Being on TV is really fun! People on the streets recognize your face and you become a “short-period-famous-kind of-person”. But I find it a bit scary at the same time.

First of all, they ask you a lot of questions to get the answers they are looking for. And if you are into the game, you are smart enough to know what to answer. I mean at the end of the day it’s TV, they want views and hope for their work to go viral. And you have no idea how they are going to edit everything.

Secondly, it’s so staged! hahah, like seriously. In our case, we had a conversation and they didn’t catch everyone’s reaction (obviously, since we were many) so they asked us for a second shot. They recorded close ups and told us to nod every now and then, pretending that we were still in the conversation. It was so awkward. Especially because of the way they edited the footage. It was so out of place. But that’s how TV works and it was a fun experience! We were in a TV program called “Jag är muslim” (I am muslim). A lot of people were in that program and we all explained what Islam means to us and how we practice our religion on a daily basis. 

The truth is, I’ve been on TV twice before. So this was not my first time. I do have footage of that on a VHS but I’m not sure where it is right now. I think I was 7 or 8 years old when I first appeared on TV. There was a Swedish news program for children and they did an interview with me and my sister about fasting on Ramadan. I was so nervous and I remember that I said something very weird. Next day at school the kids were mocking me for that sentence.

The second time I appeared on TV was with the choir my mother had created. She had created the very first Swedish-muslim-girl-choir in Sweden. People thought that we were interesting and we got invited to some places to sing.