Choquei

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About

Choquei is a Brazilian Twitter and Instagram account specializing in entertainment news and gossip. The account posts content related to the lives of celebrities, TV shows, reality shows, cinema and more. The account would popularize in February 2022 after shifting its focus from gossip to news about the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine and the coverage of the 2022 Brazilian General Election in October 2022.

History

In November 2014, the photographer Raphael Oliveira^[1] decided to create an Instagram^[2] page to share cute and funny pictures of Brazilian celebrities. Over time, this page started to go viral and become more popular, reaching 17.9 million followers (as of November 1st, 2022).

The page would join Twitter^[3] in January 2018, sharing the same type of content related to celebrity gossip and entertainment news. As of November 1st, 2022, the page had 1.9 million followers on the platform.

2022 Ukraine War Coverage

On February 24th, 2022, Choquei was regularly posting about the most-watched reality show in Brazil, Big Brother Brazil^[4], but suddenly changed its focus to share the news about a new war developing. "The Ukraine President speaks out, saying that if they are attacked by Russia, they will defend accordingly," this tweet^[5] (below) in Portuguese by Choquei says.

Over the next months in 2022, the page would keep sharing updates on the Ukraine war, surprising many followers that didn't expect that type of news coming from a gossip account. On February 24th, 2022, @camsaudiovisual^[6] tweeted saying he doesn't know how to feel about the page being able to share relevant war-related news faster than well-known media companies in Brazil. His post received 81,000 likes and 5,320 retweets in 9 months (seen below).

2022 Brazilian General Election

Another turning point for the gossip page occurred in October 2022 during the 2022 Brazilian General Election, in which the page would post many updates on the Presidential candidates and the results of the voting day. Choquei was elected by the Brazilian data scientist Pedro Barciela^[7] as the biggest portal in the coverage of the 2022 Elections. His tweet below, posted on October 30th, 2022, shows a graph of the most engaged Twitter pages and their respective political sides, using red for the left-wing candidate Lula da Silva, and green for the right-wing candidate Jair Bolsonaro. The tweet received 2,637 likes and 304 shares in 4 days (seen below).

Correspondente da Choquei (Choquei correspondent's)

As the page expanded its type of content to more serious news, people created the meme "correspondente da Choquei," to joke about the poor reputation and credibility of the account sharing this type of news. For example, posted on February 24th, 2022, a tweet by vittoac^[8] of a fake Choquei news helicopter covering the war in Ukraine received 10,000 likes and 1,025 retweets in 9 months (seen below).

Memers also established Gretchen as the joke "official" news correspondent of the Choquei account, using an image of her holding a microphone and the text "Choquei correspondent directly from [name of a place]." The images have variations of places the singer Gretchen can be based as a correspondent, depending on the topic being talked about on Twitter. For example, Gretchen joined the meme trend on November 1st, 2022 when she shared a meme to Twitter^[9], showing herself as a Choquei journalist waiting for Jair Bolsonaro's press conference after his reelection defeat. The post received 216,000 likes and 25,000 retweets in one day (seen below).

Videos of Gretchen with TV news headline montages were also posted on Twitter^[10] on November 1st, 2022, with captions suggesting she was helping clear roads filled with protesters unsatisfied with the results of the presidential election. A post by @paiva received 1.2 million views and 49,400 likes in one day (seen below).