GREG NEWS | AMIZADE

Good evening! A very good evening! Friendship.

We are going to talk about friendship, which for Fundo de Quintal, not even the force of time will destroy. Yes, we want to end the season with high energy, paying tribute here to friends, that Milton Nascimento considers something to keep on the left side of the chest, and for Roberto Carlos, is the surest thing in uncertain times, papaya papaya papaya. Yes, out of nowhere, he starts promoting papaya.

. . Which is a reliable friend when the intestines are uncertain, right?

But seriously, why talk about friends? Because the institution friendship, so celebrated in so many songs, is in crisis. Yes.

. . And I'm not just talking about Bruno de Luca.

No. Yes, Bruno de Luca turning out to be a terrible friend proves that the concept of friendship is in trouble. If you live in a cave and don't know this story, just Google: Bruno de Luca, Kayky Britto, hit and run, flee without providing assistance, travel to São Paulo the next day to go to The Town, get scolded by former BBB Diego Alemão.

What I find most shocking is that Bruno de Luca was a professional friend. Yes, he was the "Luquita" of the group. What's left of the concept of friendship when Luquita abandons his run-over friend?

And most importantly: what do we do with Bruno's work? What do we do with the old episodes of "Vai Pra Onde? " Where do they go?

It's the age-old question: can you separate the work from the author? And what about the unpublished works, like the documentary about Ronaldo that Bruno spent years filming? So, I saw that Bruno de Luca was with him with a camera all the time.

. . -Bruninho, is he there?

-He is! -What's he doing? -A documentary about Ronaldo's life.

-A reality show. . .

-Is it true that he's slimmer now? It's true, Ana Maria. And there's a reason.

The last few times I saw him, he was. . .

He went to a medium, João de Deus, in Abadiânia, and it seems that after that experience, he started a. . .

He told me, he started a dietary reeducation. Yes, poor Ronaldo was caught between Bruno de Luca and João de Deus. I bet Bruno de Luca left Ronaldo there alone with João de Deus.

Ronaldo, who, I researched, bought a stone from João de Deus for R$80,000. Yes, João de Deus told Ronaldo that it was a "cousin of emerald" stone. I didn't know stones had cousins.

But I liked imagining that the emerald's mother married the stone's uncle. Or it's a step-cousin. I really liked imagining cousin stones.

. . But did you notice that Ana Maria calls Bruno "Bruninho"?

That's because this video is from 2018, a time when Bruno de Luca was not yet remembered as a terrible friend, he was just not remembered. Now he certainly wouldn't receive such a affectionate treatment from her, who in her "thought of the day" segment has a true obsession with true friendship. {\an8}Wrong friendships, people, are like coal.

{\an8}Extinguished, they dirty you; ignited, they burn you. Never explain yourself. Because for your friends, you don't need to.

{\an8}And your enemies won't believe you. I'll tell you something: a brother may not be your best friend, {\an8}but a true friend, if they are a true friend, {\an8}will always be like a brother. That's true, Ana Maria.

Look, it's better to have an enemy who is declared and open {\an8}than many hidden friends. {\an8}Napoleon Bonaparte said that. Very well said.

You know what's funny? She only gave credit to Napoleon Bonaparte. Maybe he has a tougher legal team.

But I really enjoy Louro José's laughter. That's a real friend. The guy is laughing his head off at a proverb at 9 in the morning.

"A friend is better than a brother. " "So beautiful. " That's friendship, someone who's laughing at you on a Monday at 9 a.

m. But there is indeed a crisis of friendship, and it didn't start yesterday. The world has been experiencing an epidemic of loneliness for a long time.

In Brazil, one-quarter of the population simply has no friends, claiming not to feel close to anyone. That's fifty million people who say they have no friends, and each of them could have 49,999,999 friends. They just need to talk to each other.

It's a paradox: if you're lonely, you're not alone. But seriously: the number of people living alone has nearly doubled in the last ten years. In the United States, since the 1990s, the number of people who say they have no close friends has quadrupled.

The problem is so serious that in July of this year, The Lancet created a committee to study loneliness after realizing that being isolated without strong social connections is a health issue. According to researchers, loneliness increases the risk of cardiovascular diseases, hypertension, diabetes, infections, cognitive decline, depression, and anxiety. It sounds like a song by Titãs.

But yes, it seems that the saying "better alone than in bad company" is not correct. Living alone is even worse than living with Bruno de Luca. The committee's idea is to produce more studies and research on loneliness, which is not an objective condition but a subjective one and, therefore, much more difficult to understand and resolve.

You can't walk into a pharmacy and ask for two friends under the same ID. Imagine a medical prescription saying, "four hours at the bar, two rounds of samba, and a Bank of Brazil queue every 5th day. " Yes, because a true friendship arises from adversity.

It's a flower that grows in the swamp. And by swamp, I mean torrential rain, a kilometer-long queue, and a Vasco soccer match. Not having friends is very detrimental to health.

It's already proven that loneliness increases the risk of premature death by almost 30%. According to doctors, the harmful effect of loneliness is equivalent to smoking 15 cigarettes a day. And this data is alarming.

Especially because it could be an excuse for many people to visit the smoking area just to make friends. After all, if a lonely non-smoker makes a friend and starts smoking 10 cigarettes a day with them, it's good for their health. I don't know if we can trust this data.

What if the cigarette is a Derby? What if the friend is Bruno de Luca? He's the Derby of friends, that's the truth.

This epidemic of loneliness has been exacerbated by the social isolation of the pandemic, but it was already underway before. So much so that the UK created a "Ministry of Loneliness" in 2018 to think about public policies that mitigate this problem. In 2021, Japan also named a "Minister of Loneliness.

" Here, it was different: Lula promised to create the Ministry of Dating, and so far, nothing. Instead of replacing Ana Moser with Fufuca in the Ministry of Sports, he should have created the Ministry of Dating, just to put Fufuca in charge! After all, the guy has the name of a boyfriend's nickname.

"Oh, my Fufuca," "stop it, Fufuco. " "What, Fufuca? " Although he looks like someone who does it softly.

So softly! He's a soft-doer, Fufuca. And yes, I know it seems counterintuitive that this epidemic of loneliness is happening right now.

After all, it used to be easier to be alone. If you wanted to be alone, you could be. You didn't have a communication device in your pocket that rings every 15 minutes with an unknown number from São Paulo.

Worse, a device that has a kind of radar that gives your location to others. Yes, the cell phone is an electronic ankle monitor that you willingly wear. Worse yet: you pay R$5,000 to use it.

It records your face, your voice, where you are, sells all of this, consumes hours of your day, and occasionally, to your despair, rings, and it's always to sell you a Claro plan. In the past, people respected your desire to be left alone. You could drink alone in a bar without the risk of an Instagram poet taking a photo and posting it with the caption "freedom or loneliness?

" Today, a person can't go to a bar alone without it being attributed to either freedom or loneliness. When sometimes it's just hunger. Or alcoholism.

Or the person has a friend from Rio. Or their friend simply went to the bathroom. Yes, sometimes the loner is just friends with Chico Moedas.

The guy stays in the bathroom for 40 minutes, so what? Am I going home? I'm going to sit here!

"Freedom or loneliness? " No, it's Chico! In the pre-cell phone days, finding company was difficult.

Making plans to go out was complicated because the only way to communicate was through a landline or a payphone. Yes, kids, you had to stand in line to use the phone. Setting up a meeting at a bar was like robbing a bank: "be at this location precisely at 8:53.

" There were even some ways to try to escape loneliness, like the "Friendship Line. " Yes, people would call a phone number where they could talk to random people, it was a kind of Chat Roulette without the risk of seeing a cock: <i>In Brasília, just dial the number 1453,</i> <i>and you'll immediately connect to the Friendship Line. </i> The Friendship Line is a pleasant lie where all users come to release their daily tensions because it only operates at night.

I would like to ask users of this line not to use profanity. What? What did you say, buddy?

You can hear the guy on the other end of the line saying, "Go fuck yourself, you motherfucker! I can say whatever I want, damn it, I'm paying 5 fucking reais per minute here! " But there used to be this profession in the past: moderator of the Friendship Line.

It was a social network that valued the quality of the debate. Although the moderator himself admitted that his job was a pleasant lie. Someone should have moderated his interview.

But if it was so much easier to be alone in the past, why are we lonelier today? First, because the population is getting older, and our circle of contacts naturally shrinks with age. The maximum number of friends a person has is around the age of 25, and from there, this number starts to decline, especially for men.

So, friends are like hair: they become scarcer after 30, and you can only find new ones in Turkey. No, this only applies to hair, folks, to friends, I don't think so. All of this reminds me of whom?

Amin Khader. Yes! Why?

Because I wanted to talk about him, what's the problem? Can't I? Both the baldness part and ending the friendship part, as he and David Brazil were super close friends until the day David Brazil posted that Amin had died: the entire press covered it, not just the press, but also Record.

The next day, Amin was found running on the Barra waterfront, and David confronted Amin, accusing him of playing a prank on him. I mean, he accused Amin, not me. .

. Amin! Amin then sued his friend, saying that he was the one who had played the prank.

Do you understand? I don't either, folks, I have no idea. I read a lot about the story, but I didn't understand.

I'm waiting for the explanation in Amin Khader's posthumous memoirs. Fortunately, to the delight of fans, David and Amin reconciled years later: -We're back! -Back to the old friendship as always.

-Very old, indeed! -Hey, don't call me old! -Are you young?

-Old, yes. Well, detail: it's just friendship as always, nothing more! Of course!

Two fags together, it doesn't work! I like men! Me too!

So, it's friendship, folks! Kisses, bye! Now they are writing a play, "The Death and the Death of Amin Khader.

" Notice that the video ends with a kiss, a goodbye, and a meow from David Brazil. I love this video. Why does he do that?

And the phrase "two fags together, it doesn't work" seems like a catchphrase from Seu Peru. I mean the character from the TV show, and not your wiener, which doesn't have a catchphrase, as far as I know. But anyway, today, being old is harder, or at least lonelier, than it has ever been.

In Brazil, more than 40% of the population living alone is 60 years or older, and more than a third of the elderly show depressive symptoms. One thing is linked to the other: the risk of developing depression is twice as high among the elderly who live alone. But it's not just the elderly who are increasingly alone: it's the young people too.

In the US, younger generations already report much higher levels of loneliness than their parents or grandparents: out of every 10 zoomers, born between 1997 and 2010, eight feel isolated, and 30% of millennials say they have no friends. So, you can't blame the friendship crisis solely on the aging population. No, it's also the result of a very deep distortion in the concept of friendship itself, which has been completely emptied.

One person who contributed a lot to this process was Mark Zuckerberg when he called every contact a person can have on Facebook a "friend" and decided that each person can have 5,000 friends. And to make it worse, Facebook spent the day showing us the worst of these people, everything that in the real world we didn't want to see: we spent years looking at pictures of people's pets, screw it, people's vacations, screw it, people's lunches, and people sending indirect messages to their ex, to you, writing long posts, being self-righteous about things they have no idea about. As a result we convinced ourselves that friendship is that type of relationship of annoyance and disgust, and a "friend" became that person whose life you watch from a distance, without interest, just liking for the sake of politeness.

And the worst part: thinking it's all good, that your social life is up to date, you have thousands of friends there, and some are even close friends. Yes, there's that category nowadays, which is basically people who can see you semi-naked. Or smoking marijuana.

Or smoking marijuana semi-naked. The truth is that it seems like we moved inside the Friendship Line. It's all a big, pleasant lie.

But without a moderator now. WhatsApp is filled with people you don't know, and your true friends' messages get lost in the midst of the group of former friends from a course you took in 2015 and the work colleagues' group, but without Carlos. Yes, every professional environment has a group without Carlos, and if you're not in any of those groups, you are Carlos.

And you might not even notice that friendship is in crisis. Unless you are Carlos. Because today, apps use a combination of precarious work and A.

I. to do everything your friends used to do. Yes, bring you a cold beer.

Introduce you to someone. Pick you up at the airport. Bring you food when you're sick.

Block calls to your ex. Tell you to turn left, argue because you didn't turn, recalculate the route. Yes, friends were the first Waze, the first Tinder, the first delivery service, the first Uber.

Today, half of Generation Z spends more than four hours on social media every day. And this is the root of the problem: social media distorts the sense of community. Accumulating followers is not the same as accumulating friends, and the experience of friendship is primarily a private, not a public one.

Every friendship that primarily happens within a social network tends to be performative. Because it's a relationship that happens on a stage, even if it happens in a WhatsApp group, which is a stage, just a smaller one, a contemporary theater stage. But there are still people watching.

Different from contemporary theater. You realize that people are becoming increasingly lonely because of things like this trend of spending hours watching someone play video games. Something I'll never understand.

Because the most boring memory of my childhood was going to a friend's house and have to watch him play video games. And I had to watch him score seven identical goals with Allejo. Yes, maybe the young ones don't know, but in my time, the greatest soccer player was Allejo, a player who never existed except in International Super Star Soccer.

Comparable only to Beranco. Who also never existed. There even was a community on Orkut called "Didn't see Pelé, but saw Allejo.

" And its counterpart, "Pelé is better than Allejo. " But anyway, nowadays people choose to watch other people play video games. And sometimes people have video games at home.

But they prefer to pay to watch a stranger play, to do what only the worst friends of my generation used to do. But playing video games isn't the only thing people like to watch others do. Sex, of course, as well.

But back in my day, people already watched that. I mean: they watched it. I always found it ridiculous, an invasion of privacy.

But anyway, the novelty is that nowadays people turn to the screen for anything. For example, there are live streams to watch people eat. Not in a sexual sense, okay?

Like, chewing, swallowing. Yes, it exists, and it's a phenomenon. A phenomenon that's fortunate not to be friends with Bruno de Luca.

This practice of watching people eat initially became popular in South Korea and then spread worldwide, and it's called Mukbang. Videos like these can reach over 50 million views. Nobody says, but it was Ana Maria Braga who came up with this in the 90s on Record.

We have to say it! "Oh, this is a trend from South Korea. .

. " No, this is our thing! It was born on "Note e Anote" in 1996.

She was already tasting food in front of others before it was cool. But at least she was polite. She didn't stick the microphone inside her small intestine.

Yes, these videos are practically a colonoscopy watched by 50 million people. No, Ana Maria at least had some dignity, she would hide under the table to eat in peace. But a friend is not just company, we don't have friends just to avoid being alone or to listen to someone chewing while having lunch.

No, the dictionary usually defines friendship as a "mutual affectionate relationship," but sometimes it's even more than that. Friendship includes affection, yes, but it also involves criticism. After all, a friend is not a buddy.

Neymar's buddies, of course, love Neymar, support him in everything, praise everything he does, cheer for him all the time, are always there for him. But they get paid for it at the end of the month. Every month, they get their dough, and it's not a cheap one.

When Neymar lived in Barcelona, it was around R$50,000 per month for each buddy. Now that he's gone to Saudi Arabia, I don't know if they'll go too. Saudi Arabia is not very buddy-friendly.

I think they're working from home now. Or maybe they'll try to switch to another player. We have to see when the buddy transfer window opens.

They're looking to transfer to another player. The relationship between Neymar and his buddies is a bit unequal, with a hierarchy, and Neymar's life seems to be at the center of their lives. Just because they spent years in Paris with him doesn't mean Gil Cebola is going to get a new job, and Neymar will just take photos.

Gil Cebola won't criticize Neymar and say, "What are you doing in Saudi Arabia, bro? You don't need money. By the way, let's file our income tax return this year?

" It's not something he's going to say, for sure. "Oh, you're stereotyping Gil Cebola, Gregório. .

. " Yes, I am. Although I know, of course, that Gil Cebola is a guy who has layers.

He does. Obviously, he does. A friend is someone who knows you, cares about you, and because of that, notices when you're not living up to your potential.

A friend criticizes with your best interests at heart, to help you improve and avoid certain situations, like this guy did: A life lesson: don't lend your car. Luca lent me this car here, and I flipped it. I'm not good at driving.

. . He shouldn't have lent it to me, I don't even have a driver's license.

Why did he do that? If I borrowed his car, it's because I can't afford my own. How am I going to pay him back?

Lose your friend, but don't lose your car. He lost me as a friend. How can we be friends when I owe him a car?

The guy lost the car, the friend, and got a scolding. I really appreciate the honesty of this guy: "You're not a good friend because you choose your friends poorly. " But this guy understood something that is key in friendship: it's difficult to be a friend when you feel indebted to the person.

The relationship between two friends is not a purely transactional relationship: it's not an exchange like "I pay for your plane ticket, and you like me. " No! It's more of a gift that one person gives to another, and it's a mutual gift.

Because the other person also gives gifts. And this mutualness doesn't come from a debt. It's not like a financial obligation: my friend helped me with something, now I have to help them with something of equal value.

It's the logic of the gift, not of the debt. I help my friend, always, and my friend helps me, always. Of course, there is reciprocity involved, but a true friend doesn't keep score of help: "hey, I attended your child's baptism and gave you a ride to the airport, so now you owe me three hours of venting about my new boss, Carlos.

" That's not something you can tally. And why are we talking about this? Because in some way, these systems of gifts, reciprocal generosity, and exchanges not mediated by money are fundamental for any collective to thrive, whether it's a small community or an entire civilization.

The logic of gift is what defines and sustains the very idea of society: if people start to believe that they can only give exactly the same amount they received, those who have nothing to give end up receiving nothing in return, and it's precisely those who need to receive the most. It's kind of obvious, right? So obvious that you can imagine what would happen in a society with no room for gifts, where everything generates debt.

It would all go wrong. Like what's happening to us. Today, we live in a world that quantifies, monetizes, and turns into commodities much of what, until recently, was in the realm of gift.

And perhaps no relationship of gift has been so colonized by this logic as friendship. Think about this: in recent decades, we've seen the emergence of the largest companies in the history of capitalism. They consider themselves tech companies, right?

But the area they turned into a market was not computing, it was human connections. Especially friendship. They are all monetizing our need for human contact.

The more time we spend relating to each other on these platforms, the more they profit. And in these new digital relationships, very basic elements of friendship, like a compliment, a criticism, a sharing of ideas, a request for help, a confession, gossip, everything is formatted for the social media market. So not only have we started subjecting friendships to public scrutiny, but we have also subjected them to the metrics of corporations whose business model is your personal relationships.

And as a result, your relationships are shaped to generate likes for you and profits for them. And when the gift relationship becomes a market, the anthropological meaning of friendship atrophies. Compliments and criticisms cease to be gifts and become part of a performance measured by engagement and audience metrics, as they are made in public for everyone to see.

Our actions gradually stop being motivated by the desire to genuinely see our friends well and increasingly become about our desire for others to see us as someone who wants to see our friends well. The spectacularization of friendship makes it difficult to discern what is friendship and what is a collaboration. Like Bruno de Luca, who didn't help his friend but posted on Instagram that he cares.

But the very idea of a more equal world depends, above all, on very solid and healthy friendships. It depends on relationships of gift, cooperation, and human contact. We will not politically rebuild ourselves without rebuilding our network of friendships.

And this reconstruction will not happen in the same space where friendship was destroyed. This show is already in its seventh season. We've been through a lot together.

Many people say they watch Greg News with their boyfriend on Saturday morning and have changed boyfriends several times, but they still watch the show with their new boyfriend. And speaking like this, it seems that our relationship, between you and me, is a friendship. After all, we've been through a lot together.

But I want to remind you that it's not. We don't know each other, buddy. This here is another relationship mediated by capital.

I'm here because I'm paid by HBO. But seriously, I'm very happy to think that, even if our relationship doesn't actually exist, this show may have helped real relationships to exist. Many people say they send it to someone, and they watch it together.

And I'm happy that we may have given you a good reason to reconnect with a friend you haven't talked to in a while. I'm not your friend, but you must have a friend. So I would be very happy if this show made you meet up in a real space.

This is the last Greg News of the year. And we won't see each other for a while. But there's still a minute of the show.

And I wanted to spend this minute. . .

Eating some pasta. It's cold, because it was here all along. And the air conditioning here is strong.

If you want to eat too. . .

Or just listen to me. . .

It's not over yet, folks. This was Greg News. Good night, everyone!

See you soon! It's been a pleasure. Until next year, I hope!