Based on the theory of the social representations of Moscovici and from the contextualization of the phenomenon of street gang mass robberies, this text proposes to discuss elements that respond to the following questions. Why have criminalizing discourses, which claim how dangerous funk fans are, been so evident since the start of the 1990s in Rio de Janeiro? How do these discourses, which indicate a certain social construction of the funk fan, interfere in the relationship of funk with society? The discussion starts with an understanding of the devices created in the Rio de Janeiro society of that period for solving the problems with which it saw itself confronted. This is an attempt to understand how, at a particular point in time, the funk fan received a widely disclosed profile as a problem that requires a specific type of intervention.
social representations; funk; violence; Rio de Janeiro