Actress, entrepreneur, and “lady who wants you to buy vitamins to feed your newborn baby” Neelofa is facing yet another online backlash this morning.
Let’s be real: Is it even backlash if it’s not “online backlash”? Tweet us your thoughts!
Backlash regarding unsavory business practices that use social media to shill scientifically unproven, unnecessary and ultimately harmful chemicals to infants by suggesting you crush it up and put it in breastmilk — that’s a backlash we can get behind.
This one? We’ll let you be the judge.
Last night, in conjunction with a celebration of her 29th birthday, she launched her new line of hijab head wear, Be Lofa, at a popular Kuala Lumpur nightlife spot that the Twitterverse has identified as Zouk.
We wouldn’t know for sure because our invite got lost the in mail, Lofa.
Some found the location highly inappropriate, with one university professor writing on her Facebook page that it was a venue of ill-repute, having been the site of the arrest of Muslim drinkers as well as a beauty pageant that has had Muslim participants in the past.
Really? We think of it more as the place where you get six rooms of EDM, and dozens of first-time drinkers coming to terms with their Jaeger-bomb limits.
Although we’re willing to wager there was no alcohol on tap, Professor Madya Dr Rafidah Hanim Mokhtar, wrote that today’s young women were far removed from the true principles and philosophy of wearing hijabs.
https://www.facebook.com/drrafidahhanim/posts/945902738898519
She wrote that the hijab is linked with taqwa, a term used when referring to a consciousness of Allah, but also used in a non-religious context of general abstinence.
Neelofa, unsurprisingly, remained defiant, saying she’s learned to take online criticism with a pinch of salt, and that the venue was chosen because it was the cheapest one available that worked with her theme. She added that if she had chosen another location, she would have had to pay eight times more to meet the “theme requirements.”
The dollars and cents over perceived piety concerns resulted in many netizens calling the event out for being no closer to God than any other capitalist endeavor, which is probably the most interesting point of view to come out of this whole debacle.
*sips tea
Despite all the hate, the launch of Be Lofa was a success, according to the entrepreneur. Judging by the fun these guys seem to be having, we’d likely agree.
