Arabian Night

About

Arabian Night or Another Arabian Night is a TikTok trend where creators transition from wearing normal clothes in a low-quality, pixelated, front-facing camera video to them dressed in traditional Muslim or Arabic clothing such as burqas and hijabs in a high definition (HD) video. The trend used a song from Disney's 2019 live-action Aladdin movie starring Will Smith. It also stirred a cultural appropriation controversy in mid-2022 because white people were participating in it more than Arabic people.

Origin

On May 27th, 2022, TikToker^[1] loonar_kween posted a sped-up remix of the song "Arabian Night" from the 2019 Aladdin movie that starred Will Smith, who also sang the "Arabian Night" song. Over the course of two months, the TikTok received roughly 2.3 million plays and 165,000 likes (shown below, left). On July 6th, 2022, TIkToker^[2] samzz_mc posted a video that used the sped-up "Arabian Night" remix. It had a text overlay that read, "something wrong with my front camera 💔," and then transitioned into a high-definition video of samzz_mc sporting make-up. Over the course of one month, the TikTok received roughly 1.5 million plays and 246,800 likes (shown below, right).

Spread

On July 7th, 2022, TikToker^[3] paolassecrett added to the trend, posting a similar video to samzz_mc's but instead creating her own sound which sped up the remix even more. Over the course of one month, the TikTok received roughly 2.8 million plays and 137,100 likes (shown below, left). In the days that followed, more TikTokers used the sounds from samzz_mc's video and paolassecrett's video. For instance, on July 8th, 2022, TikToker^[4] kareena.aaaa posted a video that received roughly 2.6 million plays and 350,200 likes in one month (shown below, right).

On July 9th, 2022, TikToker^[5] molleighonmolly posted an "Arabian Night" video that earned roughly 1.8 million plays and 376,000 likes in one month (shown below, left). She was one of the many white TikTokers that were rapidly adding to the trend. This inspired backlash from Arabic users on the app. For instance, on July 12th, 2022, TikToker^[6] dianailluminati wrote in text overlay, "Where are the Arabs doing this trend 🤨," and received roughly 32.2 million plays and 8.5 million likes in three weeks (shown below, right).

Continuing into the end of July 2022, multiple verified TikTokers and others exploited the trend. A large portion of the videos received upwards of one million likes. Many of the TikTokers did not even transition into Arab clothing, but rather cosplay outfits from popular animes and video games.

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References