The ‘passport bro,’ neocolonialist looking for his ‘trad wife’

The question may seem crazy: “How can you use your passport to seduce Latinas?” The answer? “At about midnight, you wanna take your passport, and just sort of wiggle it around [in the street] like this, wave it,” advised American Youtuber Austin Abeyta, 32, in a TikTok video. Right then, a young Colombian woman with long brown hair takes hold of him, smiling.

This humorous little sketch is the work of content creator Digital Bromad (more than 520,000 subscribers on TikTok), whose name echoes the concept of the “digital nomad,” the teleworker in search of a more comfortable life abroad. Except that, in this case, the traveling developer is looking for something more.

On his feed, he shares tips on how to get in touch with beautiful women in Colombia, but also in the Philippines, Thailand, Brazil… These destinations are widely popular within the “passport bros” community, of which Digital Bromad is the leader of the pack. These men usually travel from Western countries and take advantage of the precious document’s allure to attract young women looking for a better future – and a potentially stronger purchasing power – to have sexual adventures in Latin America, Asia, or Eastern Europe.

As the Salt Lake Tribune reminds us, the term “passport bro'” was used by African-American director Al Greeze in his 2011 documentary Frustrated. In the film, Greeze depicts African-American men seeking relationships with women in Brazil. According to witnesses interviewed, these men experienced a sense of displacement in the face of African-American women in the United States who were emancipated, sometimes earning more money than them, and therefore supposedly less respectful of their claimed status as dominant males. This led to the publication of short YouTube videos offering advice and strategies for relationships with foreign women. It wasn’t until 2019 that the hashtag #passportbros migrated to TikTok.

Trophy wives

In his own country, the “passport bro” struggles to find matches on Tinder – and thumb tendonitis looms. He perceives himself as a victim of “sexual misery” caused by the “woke” indoctrination of women. Like a fraternity battered by societal shifts, he and his peers close ranks against Western women deemed distant and disdainful.

Thus, to revert to a gendered distribution of roles within relationships, this staunch nostalgic jets off to destinations where he believes he can still be treated with the respect he feels entitled to, and meet beautiful women raised in traditions, perceived as gentle, feminine, sexually available, and who won’t hesitate to cook and clean. regardless of the inevitable communication hurdles between individuals who don’t speak the same language.

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