Muslim Women, YouTube, And Third Space
By Guest Contributor Deonna Kelli Sayed, cross-posted from Muslimah Media Watch
Muslim YouTube broadcaster Sister Randomina.
Media technology and the Muslim world are interesting collaborators. Cassette-tape propagation of Ayatollah Khomeini’s sermons provided important precursors for the Iranian Revolution. Likewise, Facebook and Twitter offered political leverage in the Arab Spring developments. For observers, social media, in particular, is potentially changing the dynamics of the public sphere in the Muslim world.
New media technology provides a “third space” where some Muslims who are using social media to contest gender assumptions, normative aspects of religious practice, and cultural experience. In this context, YouTube offers such a space as an informal meeting place to create community and to express new identities.
Muslims around the world are familiar with YouTube as a source of religious information from well-known Islamic personalities. Now, rather than YouTubing for religious instruction from Dr. Zakir Naik, for example, some are uploading for creative expression, a small number of Muslims are contributing to a new aesthetic of Muslim videography to express personal creativity and observations–mostly through satire or parody–on issues they face in daily life.
One of the more interesting dynamics is the emergence of Muslim women taking to YouTube to “talk back” on issues of identity and Western assumptions concerning the female experience.
Sister Randomina is one visible American Muslim woman on YouTube. Her channel, Hijandom, showcases her personal, humorous reflections on Western perceptions of Muslim women, spot-on critiques about the overbearing community pressure to marry, and comedic commentary on everyday life. Sister Randomina’s appearance as a hijabed young Muslim woman lends her credibility and allows her “permission” to issue her comedic cultural criticisms.
Randomina (not her real name) is currently a film student, and her YouTube channel is an extension of her emerging craft. In a personal interview for this article, she revealed that the YouTube idea came to her during a normal Ramadan day. She explains:
I made a video about Taraweeh–like a video diary entry. I called myself Sister Randomina because my friends would refer to me as being really random. All of a sudden I realized people were watching these “entries.” Entertaining people and expressing myself became a passion.
Another noticeable contribution is from the United Kingdom-based Dina Tokio, who enjoys a popular YouTube presence, albeit with a slightly different perspective than Sister Randomina. Tokio is a personal stylist and consultant with a the motto “modesty with a flair.” Her YouTube presence explicitly promotes her unique style and is used to brand her Lazy Doll fashion. While Tokio doesn’t routinely engage satire or parody, her strong sense of design and engaging YouTube persona is entertaining and instrumental in challenging stereotypes about Muslim women.
Tokio’s work often shows her full body in a variety of modest, fashionable outfits and unabashedly centers on her physicality and personal persona as a hip, hijabed Muslim woman in a Western society. Yet, her full-bodied presence is not the norm; the few Muslim women found offering creative commentary on YouTube tend to focus predominately headshots rather than full body images, and they often seem to create videos without assistance from others.
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