One of the reasons given to explain why there are so many Brazilians in Orkut, Google's social networking service, is that Brazilians are warm and friendly. If so, why are there so many "hatred" communities owned by Brazilians, some with a large number of members?

Just search for communities using as keyword "odeio" ("I hate" in Portuguese). There are over 1,000, probably much more than that, but this "over 1,000" was the result Orkut provided. There are also dozens of communities that include "ódio".

On the other hand, communities in English that contain "I hate" amount to 665. Of these, 41 also include "odeio," a clear sign that these are communities created by Brazilians expressing their hatred both in English and Portuguese. Many others that contain "I hate" only in English are also owned by Brazilians. I didn't check each of the 665 individually.

Some of these "odeio" communities actually seem to have been created not to express a real hatred, but to be funny or cute.

For instance, there are 27 "odeio acordar cedo" ("I hate to wake up early") communities, the largest of them with over 12,000 members. The reason why there are so many communities essentially about the same subject is also something that deserves a deeper analysis, but let's put this aside for now.

At first I thought those were simply useless, but taking into account that Brazilians, at least, join communities to help defining who they are, what they like, etc., perhaps these are simply 'statement communities' (also, I once got a girlfriend using a personal ad that stated simply "I like to wake up early", so perhaps this IS relevant information).

But I still can't figure out what sort of useful information communities like "odeio pipoca" ("I hate popcorn" - 20 communities) or "odeio sorvete" ("I hate ice-cream" - 8 communities) convey about their members. And I really don't think they were created to find ways of banning popcorn or ice-cream from the face of the earth. Nor exactly how they could be regarded as funny.

But there are other "odeio" communities that don't seem to be so naïve. Some are against well-known Brazilian politicians and some of them may have been created even for electoral reasons or against TV show hosts.

Perhaps using "não gosto" ("I dislike") would be more appropriate for those communities, and when the 'honored' celebrity is just a celebrity, not especially known for his/her views about any controversial issue, the community is probably regarded simply as another form of 'statement community'.

Finally, there are "odeio" communities like "Eu odeio Uno". Uno is a small car manufactured in Brazil. One could expect a community about a troublesome car or for people who had serious problem with it.

But that's far from the truth and the car is dependable, very popular and no problem that required a recall, for instance, was ever reported about it. It seems that people from these communities simply don't like it, and need to express their hatred to the entire world!

I checked some posts and, besides those that seem to be there to boast that the author owns/owned several better, imported luxury sports cars (yeah, right . . . and I'm actually George Clooney in disguise), one of the most 'sensible' points I found there to support such hatred was that those people hated Unos because they found one being driven slowly in front of them.

Such a situation would be probably caused by the driver, not the car itself since some of the versions are among the fastest and most nimble cars ever manufactured in Brazil.

And when someone tried to argue reasonably that Unos are not necessarily slow cars, he was dismissed because "that was a community for people who hate Unos and period." So, understanding why people there actually hate Unos still beats me.

Oddly enough, I couldn't find any community in English where people declare their hatred to popcorn, ice-cream or any well-known car model. So, are those hatred communities a Brazilian Orkuteers' thing?

Why? Does this make sense for a people supposedly known as warm and friendly? I couldn't come up with any reasonable explanation, and I won't dare speculate.

But I would really like to know any theory you might have.

A final note: shortly after I joined Orkut (some 10 months ago), I created a community about evolutionary psychology ("Psicologia Evolutiva e Mente"). It already has around 400 members, but only half a dozen topics and less than 100 posts.

Why so many people joined it, if they have nothing to say about the subject? I believe that it became another 'statement community', which people join simply to indicate that they like or study the subject. I don't know if this is a Brazilian Orkuteers' thing or not, either. Perhaps someone could explain.

Alvaro Antunes, 39-year-old Computer Science major, presently working as an English to Portuguese translator, living in Curitiba, Brazil. He can be contacted at alvarotrans@yahoo.com.br.

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