Hyper-visibility in pop culture can function as a form of invisibility for a group.

Evidence

Pop culture is awash with their images. Hookah cafés entice East Village socialites, fashionistas appropriate the checkered kaffiyah scarf, and Prince sings an ode to a young Arab-American girl. They are floating everywhere in the virtual landscape of the national imagination, as either villains of Islam or victims of Arab culture. Yet as in the postmodern world in which we live, sometimes when you are everywhere, you are really nowhere. — Moustafa Bayoumi, How Does It Feel to Be a Problem? Being…, 45

Categorization

• SEED: The ‘everywhere but nowhere’ paradox is a strong essay angle on the co-opting of cultural signifiers — appropriation of the kaffiyah by fashionistas while the people they signify are erased or demonized.
• SHARE: Bayoumi noting Prince ‘sings an ode to a young Arab-American girl’ is a specific, quirky reference that could delight someone tracking Prince’s discography.