Do you wear that when you're home alone?

January 15, 2020 9:03 PM

Yes, I'm Hot In This, the brainchild of Huda Fahmy, is a webcomic about life as a Muslim American hijabi. It chronicles microaggressions (and regular aggressions), assumptions, and misunderstandings, as well as lighter fare such as Ramadan, attempts to connect with your culture, and nerd stuff.

Recurring characters include:
Gehad, Huda's husband
Darius, the FBI agent who monitors Huda and her household
Susan, the clueless but well-intentioned white friend who occasionally gets it right
Huda's mom (and erstwhile wingwoman)
Huda's doctor friend and fellow hijabi who also serves as a reluctant therapist

posted by sunset in snow country (26 comments total)

I couldn't work it into the post but this one kills me.
posted by sunset in snow country at 9:04 PM on January 15, 2020 [8 favorites]

Thanks for posting this! I just laughed my dupa off at her strip earlier. The one where she and her husband get into an argument.
posted by Katjusa Roquette at 9:48 PM on January 15, 2020

This is hilarious - love this. Thanks for sharing!
posted by popsciolist at 9:49 PM on January 15, 2020

This is so funny! Followed, thank you for posting.
posted by ellieBOA at 10:34 PM on January 15, 2020

Thanks for this! I sent it to my hijabi friend, specifically the strip that seems to feature both her and my boyfriend. (I support both of them, and everyone in fact, in enjoying how pretty they are!)
posted by daisyk at 2:41 AM on January 16, 2020

I love this!
posted by daybeforetheday at 2:42 AM on January 16, 2020

one of the best parts of wearing a hijab, for me, back when i was wearing one, is that in school the teachers never caught on that i'm listening to the walkman. :)

i do miss the hijab when i watch horror movies though...
posted by cendawanita at 2:44 AM on January 16, 2020 [14 favorites]

Thank you so much for this post! I fell down a rabbit hole and I read these comics for hours... many of them are HILARIOUS. I especially liked this one and this one (check out the last panel). Her punchlines and timing are great. (It's also educational!)
posted by suburbanbeatnik at 3:37 AM on January 16, 2020 [2 favorites]

This is great!
posted by gaspode at 7:32 AM on January 16, 2020

Oof, I thought it was more respectful to not say a name than to butcher the pronunciation. Yay learning! Thank you so much for sharing this.
posted by Betty_effn_White at 7:41 AM on January 16, 2020

This is great! Also, that's a good question about the Balrog.
posted by a snickering nuthatch at 7:50 AM on January 16, 2020 [1 favorite]

I really have to wonder if people butchering "Fahmy" are performatively being dicks to the muslim person or just asymptotically approaching illiteracy.

I mean it is something close to "Fommy," right? It's not like Swedish where "k" makes any sound you want to or the nine billion different ways families of Polish descent pronounce -owski?
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 8:09 AM on January 16, 2020

Heh in uni in the UK, because my daily name has a western look, everyone used it BUT I didn't realise until a lot later that my other Malaysian classmate with an 'easy name' (all syllables exist in the Anglo set) but visibly a non-western one, never got her name right by the white classmates, in large part because they never used it. Not coming from a raised-as-a-minority-that-way background we even mostly had understanding assumptions why that is, even when one white girl later told me, like I'm supposed to understand, at least my name isn't weird like the rest.
posted by cendawanita at 8:39 AM on January 16, 2020 [1 favorite]

Thank you for this. This was my favorite as an airport anxious person.
posted by motdiem2 at 9:52 AM on January 16, 2020

This is great, thank you!!
posted by CheeseLouise at 10:35 AM on January 16, 2020

Just to be clear: wearing a hijab will not usually protect you from Girl Scouts selling cookies (especially not from Girl Scouts who also are hijabi).
posted by The corpse in the library at 1:12 PM on January 16, 2020

Wait, what do you mean, "the last panel"? Are these not all single-panel comics? Or is my browser not rendering the website correctly? I think I've scrolled all the way to the bottom of the page.
posted by meaty shoe puppet at 9:52 PM on January 16, 2020

That happened to me too. You have to grooble over to the instagram page, and then you will see TINY and FAINT arrow-thingies on the right side of the image to click upon.

If you click on the "aggression" in regular aggression one, look at the right edge of the image between the comments by invalidtoaster and ebrahiemismail
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 9:54 PM on January 16, 2020 [1 favorite]

The friend I shared this with also loved it, by the way!
posted by daisyk at 5:12 AM on January 17, 2020

Loved this enough to stay on Instagram for awhile. But am delighted that my library has her book, so I'll be reading more strips soon.
posted by Margalo Epps at 8:05 AM on January 17, 2020 [1 favorite]

Oh no! Yes, they're (almost) all multipanel. Stupid Instagram web interface.
posted by sunset in snow country at 8:54 AM on January 17, 2020

These are great! There's something I find very charming about the roundness of the art style, it feels very friendly and expressive.
posted by yasaman at 10:58 AM on January 17, 2020

Metafilter: The author is sorry to have made work for a mod.
posted by skoosh at 12:17 PM on January 18, 2020

Oh, these are so much better when I read the entire thing!

I suppose it says something about the economy of the writing that I was reading the first panel of each strip and thinking, "Eh, I see what she's trying to do."
posted by meaty shoe puppet at 2:04 PM on January 18, 2020

Also, I like how (in the microaggression one) her hijab is the only article of clothing that survives her Hulk transformation unscathed.
posted by meaty shoe puppet at 2:05 PM on January 18, 2020 [1 favorite]

I didn't see this when it was posted, but saw it on the list from the Best Post contest, and I'm really glad I clicked. She has great comic timing.
posted by jacquilynne at 8:12 AM on January 19, 2020