Photo of destroyed buildings in the Gaza Strip from Israel’s border.
Amir Cohen / Reuters
Nikita Redkar, a TikToker known for “girlsplaining” complex topics, is under fire after a new post.
In it, Redkar tried to explain the Israel-Palestine conflict using an analogy of girls at a party.
Commenters said Redkar’s analysis was insensitive and “dumbed down” a serious issue.
A popular self-described “for the girlies” TikToker is under fire this week after uploading a video “girlsplaining” the history of conflict between Israel and Palestine.
Nikita Redkar, known more popularly as @nikitadumptruck on TikTok, uploaded her video earlier in the week, several days after Hamas’s attack on Israel, but has since deleted it on her own channel.
A screen recording of Redkar’s video shows her explanation of the conflict.
The chief analogy used throughout the video is about a girl named “Patty” having a birthday party. During the party, another girl “Brittany” arrives and says a third girl, “Izzy,” will be having her birthday party at the location instead. The characters ostensibly refer to Palestine, Great Britian, and Israel.
Comments on stitches and re-uploads of the video showed an offended audience.
“Ppl need to understand that not everything needs to be dumbed down for someone to understandz,” said one commenter.
Others said her video only complicated explanations of the conflict. The skull emoji also made frequent appearances in the comments section.
Redkar explains in more than one video that explaining things “for the girls” is meant to break down complex topics by using colloquial terms she would use with her friends.
In her apology, Redkar said she originally made a longer video about the conflict, but cut it down to a minute and 30 seconds so she could cross-post the explainer to Instagram.
“I use these fun, flirty analogies to explain complicated news topics in all of my videos,” said Redkar in the video. “But given how horrifying the current situation is, I realized that my usual formula of bimbo comedy was probably not the most appropriate for this time.”
“Part of what I missed was the impact on Palestinian lives, and that couldn’t be portrayed through a birthday party analogy,” Redkar continued.
But commenters still weren’t happy with Redkar’s apology. Some called it “surface level,” while others said Redkar was “trivializing such a horrific situation.”
Others called attention to the idea of “girlsplaining” as a whole, saying it wasn’t necessary to use to discuss serious information.
“This highlights an alarming societal pattern of people preferring quick and digestible info no matter the seriousness in order to avoid discomfort,” said one comment.
Redkar isn’t the only one to get backlash for her interpretation on the conflict. Some companies recinded job offers to students after they were accused publically of antisemitism for saying Israel was responsible for Hamas’s attack, while several universities lost funding after donors accused the schools of unsatisfactory responses to the Israel-Hamas conflict.
Redkar did not immediately respond to Insider’s request for comment.