Passport Bros

About

Passport Bros, and their hashtag #PassportBros, is a slang term that refers to a group of specifically Black American men who believe that Black American women aren’t suitable to date or marry because they lack values that foreign women possess in South American and South Asian countries (such as Brazil, Thailand and Columbia, among others). The Passport Bros movement started on TikTok in late 2022, stemming from Black, male philosophies in the masculine “manosphere” perpetuated by internet personalities like Kevin Samuels, Dr. Umar Johnson and the non-Black Andrew Tate. The Passport Bros first surfaced on YouTube in 2019 via travel vlogs and relationship advice videos. As the movement grew to other platforms like TikTok and Instagram in late 2022 and early 2023, they received both criticism and support, polarizing the internet and the Black community.

Origin

The philosophy of the Passport Bros movement stems back to the 2000s when Brazilian sex tourism became a topic of discussion among Black American men in real life. In 2006, writer Jelani Cobb published a freelancer article for the print magazine Essence titled “Blame It On Rio” which documented African-American men taking sex vacations to Brazil. The article discussed how Black men benefitted romantically and sexually while in Brazil, predominantly due to their race. The article was covered by NPR, which interviewed Cobb in 2006.

On October 13th, 2010, independent filmmaker Al Greeze uploaded to YouTube the trailer for his then-upcoming documentary called Frustrated which dealt with the American Black male immigration from the U.S. to Brazil. The film was based on and inspired by Cobb’s article “Blame It On Rio.” Over the course of 13 years, the trailer received roughly 24,900 views (shown below). The film was later released in 2011.

Both Cobb’s “Blame It On Rio” and Greeze’s Frustrated directly inspired the first wave of Passport Bros content creators and travel vloggers on YouTube, first surfacing in the late 2010s. For instance, YouTuber DJP uploaded a video on July 3rd, 2019, titled “Why I Go to Brazil” which was his first video to address Passport Bros-related discourse. The video gained roughly, 6,100 views in four years (shown below). YouTuber DJP would go on to influence others, starting a cult following on YouTube and currently being the first discovered Passport Bro content creator.

Spread

On August 2nd, 2019, YouTuber BMT Travels uploaded a video called, “Dominican women vs Brazilian women,” that added to the collective of Passport Bros creators. The video gained roughly 7,200 views in four years (shown below, left) and BMT Travels (short for Black Man Travels) became a notable Passport Bros creator in the 2020s. On September 11th, 2019, BMT Travels uploaded a YouTube video that compared “Traveling brothers” to Incels (shown below, right).

Going into 2020, the philosophies of the aforementioned vloggers spread to Twitter, exemplified by a tweet posted on January 22nd, 2020, by Twitter user @ImNoRoleModel. The tweet attached two screenshots (shown below) showing a Twitter user named @TheBasedPluto proclaiming, “passport bros would never,” as in, going on a date that’s like “prostitution lottery meets job interview.” Twitter user @ImNoRoleModel’s tweet criticized @TheBasedPluto, saying, “Look at this shit man. ‘Men don’t pay full price for a used car’ Who you really mad at dawg? Lmaoo,” and earning over 840 likes in three years.

Going into 2022, Passport Bros discourse gained more virality on YouTube. For instance, on August 4th, 2022, YouTuber Oshay Duke Jackson uploaded a video that contrasted the philosophies of then-recently-deceased Kevin Samuels and the Passport Bros movement, gaining roughly 109,200 views in six months (shown below). Oshay Duke Jackson specifically namedropped three Passport Bros YouTubers: Auston Holleman, BMT Travels and DJP.

On August 29th, 2022, a definition for “Passport Bros” was submitted to Urban Dictionary by user Jayy5555, gaining over 980 likes and 450 dislikes in six months (shown below).

On TikTok

Passport Bros discourse went viral on TikTok in late 2022, following a multi-TikToker duet started in November 2022 that included many Passport Bros holding up their U.S. passports. The final duet was uploaded by TikToker @anthonymcdonaldsr on November 7th, 2022, gaining roughly 5,900 plays in five months (shown below, left). The men received criticism, such as in a stitch posted by TikToker @therealdthomasforreal on November 11th, 2022, gaining roughly 70,000 plays and 14,700 likes in the same timeframe (shown below, right).

Going into 2023, the #passportbros hashtag on TikTok amassed roughly 326.5 million views. It included critical videos but also earnest Passport Bros content from TikTokers like TikToker @quis_travels. The hashtag also attracted men of other races to join the Passport Bros movement, such as white TikToker @mixedchik2.

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References