Egypt vs. Masr: How a Social Media Trend Exposes the Absurdity of Social Inequality

A view from the car window: pristine white villas in quiet gated compounds. Sprawling malls with designer stores, water fountains, and fancy restaurants. If you listen closely, you hear flawless English, maybe French or German, but little to no Arabic. Arabic is shunned here in the satellite cities of “Egypt,” a place that is exclusive to the country’s elite.

A view from a bus window: apartment buildings that have seen better days, covered in dust. Laundry is hanging from small balconies, and the streets underneath are bustling with people joking and arguing in Arabic. Honking cars drive in all directions, and in between them, a young man carries a cup of tea to an elder sitting on a doorstep overlooking the chaos. This is “Masr,” (Arabic for Egypt), inhabited by the majority of Egyptians; approximately one-third of them live below the poverty line. 

Last year, the online trend “Egypt vs. Masr” took off on TikTok, offering a humorous lens on an absurd reality. Cairo is North Africa’s richest city and home to some 7,200 millionaires and 30 billionaires, and it is plagued by a widening gap between the wealthy and the poor to the point where it feels like they live in two separate countries. 

“Egypt” is where elites speak English and live the American suburban dream, while “Masr” is struggling to survive in a catastrophic economy. 

In this framework, “Masr” is portrayed on TikTok as the place where one can have cheap food and sensual overstimulation; “Egypt,” meanwhile, is a parallel world modeled after Gulf and North American aesthetics that aims to be as distant as possible from Masr’s poor masses. As a result, “Egypt’s” inhabitants are becoming increasingly distant from their own culture, living estranged in their own country. 

As is typical for viral trends, Egypt vs. Masr has become part of people’s vocabulary. A young Egyptian woman who works for a foreign company in Cairo, but was raised in a middle-class family in the Egyptian delta, tells OkayAfrica that her physiotherapist recently asked her: “Shaklik Masr, bas shaklik Egypt. Inti minein?” (You look like you’re from Masr, but you also look like you’re from Egypt. Where are you from?)

The framework has crossed over from social media into real-life interactions, giving accessible language to a sad phenomenon: in order to access the lifestyle of the privileged classes, many feel compelled to strip themselves of their culture. If a person does not want to or cannot do so, they will often be less respected by those who hold socio-economic power. Having an Egyptian accent in English decreases one’s chances of getting into certain rooms or companies. 

Another young Egyptian woman, who does not necessarily look or speak like she’s from “Egypt,” recently met up with old friends from her international high school. She tells OkayAfrica that nobody paid her much attention until somebody mentioned that she had lived in California and works in tech. Suddenly, the group became interested in her, realizing that while she was not wearing designer clothes, she was not after all from “Masr.” 

While class difference marks a separation between groups in all societies, the Egypt vs. Masr trend speaks to a peculiar desire for, and threat of cultural disintegration. The disregard for one’s own traditions and fellow countrymen leads “Egypt’s” inhabitants to not teach their children Arabic or let them visit the country’s historic neighborhoods. Instead, they raise their offspring in fear of the streets outside their compounds, taking away a key component of Egyptian culture: interconnectedness and solidarity. 

“The result is a culture at war with itself, where classist judgments strip away the vibrancy that has long defined the Egyptian way of life,” writes Egyptian journalist Zeina Saleh in her article Masr and Egypt: A Tale of Two Extremes. 

Social media makes it possible for people to vicariously partake in other people’s lives, giving the people of “Masr” a window through which they can witness the expensive lifestyles of “Egypt.” 

Beyond that, the stark economic differences between a family that has to share one or two rooms and those who reside in compounds that can only be accessed through a specific QR code are inescapable, because compounds are advertised all over Cairo’s highways and in TV commercials. The contrast is out in the open; nobody is trying to hide it. How long can it be seen through a humorous lens? 

The Egypt vs. Masr trend is more than funny memes and reels; it’s digital satire that reflects the frustration and criticizes the absurdity of Egypt’s economic inequality. Through a few photos and videos, one thing becomes painfully clear: Egyptian society is heading into two opposing, equally but differently problematic, directions.