About

Gina Indelicada ("impolite Gina" in English) is a Brazilian meme started by a Facebook page called "Gina Indelicada"^[1]. Originally, the page would get questions from fans and answer them in a sarcastic way, posting screenshots of the messages afterwards.

“Brazilians are known for their friendliness, for their love of hugging and all that, what can sometimes be seen as fake. So whenever a person comes around who breaks that stereotype, people will relate to them as someone who speaks their mind and is sincere. Gina is all of that,” says the creator of the page.

Origin

On August 2012, Brazilian student Ricck Lopes created a Facebook page called "Gina Indelicada". The name "Gina" was taken from a famous Brazilian toothpick brand, "Rela Gina"^[2].
The creator, who at the time was only 19, said he got the idea to create a page while he was cooking and saw a box of toothpicks on the table, and immediately linked the image of the toothpick woman with "Gina Indelicada", and thought it was a good idea for a Facebook page.

Spread

The page was created on August 14, 2012, and on the 17th of the same month, had already reached more than 200,000 likes. It was a phenomenon that spread throughout the Brazilian Facebook very quickly, perhaps because the creator already had other well-known pages. Forbes mentioned the meme^[4].

With the popularity, "Rela Gina"^[2], the company behind the "Gina" brand, discovered the existence of the page, and considered taking legal action against Ricck Lopes by using the brand name without consent and defame Gina, as she's inspired on a real person (model Zofia Burk), but the company later realized that it would be better not to insist on a judicial problem and has partnered with the creator.^[3]

Nowadays, the page has over 7 million likes on Facebook.