Stereotypes: "Venecos"? How does a Venezuelan looks like?

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As it says, this time is about Cultural Stereotypes. I loved this topic because I hate how it has affected my country, and it is "our" fault, not "me" per sé but a lot of other Venezuelans that are a problem for the rest of us too, I don't know what other Venezuelans will say about this but I'll be happy to read your thoughts too.

Photos from Johan Juárez Caruci / unguaroviajero on Instagram

The stereotypes

Something conforming to a fixed or general pattern
especially : a standardized mental picture that is held in common by members of a group and that represents an oversimplified opinion, prejudiced attitude, or uncritical judgment Source

They don't come from the air, they can be awful, even harmful, but they exist because there is people with those characteristics who create the stereotype. There may be people who don´t match the stereotype, like a girl wearing a plaid shirt who is not a lesbian but, Have you seen how many lesbian wear those shirts? a lot, enough to make the stereotype, but, there are also lesbian who doesn't wear them. The stereotype is not perfect, but is very accurate most of the times.

The problem, in my perspective, is to the more generalized stereotypes, that are not base on personal traits, but in race, nationality, gender, because it might be the only thing you have in common with the stereotype, you can't change or have nothing to do with it, but the people will judge you anyway.

Difference between stereotypes of a personality and a collective behavior

In the stereotypes of a personality is kind of your fault, I mean, you are having, because you want, a certain kind of behavior, you are watching a certain kind of movies, listening to music, wearing clothes, like, if you watch a lot of animes, you are an otaku, it's not harmful at all, and you do like animes so What's the problem?.

But the stereotypes of a country are built from the experiences of some foreigners, marketing or news, is not that you did something and are judged for that, is that persons who you don't even know did something and you are judged for that. This are the ones that come for race, gender, religions and what I'll be digging more into, nationality.

Old first thoughts about Venezuela

Miss Universe, the most beautiful women in the world, beaches, petroleum, this where the words we heard the most from foreigners here, they came looking for that. Also the warm people that love parties and are very welcoming, particularly true in the coast and at the mountains.

Venezuela was a very developed country forty years ago, it was on it's way to become a "first world - ish" country but suddenly it all changed, now it has the worse economy of the continent.

Current first thoughts about Venezuela

Venecos, criminals, Chavez, hunger.

Now those are the first words we have from foreigners and people make fun of it in social media, and not just the foreigners, Venezuelans are also know for the "chalequeo" a kind of soft funny bullying but still bullying. It fire back on social media, people think it's okay to make fun because Venezuelans are that way, but "we" are not, I'm not, but I'm Venezuelan, gotta deal with it.

Where did these stereotypes come from? How do they affect the ones that looks alike but are not like the stereotypes?

Those current bad stereotypes are the ones ruling how foreigners see us, how they receive the immigrants, and it's awful, because they get a very bad treatment, they are denied jobs or the possibility to rent a room.

But, those are not "lies" they may not be true for all of us but they come from some problems we really have in here. This are tome of the most common stereotypes:

The "Malandro"

This is the most dangerous for the common citizen, because they steal, kill, kidnap without scruples, without a plan, it is not because of hunger, many people defend them, they even have relatives who are thugs and get angry if someone they hurt accuses them. These are the ones who are giving bad reputation, those who left the country illegally, infected other countries but due to the pandemic had to return, which has caused insecurity to rise again here.

The "Tukis"

Just as bad as the malandros are the children and young people growing up with the aesthetics of the malandros, they talk, they dress like them even though they are not, they turn it into something "chévere" good, cool, being a malandro is a fashion, so it is difficult to differentiate criminals from dumb kids. This is one of those stereotypes that we see for survival: if I see someone who looks like a malandro I will not give him the opportunity to prove that he is not, I will change sidewalks.

The "Pluggeds"

People who sell themselves to the government, from their positions they do only what the government orders, good or bad, whether they are qualified or not, because they are in the positions selected by hand, by means of favors not merits.

At the moment there are many "enchufados" helping with money laundering, this makes that people who on their own have really managed to set up a business are judged as such, a "enchufado".

The husband-stealers

Venezuelan women are beautiful, there is an stereotype for it, but for this reason, some foreigners prefer them over their current wives, and this is not on us, if they are bad men they are, a good men won't leave his wife just because he meet a cute foreigner. But Venezuelans are the ones paying for it. The problem is, there are Venezuelan women doing it, looking for men that are willing to leave their home for them and pay for their stuff just to get them to bed. Which one are doing it on purpose and which are just there, minding their own business when a man put his eyes on her? You can't tell, a furious woman won't want to investigate, there are a lot of Venezuelans that has been attacked for no real reason.

A text apart for sexual workers, because it is the oldest job of the world. I just meet here a man who was talking about his experiences in another country: The locals got him to a place to get a woman, and they were talking about their options from countries, Venezuelan were their favorites; short time later, two Venezuelan girls came back with severe injuries because the local women hated them for stealing their clients. Now a good looking woman is seen as a competence, imagine the rest.

Some "good" ones

"Venezuelans always say my love to everyone"

I don't, a lot of people don't, but it's true, a lot of people treat completely strangers as "mi amor" you can go the store and they will be like "How can I help you? My love" "My love, can you tell me what time is it?" we are very warm as a society, we was more years before, but individually don't I'm not like that,I didn't even called "my love" my ex-boyfriend so think about it.

The most beautiful women

This one is easy to tell where it came from, Venezuela has earned the Miss Universe seven times and the only one country that got two one after the other. Also there is something about Venezuelan girls, we have a lot of mix between natives and foreigners. But this put a lot of pressure on the ones that don't look like the Miss Universe, your are Venezuelan but you are not that beautiful, you don't have that body, you are not tall, you don't have long ass hair, and this is a stereotype that comes from marketing, I'm not saying Venezuelans are not beautiful, just that we are not like the ones you see in social media, not all.

If you look like one of those, you are going to be judge like one even if you are not, and, if you are Venezuelan and the person you meet has known one of those, now you are going to be judge as one too.

How do these stereotypes affect my life?

Mine in specific is not affected very much, because I barely leave my room, but is does affect my options to travel, I can't go thinking I'll be welcome, because Venezuelans before me have had a bad behavior internationally and now the other countries are generally mad at us or scared of us. Some countries like this are Perú, Ecuador, Colombia, Argentina, and others, particularly in south america. I don't blame them, I don't like how mean they are and the level of violence they have shown to good Venezuelans and I don't want to visit these countries, but I kind of get them, they got to deal with the "malandros" the criminals, the worse of us and they are projecting that over the rest of us.

But see? it is also a stereotype "Peruvians hate Venezuelans" Do they? All of them? I don't think so, but enough Peruvians hate Venezuelans to create that feeling, to make me have fear of going there.

Right now, the word "Veneco" is used to refer to bad Venezuelans, even Venezuelans in Venezuela use it, because, yeah, we embrace the jokes, you don't get to be the bullies if we can do something about (I don't use it, I'm representing the stereotype of Venezuelans) I was looking for the meaning and that word was first used to refer to Colombians in Venezuela, those children of Colombians born here, gotta say, they love to say the arepa is theirs but they don't assume that the word they use against us as an insult is actually a Venezuelan word for them that weren't meant as an insult, just like "Italo-venezolano" a Venezuelan born from Italians. This Source is in Spanish but it explains the same, the word itself is not an insult, but how you use it makes it one.

I hope we will able to get over those stereotypes, because for a lot of Venezuelans the best chances of surviving is leaving the country and because of those stereotypes instead of surviving we can get killed. Not a random thought, there are Venezuelans dead because of this.