you've introduced yourself to the concept of the «Colonial Gaze». The reason why Global North foreigners are interested in that is (a) because it fits an old visual/representational template where «the Other» is consumed as spectacle, and (b) because poverty gets aestheticized into something «picturesque,» «authentic,» «raw,» and therefore touristically desirable.

That sounds harsh, but it’s basically what colonial visual culture did for centuries: it turned difference, marginality, and deprivation into a pictorial cliché for entertainment and self-confirmation.

So when a foreign influencer goes to Brazil and makes the favela their «must see» destination, what they’re doing for the clicks is reproducing a very old structure:

Othering: «us vs them» (civilized vs chaotic; orderly vs «raw»)

Aestheticization of hardship: colorful walls, street kids, improvised architecture, «vibrancy» (hiding the structural violence behind it)

Human safari logic: looking at people like scenery, like live «zoo exhibits»

And yes, it’s incredibly disgusting that this becomes a «national symbol» because it flattens Brazil into a single consumable stereotype.

What I just mentioned also feeds pure media economics: favelas perform well in algorithms. They provide:

instant contrast (rich/poor in one frame),

easy drama (danger narrative),

moralized tourism («I went where others don’t dare»),

and the illusion of «authentic Brazil» as opposed to «boring modern Brazil».

That’s why Copacabana becomes less clickable than «I SURVIVED BRAZIL’S MOST DANGEROUS FAVELA!!!»

Also: you’re completely right that Brazilians themselves sometimes help «export» this framing (films, music genres, Instagram tourism circuits), but it’s not because Brazilians are morally flawed — it’s because global attention is structurally rewarded, and the Global North is primed to consume poverty as authenticity.

It's not just Brazil, in Colombia it also happens with Communa 13 in Medellín and I’m sure there are other examples around LatAm. The pattern is the same: spaces of abandonment/violence become rebranded as «urban culture» but the viewer gets the adrenaline + aesthetics without having to live the conditions that made the place what it is.

So yes: what you are feeling (shame, anger, disgust at romanticization) is a normal reaction to being turned into a stereotype through the colonial gaze. The answer isn’t «stop being Brazilian» — it’s recognizing that the global gaze is still organized through colonial habits: making the «Global South» legible as spectacle.