On Father’s Day, meet Matheus Costa, a comedian who went viral by trolling his

Is it possible to go viral without controversial topics? Matheus Costa, 26, showed that yes. With videos about the daily lives of families in Rio, which he defines as “family humor”, the influencer has 5.5 million followers on Tik Tok and 2.9 million on Instagram.

It all started with a trolling video with his dad. In it, Matheus purposely says that someone would have “opened” a snack bar. He is corrected by Seu Zé, 67, who becomes increasingly irritated by his son’s supposed ignorance. The scene, with all that script simplicity (maybe that’s the secret) already has more than 8 million views.

Matheus worked at night parties in Rio de Janeiro before the pandemic and, in confinement, he started recording videos for the internet. They were cool, but really had repercussions, only the ones that appeared with the father. “That’s when it all happened. That’s when I started living on the internet, people identified a lot”, he says, he said in an interview with F5.

The father’s reactions and lessons started to appear constantly on his son’s social networks, as well as his mother, Alice, his aunt, Rosinha, his girlfriend, Giovana, and his cousin, Victor. The family was even the subject of a painting on Sunday with Huck.

Matheus says that, portraying everyday situations, he likes to bring information and social criticism to the public. “When I started with Portuguese mistakes, the idea was really to help people understand and learn the language”. With the repercussion, teachers began to show their videos in classes, sending messages thanking their initiative.

In the battle between freedom of expression and hate speech, in which jokes that offend human rights are defended as “jokes”, Matheus says that his premise is “not to offend anyone”. “Humor is not worth everything. I don’t believe in ‘ah, it’s a joke, so you can say any nonsense’. It’s not like that. I think that, if you offend, it’s not funny anymore”, he defends.

His familiar humor earned him the Paulo Gustavo Prize, awarded in June by the Culture Committee of the Chamber of Deputies alongside Tom Cavalcante, Samantha Schmutz, Maria Bopp and Teuda Bara. “I think I was the only one there who never did anything on television, that only appears on the internet. So it was very special”, celebrates Matheus, an assumed fan of the comedian who gives his name to the award.

“Paulo Gustavo is an icon. I even received comments on the last trolling video with my mother [no qual ele leva Dona Alice para um ‘dia de madame’], in which people said that she looks just like Dona Hermínia, his character. So, I relate a lot, and it’s great to feel like I represent a little bit of his story.”

For Father’s Day, Matheus plans a surprise for Seu Zé. After giving him a trip to Italy, a visit from Luciano Huck and surgery to treat cancer, he now wants to bring another guest to the Costa home: “I think it’s going to be exciting. he will be moved. My father cries easily”.