This Video Totally Explains Just How Insane Brazil's Political Crisis Is

"The world goes on and in Brazil that means the government kind of totally falling apart in a way that makes 'House of Cards' look frankly boring."

By
Hayes Brown
by Hayes Brown

BuzzFeed News World Editor

Hank Green, half of the mega-popular Vlogbrothers YouTube channel, has broken down the ridiculously huge $3 billion scandal that's engulfed Brazil into one easy to understand video.

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When Hank asked the nerdfighter community, as fans of the Vlogbrothers call themselves, what they thought about Brazil, most of them replied, as one does, with GIFs.

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But Rafael Prince, a Brazilian diplomat and nerdfighter, was able to give "a lot of great perspective from inside the government and also inside Brazil as a person who is active on social media," Green told BuzzFeed News in an email interview.

"Brazil is not for beginners," Green says Prince told him, and it was from that starting point that Hank started to break down the insanity currently engulfing Brazil's political class.

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For those of you who have scrolled this far without watching the video, the short version is this: a bunch of construction companies and politicians colluded with Brazil's state oil company, Petrobras, to overcharge for a bunch of projects over the years, then split the cash between themselves. It's a scandal that has implicated more than half of Brazil Congress of taking part and President Dilma Rousseff facing impeachment.

The Brazil video — which already has over 600,000 views since it was released five days ago — came about after a fan on Tumblr asked Hank about the crisis.

Vlogbrothers / YouTube

"I looked into it and was like, 'Oh, this is fascinating...oh wow...' and then I looked into it more and was like, 'HOLY FUCK THIS IS SO WEIRD!'" Green wrote. "That isn't necessarily the purest motive for taking on a complicated topic, but it's better than making a video about farts (which I have also done in the past.)"

After talking the situation over with Prince and journalist Alex Cuadros, Green took his script and asked the "Nerdfighters Brasil" Facebook group what they were most afraid he would get wrong.

Vlogbrothers / YouTube

"There was a lot, and they helped me catch some last minute mistakes," Green said. "On the whole, it's a very efficient process (research and writing was less than 20 hours), but not as robust as traditional journalism (which would have caught my last couple screwups.)"

Hank and his brother John have been doing these kind of explainer videos since at least 2007, Hank told BuzzFeed News. "Over the years it just became a stock format for us, something our audience even expects," he said, adding they always perform well.

Bryan Bedder / Getty Images for Save the Children

The video has also been translated into Portuguese by eight members of the Nerdfighters Brasil Facebook group, who had it done and uploaded the morning after the original went live.

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