"I cross to Morocco, I cry and I come back": the young woman who responds with humorous videos to racist comments

Hanan Midan is a young Moroccan based in Barcelona who, to cope with boredom during the weeks of confinement, decided to open TikTok. He did it for fun, but, according to Verne on the phone, he later thought he could "make videos related to the culture of Africa." Some users have left racist messages in their posts, and she has decided to respond to them with humor, and with more videos. The most popular, which has exceeded 300,000 views on TikTok and thousands more from different Twitter profiles, responds to a comment that said: "To mourn your country." She has replied with a video in which she interprets that she literally goes to Morocco to cry for a few minutes and then return to Spain.

@hinaamii

Reply to @ miquel.puig22 ## greenscreen I've already cried and I'm back chachiiis ## africa ## morocco ## humor ## spain ## fyp

In the video, released this June 16, Midan plays a conversation with a security officer on the Moroccan border. "I come to cry and come back. In Spain they don't let me cry. Just cry and I'll be back, ”jokes the 18-year-old girl, in sketch . With this video, as she explains, "she tried to make people think again with humor, change the way of responding to racism, since she had previously tried it with information but people did not get it into her head."

To make this video, Midan has used two TikTok tools: the green screen and the responses to comments. The first replaces the real background of a video with an image, in this case, a queue of cars like those that usually form at a border crossing. The second tool allows you to reply directly to a video comment from another publication. In this case, answer the comment "to cry your country" that a user had left in another previous publication. The message has already been deleted.

Midan claims that most of the comments he has received on this video are positive, although there are still some racist responses. "The day after publishing it, a friend spoke to me saying that [the video] was on Twitter, something I did not expect," says the young woman. Since she posted it, she says, her followers on TikTok have also increased. "Before, I had 2,000 followers or so, and now I have more than 9,000," he says.

This Thursday, Midan has published another video in which he repeats the strategy of the previous one: he responds to another racist comment interpreting it with humor and literally. This time, the message was: "Why don't you have that rag on your head?" He has been recorded dancing with a rag over his head. The video has also become popular on Twitter, although this time it was Midan herself who published it on her profile before other tweeters did it for her. It has exceeded 200,000 views in less than a day.

How do I have the rag amigooos !!! I will take it from today! pic.twitter.com/E8PfvuXAmT

In addition to the videos in which he responds to comments from other users, Midan uses his TikTok account to discuss different topics related to Africa. In some of his videos he publishes data and information about a specific country - under this paragraph you can see those dedicated to Senegal and Equatorial Guinea -, in others he teaches African geography or shows some of the most tourist destinations on the continent. "At first I did TikTok just for fun, but then I also saw it as a way to connect with people," says the young woman.

@hinaamii

I re-upload it because tiktok erased it 🤦🏻‍♀️💔 ## africa ## senegal ## tourism ## culture

## greenscreen Equatorial Guinea 🇬🇶😍 ## fyp ## africa ## turismo ## culture ## xyzbca

Through his videos, Midan also wanted to raise awareness about the situation he suffered when he came to live in Spain in 2014. "When I arrived here, in second year of ESO, I had to endure a lot of prejudice and I had a hard time" , Explain. Now, she claims to be "so used to racist comments" that they practically no longer affect her. For her, and given the boom that she claims to have seen in these behaviors after the upswing of extreme right-wing parties, the best way to combat racism is with "humor that does not offend the other."

@hinaamii

I had to upload it 💔 ## stopbullying ## noalacoso

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