How I stopped being a cartoonist and became a ‘troll’

In the late 2000s, an editor kicked me out of his office because he didn’t find the cartoons I had offered for publication “funny”. I told him I was not trying to be “funny”, the situation wasn’t funny. What had angered him was the uncomfortable commentary I had offered in my sketches of the Arab youth’s growing frustration and the brewing tensions in the region. The editor did not feel that such opinions merited publication.

The incident only solidified my already existing conviction that there was no future for my political cartoons in traditional media. Plagued by narrow-minded editorial approaches and corporate control, TV channels and newspapers were no place for rebel art.

At about that time, social media was emerging as an alternative space for artists and publishers. It gave us access to diverse, unfiltered perspectives and a spectrum of opinions on any given issue.

Shifting my focus online, I joined the effort to challenge narratives and foster open discussions in this new virtual town square, which only expanded after the explosive onset of the Arab Spring. For the next decade, I produced a cartoon a day on topics ranging from the street protests in Arab countries and Omar al-Bashir’s eroding dictatorship in Sudan, to Arab solidarity with Colin Kaepernick, the American football player who got on one knee during the national anthem.

The openness and mobilisation power of social media platforms were thrilling for artists like me, but alas they did not last. Eventually, the avarice of the tech bros started to erode the virtual town square. In their pursuit of wealth in the form of user data, they created algorithms designed to keep people addicted to their phones and willing to produce and provide more and more data.

This transformed social media platforms into echo chambers where users are delivered only content that they would “like” or that reinforces their existing beliefs, which provides them with the comforting feeling that everyone is agreeing with them. As a result, users tend to stick to their views, rejecting discussions and “unfollowing” any perspective that could challenge them.

These algorithms effectively destroyed the very reason why I make cartoons: to have an open conversation about a certain topic. They – and their creators, the tech bros – became the new gatekeepers that restricted exposure to my art, just as conservative editors of traditional media had done more than a decade earlier.

Art, fuelled by creativity and the urge for free expression, shares the same driving force as innovation: the need to challenge the status quo. Over time, I could no longer bear the reactions to my cartoons – only likes and praises and no discussion, engagement or critique. As I started to feel suffocated on social media, I looked for a way to break out of the echo chamber.

In October, when Israel launched its genocidal war on Gaza, I took to my drawing board to express my solidarity with the Palestinian people. On social media – even with the suppression of pro-Palestinian voices – I still felt like I was preaching to the choir.