“Lebanon Debate”
For decades, the wedding party was the moment when the cameras opened to document the beginning of a relationship. Today, in a scene that is expanding across social networking sites, the camera itself is present at the end: a candy bar, decorations, music, a dress, professional photography, and sometimes sponsors and advertisements… but the occasion this time is divorce.
What used to be lived behind closed doors, with all the pain, brokenness, anger, and attempts to start a new life, some influencers have now had a complete public event under the title “Divorce Party.” Here the question is no longer related to a person’s right to celebrate the end of a relationship that is no longer valid for him, but rather about what happens when algorithms, views, and ads interfere with one of the most sensitive human experiences.
One of the most prominent cases that brought the debate back to the forefront in the Arab world was content creator Shorouk, after her separation from George Hanna Deeb, known as “Dr. Food.” On July 24, 2026, Dr. Food confirmed that the divorce had occurred between them, after signs of separation had previously become a subject for widespread speculation on social media. Days later, Shorouk appeared in a clip she posted on her account announcing the start of preparations for a “divorce party,” presenting the occasion as a celebration of a new beginning in her life.
But the story took on a more sensitive dimension with the spread of leaked videos on social media, which were said to document scenes of violence that Shorouk was exposed to during her married life. Regardless of the controversy over the circumstances of filming these clips, their context, and the extent of the possibility of independent verification of all their details, the circulating scenes presented to the public an image completely contradictory to the one that followers of the duo were accustomed to seeing on screen.
For years, the digital image was glamorous: travel, success, family moments, smiles and a life that seemed stable in front of the camera. Then came the circulating clips that opened the door to a question bigger than Shorouk’s story itself: How much of the life that influencers display on social media is actually life, and how much of it is just a carefully selected version for the public?
Here the contradiction becomes striking. The audience, who had previously watched a shiny couple’s photo, later found themselves facing a completely different narrative, which reveals the size of the gap that may separate “digital life” from life behind the screen. This gap in particular may be part of the explanation for the desire to announce and celebrate divorce publicly; After years of presenting the image of the relationship to the public, its end also becomes part of the public narrative.
Here the public quickly divided: one group saw the move as an attempt to overturn the traditional equation: instead of the divorced woman appearing broken or a “victim,” she declared to everyone that she was able to start over and that the end of marriage did not mean the end of life. If the separation came after an experience full of harm or violence, the celebration may be read to her as an announcement of her exit from a painful phase and the restoration of control of her life.
Another team asked a more embarrassing question: Are we truly celebrating liberation, or are we facing the transformation of divorce itself into a digital product?
This question becomes more complex when it comes to influencers, because the boundaries between private life and commercial content almost disappear. Every event can be turned into a video, every video can become millions of views, and every increase in views can bring a name back to the forefront of the trend.
Here another paradox emerges: even a painful experience, with its contents of breakups, accounts of violence, leaked clips, and marital memories, can be transformed in the social media environment into highly attractive material for the public. The more cruel the story becomes, the greater the chances of it spreading, and the more views rise, the blurrier the line becomes between narrating a personal experience for the sake of recovery and investing this experience in creating a trend and regaining the limelight.
Here the ethical question becomes more important than the question about personal freedom: Where does the influencer’s freedom to tell his story end, and where does the responsibility to protect others within this story begin?
In the virtual world, it seems that the camera is no longer just documenting joy. Sometimes, you also enter into pain…and then it becomes difficult to know where the truth ends, and where the trend begins.
