When Lionel Messi raised the World Cup trophy in Qatar last year, a flood of media coverage completely unrelated to the sport emerged. Messi was draped with a bisht, a traditional ceremonial garment in the Arab world, during the awards ceremony. Numerous articles emerged to simply answer: what is a bisht? This demonstrated the severe lack of knowledge about the culture of host nation Qatar, but also an apparent curiosity and demand for such basic information. The second wave of articles was much less benign, as Middle Eastern outlets reacted in outrage to the ignorance and racism displayed by western commentators, many of who had smeared the gesture of honor by Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, the Emir of Qatar. These articles criticized the double standard western media showed towards various behaviors done by both Muslims and secular Europeans, but the Muslim version having received significantly worse coverage. This backlash against western racism has not elevated the toxicity and spiraled this niche topic out of control, rather remaining celebratory of Muslim and Arabic culture, as well as calling for greater diversity in media executive positions, as this other article by Al Jazeera demonstrates.