Where Middle Eastern Culture Meets the World
From Sephora shelves to TikTok unboxing hauls, Middle Eastern perfume culture is having a full-blown moment in the US. We talked to the perfumers, collectors, and second-gen Arab Americans turning scent into something way deeper than just smelling good.
They're not on the Hollywood red carpet or trending on social media — but Arab and Middle Eastern professionals are leaving fingerprints all over America's skylines, runways, and startup ecosystems. Here's the story that rarely gets told.
American Muslims are building an entirely new Ramadan experience — one that lives as much on Discord servers and Instagram Live as it does around the dinner table. But as digital community grows, so does the question of what gets lost in translation.
A fresh wave of Middle Eastern dramas and comedies is hitting streaming platforms — and this time, they're telling stories on their own terms. From Cairo to Riyadh to Los Angeles living rooms, diaspora audiences are finally seeing themselves reflected with honesty, humor, and complexity. We dig into what's driving this creative renaissance and who's making it happen.
From TikTok deep-dives into Mesopotamian epics to indie games built around Levantine folklore, ancient Middle Eastern mythology is having a serious cultural moment — and Gen Z is leading the charge. But as these stories spread beyond their communities of origin, creators and scholars are asking hard questions about who gets to retell them and how. Here's what's driving the obsession.
Shawarma has been a punchline in a Marvel movie and a staple at food halls from Austin to Brooklyn — and that's just the beginning. Middle Eastern street food is moving fast from neighborhood gem to national obsession, powered by immigrant entrepreneurs, TikTok food content, and a younger American generation with genuinely adventurous palates. We tracked down the people making it happen.
From hummus jokes to heartfelt odes to their grandmothers' kitchens, Arab-American content creators are building audiences that Hollywood could only dream of. They're funny, they're real, and they're changing the conversation about what Middle Eastern identity looks like in America.
A new wave of Middle Eastern producers, financiers, and storytellers is quietly — and sometimes loudly — planting its flag in the heart of the American entertainment industry. From Netflix co-productions backed by Gulf capital to Arab-American directors landing major studio deals, the shift is real, it's accelerating, and it's changing what stories get told on screen.