Dishing out advice to Beyonce and chatting about reality TV, Dilma Rousseff's flippant online alter-ego is worlds apart from the actual Brazilian president's image as a stern task-master.
But with 300,000 Twitter followers and almost 1.6 million on Facebook -- nearly as many as the president's official account -- "Dilma Bolada" (Angry Dilma) is playing a real role in Sunday's presidential runoff election in the world's seventh-largest economy.
Dilma Bolada -- full title: "Queen of the Nation, Diva of the People and Sovereign of the Americas," or "Queen D" for short -- was created in 2010 by young Rio de Janeiro native Jeferson Monteiro, today aged 24.
The satirical account rose to fame for painting the Brazilian president as a superficial, narcissistic diva who thinks she runs the world -- a sharp contrast with the real Rousseff, a no-nonsense managerial type who was imprisoned in the 1970s for joining a guerrilla group fighting to overthrow Brazil's dictatorship.
Monteiro's creation shares her news with Rihanna and Angela Merkel, swaps Justin Bieber jokes with Barack Obama and has been known to issue decrees giving the day off to her followers -- whom she calls "Dilmetes," a wink at the term "Neymarzetes" used for the Brazilian football star's swooning teen fans.
Monteiro, a self-professed supporter of the president's Workers' Party (PT), says he created the account out of admiration for Rousseff, then a candidate vying to become Brazil's first woman president.
The joke ended up "changing my life," said Monteiro, whom Rousseff invited to the presidential palace in Brasilia last year when she relaunched her own long-ignored Twitter account with an eye on her reelection campaign.
"Life without humor is too heavy," Rousseff tweeted at the time, sending out a picture of herself at her laptop alongside Monteiro, both dressed in PT red.
A year later, with Rousseff, 66, locked in a tight race against center-right challenger Aecio Neves, the Internet has a far more central role in the election than in 2010.
"From the 2010 campaign to today, there's an abrupt difference in the presence of politics online. Today if you look at the profile of any ordinary citizen, 13 out of 15 posts talk about politics," said Silvana Martinho, a sociologist at Nove de Julho University in Sao Paulo.
Thirty percent of Brazilians now have smartphones. And the sprawling South American country of 200 million people has the second-most Twitter users in the world, and third-most Facebook users.
In a recent poll, 39 percent of voters with Internet access said they had been influenced in some way by social networks in the build-up to the elections.
- More politics, less humor -
Brazilians are deeply divided heading into the vote between those loyal to the PT's revolutionary gains against poverty and those fed up with corruption scandals, poor public services and a recession.
In that context, Dilma Bolada has taken on a more serious tone, commenting on the campaign and criticizing Aecio Neves -- whom Monteiro satirizes as "Aecio Never" in his posts.
Monteiro has posted pictures of himself taking smiling "Rousselfies" -- snapshots with the president -- on Facebook and Instagram.
Newspaper Folha de Sao Paulo reported in July that he had been hired by the PT as a consultant, a claim the party denies.
Monteiro meanwhile alleged in a May post called "Dilma Bolada: not for sale" that he was approached by an intermediary from Neves's Social Democracy (PSDB) party about selling them the account.
The PSDB did not answer questions about the claim.
Neves, 54, has gotten a few alter egos of his own in the final countdown.
The most popular, @AecioMonstrao, portrays the former governor, the scion of a famous political family, as a care-free womanizer with policy proposals like nationalizing Cristiano Ronaldo, lengthening the weekend and installing air conditioning in the sky.
But at 132,000 followers, it is far less influential than Dilma Bolada, which has won Monteiro two Shorty Awards -- the so-called Oscars of Twitter -- for best social media from Brazil.
Dishing out advice to Beyonce and chatting about reality TV, Dilma Rousseff’s flippant online alter-ego is worlds apart from the actual Brazilian president’s image as a stern task-master.
But with 300,000 Twitter followers and almost 1.6 million on Facebook — nearly as many as the president’s official account — “Dilma Bolada” (Angry Dilma) is playing a real role in Sunday’s presidential runoff election in the world’s seventh-largest economy.
Dilma Bolada — full title: “Queen of the Nation, Diva of the People and Sovereign of the Americas,” or “Queen D” for short — was created in 2010 by young Rio de Janeiro native Jeferson Monteiro, today aged 24.
The satirical account rose to fame for painting the Brazilian president as a superficial, narcissistic diva who thinks she runs the world — a sharp contrast with the real Rousseff, a no-nonsense managerial type who was imprisoned in the 1970s for joining a guerrilla group fighting to overthrow Brazil’s dictatorship.
Monteiro’s creation shares her news with Rihanna and Angela Merkel, swaps Justin Bieber jokes with Barack Obama and has been known to issue decrees giving the day off to her followers — whom she calls “Dilmetes,” a wink at the term “Neymarzetes” used for the Brazilian football star’s swooning teen fans.
Monteiro, a self-professed supporter of the president’s Workers’ Party (PT), says he created the account out of admiration for Rousseff, then a candidate vying to become Brazil’s first woman president.
The joke ended up “changing my life,” said Monteiro, whom Rousseff invited to the presidential palace in Brasilia last year when she relaunched her own long-ignored Twitter account with an eye on her reelection campaign.
“Life without humor is too heavy,” Rousseff tweeted at the time, sending out a picture of herself at her laptop alongside Monteiro, both dressed in PT red.
A year later, with Rousseff, 66, locked in a tight race against center-right challenger Aecio Neves, the Internet has a far more central role in the election than in 2010.
“From the 2010 campaign to today, there’s an abrupt difference in the presence of politics online. Today if you look at the profile of any ordinary citizen, 13 out of 15 posts talk about politics,” said Silvana Martinho, a sociologist at Nove de Julho University in Sao Paulo.
Thirty percent of Brazilians now have smartphones. And the sprawling South American country of 200 million people has the second-most Twitter users in the world, and third-most Facebook users.
In a recent poll, 39 percent of voters with Internet access said they had been influenced in some way by social networks in the build-up to the elections.
– More politics, less humor –
Brazilians are deeply divided heading into the vote between those loyal to the PT’s revolutionary gains against poverty and those fed up with corruption scandals, poor public services and a recession.
In that context, Dilma Bolada has taken on a more serious tone, commenting on the campaign and criticizing Aecio Neves — whom Monteiro satirizes as “Aecio Never” in his posts.
Monteiro has posted pictures of himself taking smiling “Rousselfies” — snapshots with the president — on Facebook and Instagram.
Newspaper Folha de Sao Paulo reported in July that he had been hired by the PT as a consultant, a claim the party denies.
Monteiro meanwhile alleged in a May post called “Dilma Bolada: not for sale” that he was approached by an intermediary from Neves’s Social Democracy (PSDB) party about selling them the account.
The PSDB did not answer questions about the claim.
Neves, 54, has gotten a few alter egos of his own in the final countdown.
The most popular, @AecioMonstrao, portrays the former governor, the scion of a famous political family, as a care-free womanizer with policy proposals like nationalizing Cristiano Ronaldo, lengthening the weekend and installing air conditioning in the sky.
But at 132,000 followers, it is far less influential than Dilma Bolada, which has won Monteiro two Shorty Awards — the so-called Oscars of Twitter — for best social media from Brazil.
