Brazilian Sub-Zero

Disclaimer: video clips in this entry may be deemed offensive due to violence.

About

Lindomar (also known as Brazilian Sub-Zero) is a man from the countryside of Brazil who earned a bit of Internet notoriety in 2002 after dropping a flying kick on a local babysitter that had been caught on video tape physically abusing children. He was later nicknamed "Brazilian Sub-Zero” due to the resemblance between his high kick and that of Sub-Zero, a fictional videogame character in the Mortal Kombat series.

The Story

In summer of 2002, a 27 year old nanny Divina Elaine Leite was caught striking three kids she had been taking care of on surveillance tape. The father of the children took the videotape to the police but unfortunately, they were unable to help. Doing what many parents would, he then decided to hand the tape to a TV station.

Japanese News Report on the Incident (no subtitle)

Following the TV broadcast, Divina Leite was assaulted on the streets by the local citizens of Aparecida de Goiânia, who took "justice" into their own hands. The mob gathering was also filmed on tape and later featured on Brazilian TV shows.

The Flying Kick

Flying Kick is a martial arts technique that involves a running start, jump and then a kick in mid-air and is widely practiced in several disciplines including Tae Kwon Do, Karate, Wushu and Muay Thai. Also see bottom for more examples of flying kicks in real life and pop culture.

Spread

The footage was also featured in several popular TV programs, including Program of Mouse (Programa do Ratinho). One of the first mentions online came from Correlo Braziliense in the article Maria Vitória.

According to Google Insights, searches Lindomar began by mid-2004, but queries for “sub-zero brasileiro” (brazilian Sub-Zero) had only started in the beginning of 2005, which may indicate that the nickname might have surfaced sometime after Youtube’s launch in 2005.

The meme went through a two year peak of popularity (2005-2006), then has somewhat lost its strength compared to what it used to be. Queries for "Lindomar Castilho" (a musician) were subtracted from the graph in order to show a cleaner result.

The Brazilian Internet wiki Desciclopédia (The Brazilian counterpart to Uncyclopedia) also has a big article about this meme (in Portuguese).

Derivatives

It didn't take long for the first Lindomar remixes to start showing up:

Flying Kicks in Pop Culture

• Chuck Norris' ridiculously awesome flying kick:

• Godzilla's flying kick!

• Bruce Lee's flying kicks:

• Cows can fly kick too: