Americans don’t want Iranians killed. As long as they’re hipsters

Americans don’t want Iranians killed. As long as they’re hipsters Submitted by Barry Malone on Tue, 04/21/2026 - 13:38 Like images of Ukrainian refugees, Iranian viral clips suggest that some only care about the slaughter of people who look like them A young Iranian woman carries a national flag as she arrives to participate in a pro-government rally in southern Tehran, Iran on 17 April, 2026 (Reuters) On Was it the guy in the dungarees with the Vans sneakers? Maybe the girl with the nose piercing? Or the one with the pink hair? The parade of achingly cool sunglasses? I suspect it was a combination of all of the above that caused a strange reaction from western viewers, particularly in the US, when a video of young Iranians being spoken to on the streets of the capital Tehran recently went viral. "This is the civilization that US President Donald Trump just said will die tonight," one tweet said. What was striking was the bewilderment that greeted the clip. This is Iran?! Are you serious? With tote bags and iPhones and beautiful people? It can’t be. Stranger than that, though, was the discernible uptick in sympathy for a country that the US and Israel were in the middle of bombing to smithereens. "But they look like … us?" people seemed to be saying, in a reaction similar to the shock that accompanied images of Ukrainians fleeing Russia’s invasion back in 2022 because, to western eyes, they didn’t fit the profile of victims of war. The video became the first salvo in an ongoing row about what constitutes the real Iran, as footage of the metro, malls and numerous hipster coffee shops went viral. And, yes, Roostar is probably nicer than that café you went to in New York or London. Medieval backwater This week, street interviews carried out in the affluent districts of northern Tehran by Reuters, again featuring swish coffee and tea shops and stylish young professionals, caused a similar furore and went similarly viral, with numerous angry posts accusing the news agency of pushing inaccurate propaganda about life in the country. Trump-Netanyahu war aims to entrap Iranians into unconditional submission Read More » In those vox pops, which canvassed people enjoying the window of peace afforded to them by the delicate two-week ceasefire, which was extended by President Trump on Tuesday, between the US, Israel and Iran as the clock ticked down, none of the women interviewed wore hijabs. That fact seemed to anger those, both American and expat Iranians, who begged the US and Israel to attack Iran and who want the bombing to resume. Because the more people who see these images, the more they chip away at the carefully constructed image of Iran as a medieval backwater refusing to join the "civilised" world. It’s an obvious thing to say, even though the most rabidly entrenched on either side will not admit it, but there is no simple answer to what "the real Iran" is. It’s a huge country of more than 93 million people with diverse ethnic and religious backgrounds. Some live in cities, some live in rural areas. Some are rich, some are poor. Some are devout, some are not. Some support the Islamic Republic, some do not. The government’s strict dress code mandating that women wear hijabs is now loosely enforced in some areas, if at all, since the "Woman, Life, Freedom" protests that swept the country following the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini in police custody after she was arrested for wearing her hijab "inappropriately". Though growing numbers of women are now choosing to go unveiled and mockingly defying efforts to impose the rules, it should be said that the viral scenes from north Tehran are very different from street life in, say, the more conservative city of Qom. And that’s the point. Warlike Muslims Like any other country in the world, Iran doesn’t lend itself to shorthand. But that doesn’t stop western governments and the pliant international media from weaponising shorthand when covering one of the world's most ancient nations. Instead of echoing their government's propaganda for the last 47 years, western media should have spent its time humanising Iranians the same way it does American, Israeli and Ukrainian civilians The reason the footage of chi-chi Tehran pulled in millions of views was that it flew in the face of the images news consumers in the West have been seeing for decades. We all know them. There’s what I like to call the "woman walks in front of" genre. She will be dressed in an abaya or a hijab and what she is walking in front of is almost always a mural. A cursory Google search throws up women walking in front of murals including: the Statue of Liberty with its arm cut off and ISIS fighters lurking in the background; the Statue of Liberty with a skull for a face; Ayatollah Khomeini standing defiant on the walls of the former US embassy; an image of the Great Seal of the United States spilling out guns and drugs; and a mural of Iranian drones destroying the Star of David. How many hours have photographers spent standing across the street from these walls waiting for their moment? How many different women have been unwittingly photographed in front of them? And how many times have western news editors decided such images were the perfect way to illustrate a story about Iran?  Those images communicate two things to audiences already deluged with propaganda about Muslims and the people of the Middle East being backward and uniquely prone to war: 1) These people are not like you. 2) These people hate you. Media Propaganda There is a concept in social psychology and evolutionary biology known as parochial altruism. It refers to, in simple terms, a human tendency to favour people like us (the "in-group") while also being hostile to those who are unlike us (the "out-group"). What does 'Iran-linked' even mean? Read More » So it’s not fair to accuse westerners or Americans  - in whose name Iran is being bombed  - of being the only people prone to it. Everyone is, to some extent. Consider, though, the power of that inclination when exploited by the most powerful governments and media organisations in the world. Consider its destructive potential when leveraged by history’s largest and most aggressive militaries. But we are more than our inherent tendencies. We can rise above them. Why didn’t the Americans who found a new sympathy for Iranians when they saw the viral videos care about them before? Why should a woman who doesn’t want to cover her hair be afforded more empathy than one who chooses to wear the abaya? What difference does it make if Israeli and American bombs fall on the heads of the secular or the devout, on people in northern Tehran or Qom, on a beautiful mall or a dilapidated market, on critics of the ayatollahs or their supporters? Instead of echoing the propaganda of their governments for the last 47 years, western media should have spent its time humanising Iranians the same way it does American, Israeli and Ukrainian civilians caught up in war through no fault of their own. Journalists should have strived for more than the convenient picture they painted of a country filled with downtrodden and weak women who, lacking any agency of their own, wanted Washington to bomb them to freedom, and instead told a story of a people every bit as complex as themselves. Maybe if they had, Iranians wouldn't need to wear hipster dungarees before their lives are valued. The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Eye. War on Iran Opinion Post Date Override 0 Update Date Mon, 05/04/2020 - 21:29 Update Date Override 0