From China to America: What Are Brother Orange and Matt Up To?

A lost phone and a shared "photo stream" started a cross-border friendship that made Matt and Brother Orange internet celebrities, and their story isn't over yet.

Two men with no connection to each other met by chance and became celebrities in America and China. For that, thank Steve Jobs first. A year ago Matt, who lives in New York, left his phone in a bar in the East Village. The iPhone made its way to Meizhou, in Guangdong province, and into the hands of Li Hongjun, who owns a restaurant there. The two men's shared photo stream filled up with pictures of Li posing in front of an orange tree, so Matt began calling the stranger "Brother Orange." Matt, a BuzzFeed reporter, wrote about it for the site, and Chinese netizens used "human flesh search," the Chinese practice of crowdsourced online sleuthing, to track Brother Orange down.

You have surely seen what happened next. Matt even traveled to Brother Orange's hometown, for something close to a meetup between online friends.

But it did not end there. After a lap around China, the heartwarming tale of Brother Orange and BuzzFeed reporter Matt came back to America. At the invitation of the American talk show The Ellen Show (if you know little about it, you may remember the group selfie at the Oscars that went wildly viral), Brother Orange flew to Los Angeles to appear on the show with Matt. Less than a month after they first met, the two were together again.

"I just wrote a story about losing my phone. I never expected Chinese netizens to find Brother Orange at godlike speed. Before we knew it, we were as famous as Britney Spears and Kim Kardashian (the American reality TV star)," Matt said, retelling the strange, simple story for Ellen. Brother Orange, beside him in a matching floral shirt, depended on a translator, so his "heh heh" always came half a beat late.

"Let's go sign up for Weibo right now, this so-called Chinese Twitter. I want to be part of your club too," Ellen said after Matt had told the whole story of their rise to fame, including the welcome from countless fans at Meizhou airport. (Cue applause from Sina, Weibo's owner.) Ellen, who loves giving her guests presents, this time brought out three blue jackets labeled "Brother Orange," "Matt," and "Sister Orange." The interview lasted only three minutes, yet it has drawn nearly 160,000 views on YouTube.

At In-N-Out, the famous California burger chain, Brother Orange tasted cheese for the first time. Then, at BuzzFeed's Los Angeles office, he made his video debut, demonstrating under Matt's direction how to eat American cheese sticks. "It looks fun, but the milk taste is too strong," Brother Orange admitted.

Matt's favorite star since childhood has been Britney Spears, so the trip naturally included re-creating Britney's "Work Bitch" music video in the desert outside Las Vegas and watching her perform live in the city. Matt was thrilled; Brother Orange was not much interested in Britney. But Sin City did give him a passion for sweet margaritas.

Brother Orange crossed half the globe to see Matt. He went with Matt to see his beloved Britney, then visited Matt's family in his hometown of Albany, in upstate New York. Finally he arrived in New York City, the "center of the world."

His first reaction to the city Matt lives in, the self-styled Capital of the World, was that New York is nothing special. But as on his West Coast trip, everything from here on was planned and directed. He knew that the most important item on the New York itinerary was to faithfully "livestream" five days of travel. (It feels a bit like The Truman Show.)

"First we'll go to the Empire State Building. You can see all of New York from the top." Matt's itinerary started Brother Orange at the city's highest point. "It's the building King Kong climbed for the beautiful woman," Matt told him, figuring that most people have at least heard of King Kong.

"This building is so tall!" Brother Orange exclaimed in his Meizhou accent. He took out the Nokia Windows phone Matt had given him and kept snapping the New York skyline and selfies with Matt. The two coordinate their outfits on purpose every day; today both wore bright red jackets with the BuzzFeed logo. Language never seemed much of a barrier, and the two really are as close as they look on Weibo. Matt habitually throws an arm around Brother Orange's shoulders and shouts his name, and in the babbling, giggling and "heh heh" that every language shares, the two can stay excited at any moment.

Brother Orange's nephew Xiaojie came along this time too. He is the one who runs the Weibo account in Brother Orange's name, and the job seems to suit him: he studied marketing management. While Brother Orange was busy pulling faces for the camera, Xiaojie recorded the funny moments on his Meizu phone and shared the pair's happy travels on social media.

Xiaojie's official travelogue whetted netizens' appetites, but it still missed the best part of the two men's rapport: how they communicate without words.

Waiting on the platform at the Canal Street subway station in Chinatown on the way to the BuzzFeed office, Brother Orange and Matt began humming Faye Wong's "Dream Person." They knew only the first line or two, so they kept repeating them, and never got bored.

Cultural gaps and language barriers have done nothing to shake this solid "ha ha" friendship. Matt can say some odd bits of Chinese, such as "doubi" (goofball) and "duang," and even knows "23333" (Chinese internet shorthand for laughter). Brother Orange has picked up simple English, including "Thank you," "Sorry," and "no problem." They seem to have developed an understanding: with gestures, tone of voice and lots of hugs, they have invented a private language of their own, which makes language itself seem less necessary.

Perhaps because he had to keep himself "high" at full intensity every day, Brother Orange finally got tired. "I wake up at three every morning to call people back home and scroll through Weibo comments... I'm also in touch with the crew of Day Day Up, because next week I fly to Changsha to be on TV." He said this every morning, and it seemed to be how his mind lived elsewhere: "Playing around and laughing like this every day isn't that interesting, really. Home is better."

In Meizhou, a third-tier city in Guangdong, crowds gathered to gawk at Matt. New Yorkers, by contrast, were utterly unfazed by the arrival of the celebrity Brother Orange, and few of them probably recognized him. Only once, on a street in downtown Manhattan, did a hip young man, who was not even Chinese, run up and toss off a casual "What's up, bro!" in Chinese. He was gone before Brother Orange could react.

That friendly greeting also echoed the sense of humor BuzzFeed has always tried to convey: nonchalant and a little cutesy. Millennials, now the main users of social networks, are used to letting BuzzFeed's content set their imaginations running, and they can rarely resist liking and sharing it.

Matt is BuzzFeed's ninth employee; he began interning there while still a student at New York University. BuzzFeed believes in simple list articles packed with images on eye-catching topics, and engages readers mainly through social networks. Nine years after its founding, it was valued at US$850 million in 2014.

As a BuzzFeed veteran, Matt understands "viral" spread well. He knows how to dig deep into the internet and stage nonsensical "news," and he knows even better that "Matt-style reporting," full of explosive phrasing, draws more attention.

The somewhat staged "Brother Orange" story is also a new experiment for BuzzFeed.

Since Matt was one of the story's two protagonists, he and BuzzFeed chose to give many local Chinese-language media outlets access to his New York trip, while turning down an interview with a conservative show for white audiences on the Fuse TV channel. For Matt and BuzzFeed, the audience that matters is young people active on social networks.

When Brother Orange and Matt walked into BuzzFeed's office near the Flatiron Building in downtown Manhattan, the entire BuzzFeed staff was there to greet them, holding up signs welcoming Brother Orange and shouting "ju zi ge." It was unclear whether they had rehearsed. Even BuzzFeed CEO Jonah Peretti, inventor of the list-based format known as the listicle, came out to greet Brother Orange. His eyes lit up when he saw him.

"I'm so glad Brother Orange is enjoying all this. It's amazing. Let's just let it develop naturally," Peretti said, excited but understated. He also seemed to hope that this China-US double act would open the door to the Chinese market for BuzzFeed.

To make the most of his visit, BuzzFeed had Brother Orange write a listicle titled "Ten Things You Love Most Since Coming to America." He dictated it and seemed to have no particular feelings about the result, but netizens were thrilled. "This is the best BuzzFeed story I've ever seen!" one commented below it.

As planned, BuzzFeed had organized a party to welcome Brother Orange. But Matt seemed nervous about it, because he had planned to introduce his boyfriend to Brother Orange there.

So after they left the office and stood on a wet New York street after the rain, Matt could not hold back from telling Brother Orange in advance, to give him time to prepare. "Later I'm going to introduce you to my boyfriend, not my girlfriend." Matt stared at Brother Orange, perhaps expecting a look of surprise. After 30 seconds of translation, Brother Orange only smiled, his expression barely changing. He even said, generously, that he had never doubted Matt was gay.

Matt let out a long breath, and his fear of how Brother Orange would react melted away. Now he was more curious whether Brother Orange had ever met a real gay person, especially in China. "Of course I've seen them on TV and in movies, but (to me) it doesn't matter at all. Society is very open now. As long as two people like each other, who cares about gender?" Brother Orange stayed perfectly calm.

"Did you know Ellen is gay too?" Matt pressed. "Ah haha, that I didn't know." Brother Orange slipped back into his trademark look of not caring in the slightest.

Later, at the party, Brother Orange met Matt's boyfriend and cheerfully told him he was handsome. At that moment he really seemed to be enjoying it all.

"This part is perfect." Abe Greenwald, the BuzzFeed photographer who followed them the whole way and director of the documentary Brother Orange, could not hide his excitement. It was Greenwald who persuaded BuzzFeed to make a documentary about Brother Orange and Matt. "Actually, what I'd love more is to turn their story into a feature film, with Andrew Garfield (the star of The Amazing Spider-Man) playing Matt," he said. Following Matt, he recorded the Brother Orange story from start to finish and became Brother Orange's good friend too. Brother Orange affectionately calls him "Abu," which sounds like Abe.

When Brother Orange is with Matt, he always seems to have astonishing energy.

From Lincoln Center on the Upper West Side all the way east across Central Park, the two struck poses and took photos nonstop. They made no effort to hide their bromance. On the steps of the Metropolitan Museum of Art they staged a picnic, imitating Serena and Blair from Gossip Girl (Matt was Serena, of course), and at the Metropolitan Opera they mimicked the solemn faces of opera singers.

"This story only works, and has only lasted this long, because you two are crazy," Abu said as he filmed, not sure whether to laugh or cry. But Brother Orange and Matt's craziness is just the right amount: wild but never unhinged. When they talk about their friendship, they come across as sincere.

When Abu tried to get the two to stand under a rainbow flag (also known as the gay pride flag) in the West Village, Matt flatly refused. "We're not shooting a reality show, Abu. Why are you being so over the top!" Matt pressed on, because he wanted Brother Orange to see the Statue of Liberty from the bank of the Hudson River while the weather was at its best. Apart from Wall Street and the 9/11 Memorial, it was the only sight left that he wanted to visit, and the most "American" landmark of all.

On their last day in New York, Brother Orange visited Matt's apartment. As it happens, Matt's roommate is Ilana Glazer, co-creator and star of the TV series Broad City. To give Brother Orange a taste of the most New York culture there is, Matt prepared an episode of Broad City with Chinese subtitles.

"I like your hairstyle in the show. Your curls look great down," Brother Orange said after watching the 20-minute episode. Did he really understand this story of young women broke and happy in New York, a bit offbeat even by American standards and full of soft-core sex? It hardly seemed to matter. He sat through it, and missing the point did not seem important.

"He's even less inhibited than Matt. I think Brother Orange would do really well in New York," Ilana remarked as she watched him smoke on the balcony. Wearing a black pullover BuzzFeed had given him and chatting easily with Matt's boyfriend and Ilana's boyfriend, Brother Orange was more than a BuzzFeed "product." His online fame with Matt also comes naturally from his cheerful personality and his strong taste for the absurd.

"Brother Orange's favorites are margaritas, food with cilantro, and Mexican food, except Chipotle (the famous American Mexican restaurant chain)," Matt said, summing up Brother Orange's New York trip. The friendship they have built back and forth will go on: they meet again next week.

"I told the director of Day Day Up we could sing a Beyond song, or Faye Wong's 'Dream Person,'" Brother Orange said, having decided this happily and on his own. But what Matt would rather perform for the show's host, Wang Han, is Britney Spears's "Oops!... I Did It Again."

The amazing story of Brother Orange and Matt is not over yet. So the next time you bored humans lose your phone, relax and tell yourself: get a new phone right away, turn on Photo Stream, and maybe one day you'll find #MyBrotherOrange (or Sister), and make a whole group of new friends along the way.