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Rio de Janeiro meaning on TikTok, explained

Despite the image, it's not the same as the city.

Aerial panorama of Botafogo Bay and Sugar Loaf Mountain, Rio De Janeiro, Brazil.
Image via Getty

No matter how in the know they may feel, there comes a time in every TikTok user’s life when they realize they’re on the outside of a new trend circulating on the app

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Lately, you may have noticed videos and image carousels captioned with the tag #RiodeJaneiro popping up all over your For You page. Most confusingly of all, these posts very rarely have anything to do with the city in Brazil. What does it all mean? 

What does ‘Rio de Janeiro’ mean on TikTok?

If you want to understand this trend, you have to have some Instagram knowledge as this TikTok trend stems from Meta’s competing platform. “Rio de Janeiro” is the name of a popular Instagram filter. Some people use the filter on their photos before uploading to TikTok simply because they think it looks good.

Other TikTok creators joke that the “Rio De Janeiro” filter is so pretty that it can “fix” their problems; they’ll upload a picture (often a screenshot of a negative text) with the filter over it and act as if the filter solved their problem. 

Some creators also use the filter to convey how a bad situation doesn’t change even when viewed through a filter as pretty as this one. There isn’t one right way to use Rio De Janeiro and not every user agrees on how to use this filter on TikTok. As with all social media trends, a little knowledge and a lot of context clues will help you understand what’s going on the next time this trend crosses your For You page.