My Brother Bilo

About

My Brother Bilo refers to a character in a series of Omegle videos made by YouTuber and TikToker Bosnov in which he plays a version of Borat Sagdiyev and references his (as well as Borat's) "retarded" brother Bilo, claiming that he is looking for Bilo on the app. He then cuts to Bilo which is him wearing a brown hat, making a silly face. Although the character Bilo was a part of the Borat franchise, Bilo didn't become a meme until Bosnov's videos, earning fancams and fan edits, among other memetic references, specifically on TikTok in mid-2023.

Origin

In the Borat films starring Sacha Baron Cohen, Borat's brother Bilo is often referenced, mostly centered on jokes about him being "retarded." A lineage of Bilo clips from the movies was compiled by YouTuber^[1] ПАН ШУБА in an October 2020 video, which received roughly 46,500 views in three years (shown below).

Based on the character of Borat, YouTuber and TikToker Bosnov started to post Omegle videos in which he portrayed Borat and Bilo as a way to prank strangers. His first video as Borat was posted to TikTok^[2] on July 25th, 2023, gaining roughly 8.5 million plays and 1 million likes in three weeks (shown below, left). His first video to feature Bilo was posted to TikTok^[3] later on July 25th, gaining roughly 1.3 million plays and 96,000 likes in the same timeframe (shown below, right).

As evident in the aforementioned video, Bosnov often switched from Borat to Bilo, asking strangers if they'd seen Bilo, showing them what he looked like. On July 29th, 2023, Bosnov uploaded a full-length compilation of Omegle Borat clips to YouTube^[4] called "Borat On Omegle!" gaining roughly 79,100 views and 19,000 likes in two weeks (shown below).

Spread

During late July 2023, Bosnov's TikTok videos with Bilo continued to gain virality, such as one TikTok^[5] posted July 27th, 2023, which received roughly 12.4 million plays and 1.8 million likes in three weeks (shown below, left). The videos continued going into early August 2023, such as one TikTok^[6] posted on August 3rd, that gained roughly 16 million plays and 2.1 million likes in 13 days (shown below, right).

Going into August 2023, other video creators on the app started to make fan edits with Bosnov's portrayal of Bilo, going viral in their own right. For instance, the first-known was posted by TikToker^[7] @fullyedits3 on August 4th, 2023, receiving roughly 614,400 plays and 29,200 likes in 12 days (shown below, left). On August 8th, 2023, TikToker^[8] @theyeetedflower posted a video that parodied AI Stories, gaining roughly 377,000 plays and 34,200 likes in eight days (shown below, right).

Various Examples

Search Interest

Unavailable.

External References