Speaking in tongues: Hybrid identity, satire and the politics of social media influencers in the war on Gaza

This article examines how Egyptian satirist Bassem Youssef negotiates hybrid identity and political belonging through satire in the Israel–Gaza war context. Youssef’s recent media appearances, especially his viral interviews and stand-up performances, reveal the tension of ‘speaking in tongues’ – shifting between Arab, western, diasporic and digital registers to address diverse audiences. Through a qualitative discourse analysis of televised interviews, online clips and audience reception, the study examines how Youssef employs irony, parody and double-voicing to challenge dominant narratives of the war while navigating the constraints of mainstream western platforms. Findings show that Youssef’s satire performs hybridity in three keyways: by rearticulating Arab diasporic identity through comedy, by transforming the aesthetics of political critique into a transnational spectacle and by exposing the ambivalence of Arab subjectivity in western media circuits. His performances simultaneously empower and constrain – amplifying marginalized voices while being refracted through orientalist frames that risk trivializing Palestinian suffering. This article contributes to scholarship on Arab and Muslim media by conceptualizing the hybrid influencer as a new agent of conflict communication whose identity performance embodies both resistance and compromise. It also extends debates on satire as a political intervention, showing how laughter becomes a contested means of resistance in a mediatized war.