Meet Fabão, the influencer from Rio who creates absurd humor with unusual things

On the internet, you can find the smiling Fábio Cruz, better known as Fabão, acting out the dialogue of a physical menu, jealous of the arrival of the QR code menu. Or embodying the Three Wise Men going to visit Jesus. Or even imagining being in the Tower of Babel. You can also find him commenting on BBB and or talking about flirting at gay clubs.

“I do humor, I love cats and I talk about life,” is how he describes himself. Fabão has almost 300 thousand followers on Instagram and TikTok, presents two podcasts, “Joguei no Grupo” and “Tá Mutado”, and may be known by some as the partner of Valentina Bandeira, his great friend and companion on social media.

In conversation with the F5, Fabão says that he used humor as fuel to face bullying in his childhood and saw social media as an escape valve. And that’s where he’s been gaining fame.

It was in 2021, during the pandemic and when he lost his mother, with whom he lived, that he noticed social media as an environment conducive to expressing himself. “I lived alone in the house where I grew up with my mother. I was completely crazy,” he says.

At the same time, he started working at the production company Play9, where he is now content coordinator. It was the agency that saw potential and included Fabão in audiovisual projects; “This is the exact moment where I start to understand that you can do something, you can be me without needing to shield yourself,” he says. Anyone who watches the sketches on Instagram can’t imagine that it wasn’t always like this.

Born in Rio de Janeiro and raised in Complexo do Alemão, he was the seventh grandson of 6 granddaughters. He said that, at a young age, he knew that he would not perform all the masculinity that was expected of him. “I grew up surrounded by a lot of masculinity, even though I was in a family that was mostly female, but in a very masculine environment”, he assesses.

Faced with pressure, he says he found humor as his form of defense. “I’ve always been very communicative and very good-natured,” he says. Before you make fun of the way I talk, the way I behave, let me make fun of that.”

“For a long time I used that self-deprecating humor, to be able to transition, to not be the easy target, you know?”, he remembers. “Before you hit me, I already hit myself.”

Advertising college was the kickstart to changing my life and leaving the community. It was her boyfriend, with whom she has been for 10 years, who followed that path. “He encouraged me a lot to enter college. I entered much older. Although I don’t believe that there is a right age. But, given what society says, I entered much older, but because of his encouragement. Because of my I only heard from my family: ‘Ah, have a job, pay your bills and live your life. You don’t need a lot of luxury’.”

On social media, Fabão is successful with his humorous sketches. And he knows this is nothing new. “I really feel like I don’t think I’m the creator of the wheel, because the format is for the world,” he says.

So, what makes you different from others? “Perhaps what sets me apart is understanding humor as a place for groups, not exclusion,” she responds. “I think it’s content that makes it possible for everyone to laugh. I think that humor aggregates, not segregates. I think that’s a differentiator, being able to aggregate and making people laugh together.”

He is also proud of the reflections he provokes, not blatantly, but they are there. “I have content that talks about something in the background that people don’t catch at first, you know? I’m sometimes talking about social division, how society is elitist, in a video where people laugh and then talk : ‘No, wait a minute’.”

In the video showing what his entry into Big Brother Brasil (Globo) would be like, he drops some hints of social shock for anyone who might be listening. In the midst of “I didn’t come to be a couple” and “out there I get so crazy”, comes “has anyone ever put a gun in your face?”.

“I’m a black, gay man, who came from the favela — and that will always be with me. There’s no way I can escape it, and I don’t even want to escape it. I want to embrace it, because that’s what keeps me who I really am “, says Fabão.

Sensible and pragmatic, he says he keeps his feet on the ground and doesn’t let the thousands of likes or famous interviewees, such as Felipe Neto and Ana Paula Padrão, dazzle him: “I allow myself to have five minutes of ‘My God, how crazy is this? this’ and then put your foot on the ground.”

For 2024, Fabão plans to continue with the content, but raise the bar. He will make his first trip abroad to broadcast the Paris Olympics competitions with a team of influencers that includes Igão and Mítica, from Podpah, Valentina Bandeira and Matheus Costa.