Rio De Janeiro Instagram Filter

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Part of a series on Papyrus Irony. [View Related Entries]

About

The Rio De Janeiro Instagram Filter refers to a purple and pink filter available on Instagram stories named after the Brazilian city. The Rio De Janeiro filter was often crudely added by Instagram meme creators to screenshots to make them appear low-brow, moldy and over-exploited. The filter was a part of the Papyrus Irony trend, akin to Hood Irony, that became commonplace in 2023 and 2024. Discourse surfaced alongside the trend regarding the tilting and skewing of screenshots to an exaggerated degree. Other Instagram "city" filters were also a part of the trend like ones named after Melbourne, Buenos Aires, Tokyo and New York, among others.

Origin

It is ultimately unknown who was the first meme creator to intentionally use the Rio De Janeiro filter for an ironic effect. However, the trend predominately started in 2022. For instance, an early meme with the filter was posted by Instgram^[1] user @schassisirony on May 12th, 2022, which referenced Ibo Eshak, gaining over 1,400 likes in one year (shown below, left).

Currently, the first-known meme to intentionally include the words "Rio De Janeiro" was uploaded by Instagram^[2] user @slayworldalbania on July 11th, 2022, gaining 32 likes in one year (shown below, right).

Spread

Going into mid-2022, Instagram^[3] user @left4rat adopted the trend, starting with a post shared on July 30th, 2022, which featured Kendall Jenner and received roughly 2,300 likes in one year (shown below, left).

On August 7th, 2022, Instagram^[4] user @left4rat posted another meme with "Rio De Janeiro" visible, featuring images related to Kanye West and Pete Davidson's drama, receiving over 15,700 likes in one year (shown below, right).

The trend was continued by the aforementioned Instagram^[5]^[6] users going into late 2022 and early 2023. Towards late 2023, usage of and references to the Rio De Janeiro filter became increasingly commonplace, peaking in October and November 2023.

For instance, on August 16th, 2023, X^[6] user @haterperson6714 posted a tilted "Rio De Janeiro" screenshot of a tweet reading, "yessss tilt that screenshot fuckkk now add a filter mmm" (originally shared by since-deleted X^[7] user @teamslvp), gaining roughly 16,000 likes in three months (shown below, left). The image gained viral reposts on Instagram^[8] soon after.

On October 11th, 2023, X^[9] user @JUUOSWAGATRON posted an image of a drink with the caption, "dude they put rio de janiero in my drink," gaining roughly 2,300 likes in one month (shown below, right).

A screenshot of @JUUOSWAGATRON's tweet^[9] was later painted by Instagram^[10] user @infinite._.draws (shown below), gaining viral reposts on Instagram^[11] soon after in November 2023.