A tweet from a young Iranian woman sharing images of her designer birthday gifts during a family trip to Switzerland has sparked backlash against the country's rich elite amid a dire economic depression.
A comment on the images went viral, garnering 40 million views, and quickly became an excuse for thousands of Iranians living under the country's darkest economic times to share childhood photos, pairing them with dark humor in a bid to mock the original tweet.
“Stop it you Iranians, a trip [to Europe] is nothing so special. Everyone’s been at least once to Europe as a child,” the comment protested to someone who quoted the original tweet and sarcastically said that only rich people should have children, not those who can’t even afford to buy an ice cream for their kids, a reflection of the challenges facing families in Iran.
The viral comment has been viewed nearly forty million times since August 28 and broken the record of views of any most-viewed Persian language tweet by at least 30 million more views. The original tweet’s views were under 750,000 during the same time.
“The number of this tweet’s views surpassed the total of [Masoud] Pezeshkian and [Saeed] Jalili’s votes [in the presidential elections,” a netizen posted on X.
Caption: A trip to Langjökull glacier in Iceland, one of the largest and most beautiful natural glaciers of Europe
Over 70 percent of Iranians have never traveled abroad according to Ali Mohammadzadeh who was involved in a survey by Iran's Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance in 2023.
Caption: Europe is a joke! On a spaceship minutes before travelling to Mars.
In response to those who accused her of “showing off”, Saba, the original tweet's author, explained that she has lived in Germany since childhood and had not meant to show off.
Most of the childhood photos other Twitterati posted showed them as children of very ordinary families in Iran in the 1980s and 90s during imaginary trips abroad.
Caption: Modeling for Gucci in Madagascar with three friends I met during my European trip
Some Iranian journalists also joined in the rich bashing. “1989, Utrecht, Netherlands. If I look angry it’s because of hearing the news of the mess [Mikhail] Gorbachev had made,” Iranian journalist and blogger Foad Shams captioned the photo that showed him as a frowning little boy in a valley of yellow flowers in Iran.
“Racing, Britain’s Grand National, Liverpool, 1975,” expatriate Iranian journalist Mehrdad Farahmand’s caption to the photo of a barefoot little boy on a donkey read.
Caption: Me and my French playmates in a village in Normandy, late 1980s.
Many netizens commented that the genre of hilarious childhood photos on Twitter showed the resilience of Iranians who display such a sense of humor despite the difficulties that they experience in life while others said the tweets evoked a sense of togetherness and nostalgia besides being fun.
A recent report revealed that almost one in every three Iranians is currently living below the poverty line as a result of extreme inflation in the past five years.
Another study by the Parliament Research Center found that families in Iran are struggling as the country's minimum wage fails to meet the poverty line. The report, which analyzed poverty trends from March 2022 to March 2023, has underscored a disparity between the minimum wage and the poverty threshold in Iran's provinces.
Incomes are inadequate to cover the living expenses for a family of three the study said.