Anmol Irfan

When 30-year-old Mahnoor Lodhi, who lives in Karachi and is a content creator by profession, was in university, a stalker copied her photos from her personal social media profiles and posted them publicly with her phone number and captions like ‘professional whore’. She says, “Things spiralled out of control. I would get calls, I would get harassed a lot. It made me go offline for a while.”
Mahnoor wanted to create her blog for a while at the time, but this incident rattled her and kept her a...

Over the last five months, there’s been a line drawn within the world of celebrities. A line that’s done little on the ground to be honest, but one that’s there nonetheless.
Since 7th October, most celebrities across the world have used their platforms to speak out regarding the violence in Palestine. Most have taken to what they call ‘neutral’ statements, like Rihanna, clearly playing to both sides, condemning violence without speaking the perpetrators’ name, with some like Gal Gadot openly ...

Aerial fitness influencers inspiring body positivity
Feb 8
social mediawell-beingwellnesspole dancingaerialinfluencersfitnessmental healthexercisebody imageself loveconfidencemovementhealth

When the Oscar nominations were announced in late January, they led to a buzz online. Usually that’s pretty standard every year but this time things seemed a little bit different.
Along with the usual discussions and opinions being shared on who should and shouldn’t have been nominated, a lot of Oscar “discourse” focused on the fact that Margot Robbie and Greta Gerwig weren’t nominated for Best Actress and Best Director respectively.
Many viewers felt that Robbie and Gerwig had been shunned, ...

01.18.2024
As social media personalities continue to push online shops, affiliate links, and ultra-fast fashion brand deals, consumerism is reaching a new peak. But where do eco-content creators advocating for more ethical lifestyle choices fit into the influencer economy?
Last year, when Mashal Mush posted about her wedding, one thing in particular stood out: this was the first desi wedding I’d seen where the bride was proudly sharing that she’d worn a pre-loved gown. It made me think about ...

The recent hostage deal reached between the government of Israel and Hamas has seen the release of Israeli hostages in Gaza in exchange for the release of Palestinian women and children detained in Israeli prisons. The framing of these deals is telling, especially as it is another example of a focus on Palestinian women and children which – while important to highlight – also seems to erase the humanity and potential innocence of Palestinian men deliberately. While dehumanisation isn’t new, t...

Following the popularity of Lensa AI - the generative AI platform that created portraits for users - in Pakistan last year, AI and its impact on everyday users suddenly became a common topic. Despite the app being around since 2018, it’s only been with the recent boom of AI-related startups and AI becoming more accessible through platforms like chat GPT that people have begun to explore using these technologies every day - and having fun with them. But while most people pop onto these apps fo...

Aerial fitness influencers inspiring body positivity

Big cities in countries like South Africa, Pakistan and Indonesia are seeing a wave of independent farmers working to challenge stereotypes and provide sustenance with small, sustainable farming initiatives. Is the movement scalable?
In and around Cape Town, South Africa, over 3,000 micro farmers have been working to provide for themselves and their family both by growing their own food and being able to sell their organic sustainable produce in the local market. The training and guidance of ...

More than the bias of a specific journalist, the general trend of selective activism in media should be leading us to question why certain stories get so big in the first place.
Thursday January 5, 2023
When the Qatari Emir placed a traditional bisht on Lionel Messi following Argentina’s World Cup win, I was already expecting the backlash that followed. The continuing trend for Western media to criticise anything that is not familiar to them has been far too common to assume that this time wo...

Why is the international community so quick to pounce on the subject of “veiled” Muslim women’s bodies? For decades, Muslim women’s bodies and clothing—especially the burqa and hijab—have been the subject of intense media and political scrutiny. Images and feature stories perpetuated by news outlets worldwide impact how Muslim women’s identities are perceived, by themselves and others, influencing their lives and social roles—and global politics.
For decades, Muslim women’s bodies and clothin...

The rise of ChatGPT in schools led to an influx of unproven AI detectors. But results have shown this approach may have more consequences than benefits.
Photo Illustration by Thomas Levinson/The Daily Beast/Getty
Mira is a student of international business at the Artevelde University of Applied Sciences in Belgium. She recently received feedback on one of her papers—and was shocked to see that her instructor noted that an artificial intelligence detector flagged 40 percent of her paper as bei...