I thought it was a prank: Rakin Absar on Buzzfeed mistaking him for ‘mean’ husband

Photo: Collected

Bangladeshi content creator Rakin Absar's photo was used by Buzzfeed in a post about a husband mocking his wife on Saturday, something Rakin was completely unaware of. 

The Buzzfeed story titled 'After Mocking Her For Starting A Sewing Side Hustle, This Wife Refused To Share Profits With Her Husband, And People Don't Think She's Wrong' is based on a reddit post by a woman who described her husband as 'mean' and selfish'. The story originally carried Absar's portrait instead of the woman's husband. 

Rakeen had no idea this was happening when his social media manager called him in the middle of the night to tell him that he was on Buzzfeed. 

"In the back of my head I thought they were nominating content creators from Bangladesh, but then I found out they basically used my photo for an article that says something defamatory," said Rakin to The Business Standard. 

Rakin was shown a screenshot of the post. Initially he thought his friends were pulling a prank on him, or this was made by a fan. But he panicked a little when he found out it was not a joke. 

"I emailed Buzzfeed to remove the image but they did not respond. But then again, it is what it is. Something just happened out of the blue. It could affect me heavily, the title of the post has a negative connotation to it. But then in only a week's time people will forget about it, so I kind of left it at that without fuss and muss."