This year, the Moroccan TikTok sphere has seen a lot of questionable trends, with many Moroccan ‘creators’ going live and repeating nonsensical sentences for hours to get money, to others faking a marriage for publicity purposes.
Here is a roundup of this year’s Moroccan TikTok, from emerging creators, child exploitation, to a controversy involving the Ministry of Culture.
Reda and Aya’s “fake wedding”
For the past months, Moroccan TikTok consumers started seeing several videos featuring creator @Reda2225, known as “Reda wald Chinwia” (which translates to Reda, son of the Chinese woman), and @Ayabichri. The context of the videos is their families meeting, an engagement party, and around three weddings held over the course of the past month.
These videos are amassing millions of views for several reasons, the first of which, is the couple’s age gap, given that Aya is allegedly a minor, the wedding being nothing but an ad to promote certain beauty and event hosting services, and the fact that Reda has a long history of being involved in TikTok drama.
The fake wedding guests are almost all TikTokers with millions of followers, who also shared videos from the celebrations and promoted stylists and makeup artists’ pages and so it goes.
While many have been calling out how wrong “the act” is in the comment, neither Reda, who’s in his late thirties, nor Aya, have addressed it and are continuing their charade.
“I’m a fish I’m a fish”
For content creators, the TikTok universe is split into two, making money out of posting videos, and making money out of going live for hours. This year, and more specifically in recent months, an unhinged trend of creators pretending to be objects has spread like the plague.
Making money out of objectification has proven to be very lucrative for these creators, who choose an object or an animal to become every night, from I’m a net to I’m a pan to I’m a fish, and so it goes.
Another dark side of this trend is creators flirting with the viewer to get more gifts, which can be exchanged and turned into real-life currencies.
Recently, the controversial Moroccan internet couple, Dounia and Ihsas, known for going viral for a music video documenting the signing of their marriage certificate, have also joined the TikTok live wave. Dressed in festive Christmas pajamas, the couple goes live and flirts with many viewers, begging for gifts.
Child exploitation
A lot of Moroccan minors can be seen making content on TikTok, either accompanied by a parent or guardian, or alone, raising many questions on whether kids of young age should even be allowed on the app.
Aya Star, a Moroccan child YouTube sensation recognized for her endearing tone and vlogs that offer a glimpse into her everyday life, has found fame in TikTok as well.
A few months ago, a vlog of hers ignited criticism, as she made fun of her paternal relatives, raising significant concerns about the safeguarding of minors within the realm of extensive digital exposure.
This incident has triggered a profound deliberation on the delicate balance between the right to freedom of expression and the imperative to shield impressionable young minds from potential harm in the virtual age.
Comments under her videos and posts related to her are swarmed with hateful speech, in which adults are attacking the child.
We tried reaching out to Aya to see how she and her parents are dealing with the mass hate she received after the vlog but we did not hear back from them. After the incident, Aya Star started deactivating comments under her videos.
Her parents take an important role in her internet “career”. Her mother, in particular, is always filming her and asking her questions behind the camera.
Despite exposing very intimate details of her life, Aya Star makes sure to preserve some parts of her identity. Speculated to be around 14 or 15, Aya always covers documents showing her date of birth, details, family name, and such, which suggests that she might have some parental guidance after all.
Aya Star has a following of over 35K followers on YouTube, almost 60K on Instagram, almost 180K on TikTok, and a startling 700K on Facebook.
Besides Aya, there’s another Moroccan child very active on TikTok, known as Raniya, who has a little fandom now. Suspected to be around 10 years old, Raniya’s videos are mostly clips of her eating.
Often seen with her mom in the videos, Raniya’s videos can be found in an account that has almost a million followers on TikTok, called @Somiyaomraniya.
Many of her videos have garnered millions of views, in which her mom displays the endless gifts that people send Raniya because she is a likable kid. However, given that the child suffers from serious health issues that hinder her physical and intellectual growth, many take to the comments to call her mom out for exploiting her daughter for views, money, and gifts.
TikTok awards:
Last week, the Ministry of Culture found itself at the heart of the controversy, ignited by a TikTok influencer who claimed to have received an “honorary award” from the ministry during a TikTok awards ceremony.
The government body refuted the news and stated that it has no affiliation with the TikTok award being shared all over social media outlets.
Expressing regret over the dissemination of unauthorized images and evidence, the source emphasized that while the ministry actively supports various cultural and artistic initiatives nationwide, it strictly prohibits the unauthorized use of its official logo and visual identity for certificate distribution or the promotion of specific events.
TikTok is becoming a significant source of income for content creators all over the world, however in Morocco, it’s seldom enticed with questionable content, drama, and controversy.
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