since so many of you are visiting dubai for the first time, here’s a thread from me. i’ve considered this place home for over a decade now.
food, art, culture, and recs (i’ll update it periodically if i can’t remember everything in one go)
@FineEthan
@ayaghanameh
MoataZ posted a photo of his corpse. if you’d like to see photos of murdered and injured Palestinians, feel free to browse what he’s sharing and posting every few hours.
I'm almost done w Gilmore Girls. Thinking of watching BB S7. My best friend loves
@GAUAHAR_KHAN
bcz of it and everytime ppl speak abt her it's w so much respect + love. I liked her comments about who a "typical" women is on the show Shefali Z was on. Sooo let's give it a shot?
I’ve heard so many of these ableist comments even in third person statements.
Y’all please check the incredible
#DisabledCompliments
hashtag started by
@Imani_Barbarin
and go through the tweets.
Educate yourself. Do not be ableist.
Turned my Tiktok obsession into brand strategy and audience building.
Crossed 117k followers and 18M views on our Tiktok account in less than 3 months.
People who used to subtly look down on brown girls wearing shalwar kameez//desi outfits in college (and shy away from being openly accepting and owning it) now wear tikas and write culture captions on IG.
How times change.
I may not always be the loudest or the most articulate in a room, and I more often than not feel like I don’t belong in discussions, but I’ve spent every single day of the last 4 years building out a global media company and I deserve to be there.
Some of y’all know but breaking the news officially—I’m so delighted to share I’ve transitioned to heading marketing at
@OctantApp
! working on a ton of ish including community rounds, growth stuff, and vibin in grants la la land 🫶🏽🫶🏽🫶🏽hmu if ya wanna chat anything octant 🫶🏽🫶🏽🫶🏽
I gave a TEDx talk last year and I usually cringe and don’t watch/hear my speaking stuff later but I heard the first half again for the first time today.... and I didn’t cringe.
I felt proud of myself.
Anyway here it is, if you’ve got 17ish mins lol
(THREAD) if you’re thinking of starting your biz in the UAE, here’s what you need to prepped for. This is the structural/licensing stuff.
License, lease options: lowest flexidesk round 7.5k+ AED and licenses 24k+. DTEC, SHAMS, ADGM are popular fr startups FZCO license.
i feel like everyone is always complaining about grants. all the damn time. like yes products aren’t perfect and there’s improvements. but i’d love for people to take a mirror and self reflect. has your project been dependent on grants for over a year? if yes, why? has your
I’m feeling so emotional I’m in tears. We just launched our Tempest shop and first line of merch. We’d shared it with our team and hadn’t officially pushed it out. But we just got our first order. We got our first merch order and I’m in tears bcz this means so much to me.
Arabian Tea House is one of my favorite places for local/Emirati food. a must try is the harees (a local dish made with wheatberries and meat slow cooked together). they have a few branches in dubai and 1 in sharjah.
Today was really cool. Gave a talk on how to design, build, and grow communities 💝
Best part of the day was a founder who came up to me and said she flew from London for this conference and my sesh made her feel the money she spent was worth it.
Fractal KYC requires showing proof of ID and residence proof etc. I used this for Optimism retro KYC and Thrive/Arbitrum KYC
The fact that they’ve been compromised is so alarming.
My Uncle is in ICU and urgently needs 15 Bottles of any negative blood group for his plasma exchange.
These are the groups:-
- A Negative
- B Negative
- O Negative
- AB Negative
Donors are requested to meet my cousin Salman in CMH Lahore. (DM me for #)
Having massive influence (online + offline) comes with responsibility.
It’s sad to see ppl w hundreds of thousands/millions of followers take criticism, gaslight, and put women at risk.
You got a Muslim security guard in Australia who gave up his life to protect others from the killer. Yet the headlines had been Islamophobic AF until the suspect was identified. Islamophobia and racism is still disgustingly alive and well everywhere.
After years of struggle, I’ve realized
- it’s p f*cking tough to run a startup. Founders work day and night and quite literally spend years building their cos. We make sacrifices you’ve no idea about. And we always bear the brunt when anything goes wrong.
@samdblond
Scary to see murders of children being so vehemently denied. Palestinians are posting livestreams, videos, doing everything they can to prove they’re innocent and don’t deserve to be murdered while people on here wildly denying it and categorizing it as antisemitic. Scary times
if you do love books, visit house of wisdom in sharjah. what an architectural beauty and book heaven!
also, go to sharjah regardless. their museums and art scene is amazing too
This is turning out to be one of my favorite Ramadan ever. Being at home. Spending time with my sister. Spending time praying and reflecting, feeling connected. My friend sent me haleem. Another one sent me homemade sauces and hareesa and akni. Can life get any better?
Man I’m so nervous I have the TEDx talk today. I’m talking about how there’s never a perfect moment. Gahahdhdhwuwuhdeheiejejeueueudhdhej trying to calm my nerves. Still have 3 hours so there’s that.
Read this on FB. This was so heartwarming. Dubai/uae folks, please check out
@GrannysWaffles
next time you’re in Dubai mall.
Kind people make me believe the world is still a good place 💝
Cold emails and reach outs are great but the number of men who ping me with absolute authority asking me to pick a time and get on a meeting with them, with very little background or context— increases by the day.
kinoya has the best ramen in the world. the chef neha started a supper club on a mission to make the perf ramen bowl and has grown this into heaven on earth. if you visit also checknout 1004gourmet. great coffee + finds. it��s a home grown grocery store too!
This is SO much sensitive info hacked. passport, my ID, bank statements, photos. Is there anything we can do as users to protect ourselves post a hack like this?
Fractal KYC requires showing proof of ID and residence proof etc. I used this for Optimism retro KYC and Thrive/Arbitrum KYC
The fact that they’ve been compromised is so alarming.
@NC_Renic
ha no it’s having the perfect typewriter, pen, book, environment, stimulation, inspiration, weather, setup, and perhaps some writing programs to help w that structure too pftttt 😂
When I first sent an email to
@WeAreTheTempest
in 2016, it was to take a chance on writing, and to finally do something I'd wanted to do since I was a kid. That email led to a fellowship, that led to an editorial role, and resulted in me becoming a cofounder 6 months later.
i was watching Indian Matchmaking and watching Pradhyuman wearing jewelry for his wedding made me think of how we don’t talk enough about how some bits of brown culture celebrate non-gender conforming stuff. like hindu weddings and men looking regal with jewelery and outfits
You know sometimes I wonder and think maybe this is what being a brown woman means- a series full of compromises in life.
No matter what we do, we just can’t win, can we? Too much, too little, too this, too that, not enough this, not enough that.
This is some of the press I’ve gotten over the years.
Been in Forbes, Fast, Entrepreneur, CIO, BBC, GQ, and all that, and I still sometimes fight through imposter syndrome to remind myself I’m good enough.
Biryani is such a magnificent dish. Songs need to be sung in its honor. It needs its own day to celebrate how glorious it is. Like good biryani is heavenly and I’m so thankful for it.
Do overseas Pakistanis get...any... benefits? We’re only mentioned and asked to help, and send remittances lmao plz tell me if I’m missing something I should be more aware about?
It makes me SOO happy to see people creating, writing newsletters, and blogs, and articles, and threads, and IG posts. Like damn YOURE CREATING AND MAKING SOMETHING?!! 💝💝💝💝
Tw: suicide, mental health
I’ve struggled with bad mental health for more than a decade at this point.
It’ll be 2 years next month to surviving suicide.
Like most brown kids, I didn’t grow up in an environment where all this was okay to speak about, to get help for.
The curse. The curse of the ones who justify genocide and take innocent lives is they will live with it. Their kids and future generations will know what they stood for. Their future generations will have more heart and conscience. They will have purer hearts, and will stand
@alieforza
MashAllah. we often say it whenever we appreciate//say something good about someone or something to protect it (and protect it from evil eye or nazar)
Alserkal avenue is one of my favorite spots in the city. they’ve got some really cool art galleries, an indie cinema (cinema akil).
- try snacks at not so guilty for nostalgic Gulf snacks we grew up with
- project chaiwala’s special chai
- coffee @ nightjar
The coffee culture here is amazing. people love their pour overs and specialty coffee. I have a favorite coffee spot in every area so this one is tougher to narrow down.
I recommend trying qahwa, Arabic coffee. I prefer the saudi version since it’s lighter, have it w dates.
My case study on the
@UNICEFinnovate
@gitcoin
round is finally out.
Hearing the grantees share their experiences was my fav part of it all, and ofc talking to the teams who made it all happen + working w the numbers and making sense of them.
Excited for folx to read it 😄🥳
💡 CASE STUDY:
@UNICEFinnovate
🤝 Gitcoin
❓UNICEF’s Office of Innovation works on discovering, co-creating and scaling innovation.
🍃 This round redefined the landscape of transparent, community-driven funding for digital public goods projects.
👉
I’ve been finding more writers who write in such a loving way that makes my heart feel cozy and full.
There’s a pattern where I look at who they recommend reading and it’ll lead me to other amazing writers. What a glorious world we live in.
I tried a date coffee today too.
it’s been a heavy few days. my uncle passed away, and being back home. having to go through grief in waves. life is fragile, but some people are so full of life, you can’t imagine a world w/o them. in my head he’s still here, just on a trip up above.
Made the mistake of reading some tweets on Richard Harris’ profile and been feeling sick at how many men are defending the abduction, rape, and forced conversion of a 13 year old child.
All kinds of ridiculous excuses from she looks older, to she may be older, to consent. Shame.
Men in general: Yeh poora nizaam hi krupt hai bhalaayi ka tou zamaana hi nai hai imaandaar aadmi ka jeena mushkil hai
Men as soon as a woman's life is on the line: system se ziaada kaun jaanta hai court ka faisla tou harf-e-aakhir hai aap uss pe sawaal naa uthaayein :(
You often have no idea what people are going through. The worse my mental health has gotten, the more I’ve realized it. In the phases of my day where I cope, I’ve started turning to creating content as a mechanism. The upside is I get by. The downside is I seem stronger than I am
Lol my sister‘s tiktok went viral and she got 450k + views. But her IG is private so she linked mine instead and now I have all these hey hi hi hi hi msgs and it’s like most of these ppl didn’t even see it’s not the same person???? 😭😭🤣
grief is so unsuspecting. it hits you in the middle of the day, as you think of a thing your friend would respond to and laugh to, only to remember he won’t. 💔