Ariana Afshar is an Iranian American political content creator and activist who “works with local progressive politicians/candidates to advocate for various issues.” She goes by the name The Progressive Brat on social media, where she has accumulated almost 60,000 followers and 3.7 million likes on TikTok.
Like many other “progressives”, she rails against Capitalism:
@theprogressivebrat #amerikkka #captialismsucks #eattherich #progressive #politics #wagegap #theprogressivebrat ♬ I just came to say AY YO by Boxout – Boxout
and supports LGBT rights:
@theprogressivebrat who would’ve thought #tedcruz #lgbtqrights #cancuncruz #texas #news #theprogressivebrat #politics ♬ lol flash warning – liv
In fact, it seems she identifies as bisexual:
@theprogressivebrat Hi I’m ari 🥰 #progressive #politics #activist #vaccinated #bernie #theprogressivebrat ♬ . – Molly
But what she doesn’t do is speak out against Iran’s repression of LGBT people. In fact, if anything, she shills for Iran:
especially when it comes to expressing her hatred of Israel:
Naturally, she denies she is antisemitic:
But she spreads the antisemitic trope of Israel controlling politicians:
even when one condemns both Israeli strikes and Hamas rocket fire on Israel:
She also seems to share Iran’s view that Israel should not exist:
and tweeted the following in August 2019, during a surge in antisemitic attacks:
So make of that as you will.
Israellycool reader Eli, who drew her to my attention, wrote the following:
I am deeply worried about how mainstream antisemitic and anti-Zionist sentiment is getting in the US. I am a 19-year-old Jewish college student, and I’ve noticed an enormous surge in antisemitic content coming from Iranian and Arab TikTok creators, which is having real world impact on my life. To make matters worse, I think the Iranian government may be funding them.
He suspects Afshar might be one of them, given the posts I included above. He finds it hard to reconcile her “claims to be a liberal LGBTQ activist” while “she openly refuses on all her platforms to criticize Iran.”
On this point, Afshar claims it is because she does not want to put her parents’ lives at risk:
While this is certainly possible, one could argue her outspoken supports of LGBT rights might possibly do the same.
Eli also finds it suspicious that she is a full-time content creator and yet can afford to live in the Bay area. Again, this is certainly not proof, but definitely a possibility.
For me, the jury is still out on Afshar. But like with Project Nemesis, we seem to be seeing more and more Iranian government footprints behind websites and social media accounts.
