The AwJiz Boys is an Afghan American comedy podcast hosted by Kane Dabir, an Afghan-Canadian born in Afghanistan, and Dauood Naimyar, an Afghan-American born in Oakland, California. The show is recorded in Los Angeles. We launched in 2024 because nobody in our community was making the kind of long-form, mature-audience comedy podcast we actually wanted to listen to. Fifty seven episodes later, we've featured guests including Pashmon Azadzoi from Netflix's Selling the OC, Tamanna Roashan (DressYourFace), Madina Wardak, Joseph M. Azam, Elham Nasra, John Ahmad, Laymah Murtaza, Elmira Yousufi, Omar (O.Wavey), comedian Andrew Orolfo, Kais from First Class Kais, and many more. We sign off every episode with "Let's get Luchak with the AwJiz Boys" and the camel 🐫 is our unofficial mascot.

We also became one of the most argued-about Afghan podcasts online almost immediately. There are Reddit threads in r/Afghan and r/afghanistan dedicated to picking us apart. There are long threads on Twitter with hundreds of replies arguing about whether we should exist. People who have never made a single piece of cultural content have written essays about why ours shouldn't be allowed to.

This post is for them. And for everyone watching the argument from the sidelines wondering what the fight is actually about. It's also for the people asking us which other Afghan diaspora podcasts they should listen to, because we want to be honest about that too. There aren't enough of us. We need more.

What "AwJiz" Actually Means

Here's the part most of the critics skip past.

"Awjiz" (عاجز) doesn't mean what they want it to mean. In Dari and Pashto, it describes a kind of person: shy, obedient, gentle, the kid in the back of the room who never causes problems. The kid every Afghan family points to as the example of how their child should behave. Quiet. Compliant. Easy.

Dauood and I were those kids. Most of our lives. The good Afghan boys who didn't talk back, didn't embarrass the family, didn't make noise. We were textbook awjiz.

The joke baked into the show name is that we're not those kids anymore. We grew up. We have opinions. We have humor. We have a microphone. And the same community that praised us for being awjiz when it was convenient is now mad that the awjiz boys learned to talk.

That's the show. That's the whole thesis.

Why We Started the Podcast

We listened to every other comedy podcast on the internet and noticed nobody from our world was making one. Kill Tony. Flagrant. Brilliant Idiots. Bad Friends. The whole genre. Two or three people sitting around microphones doing long-form comedy, bringing on interesting guests, giving their community a place to laugh at itself.

There was a hole in our diaspora where that show should have been. So we built it.

The goal was simple. Make a podcast that's funny first. Bring on Afghan voices who don't usually get a platform. Talk in the register Afghans actually talk in when nobody from the outside is listening. Not the polished community-center version. The real one.

From Episode 1 to Right Now

We launched in 2024 with a simple format. Two cameras. Two mics. Two Afghan dudes in California talking about whatever was on our minds that week. Episode 1 was rough. Most first episodes are. The mics weren't placed right, we were figuring out the rhythm, and we hadn't yet learned that the best AwJiz Boys moments come when we get out of our own way. Here it is, for the record.

Fifty seven episodes later, the show has evolved into something bigger than we expected. We've covered Afghan representation in Hollywood and asked why the Afghan kid in Iron Man was played by an Iranian. We exposed the inner workings of the Afghan-American Community Organization. We did a Ramadan episode that bounced from spiritual reflection to strip clubs to Starbucks bathroom codes inside ten minutes. We broke down Zohran Mamdani's rise, the 2024 election, Trump's return, and what all of it means for Afghan-Americans. We've also done dumb episodes where the running joke is just that there's no tea on the table. Both kinds of episodes get clipped. Both kinds get views. That's the show.

Along the way we picked up a sponsor (The Herban Cannasseur, promo code Awjiz), launched a Patreon for unfiltered episodes, and worked with our friend Kresnt on the music. We've shot in LA, done two-day recording trips out to Glendale, and built an audience that fights for us in the comments and fights about us on Reddit. That's a working podcast.

The Guests

The guests are how AwJiz Boys grew up. Once we started bringing on people who could push the conversation past two dudes vibing, the ceiling lifted. The lineup has been deliberately wide.

On the comedy and entertainment side, we've had Kais from First Class Kais (Bay Area Gen Z Twitch streamer), Filipino comedian Andrew Orolfo (who walked in trying to figure out what an Afghan even is), and Pashmon Azadzoi, the first openly gay Afghan to be cast on a major US reality show, Netflix's Selling the OC.

On the activist and cultural commentator side, Madina Wardak, an LA social worker and host of Burqas and Beer, is one of our most-returned-to guests and one of the sharpest voices on Afghan masculinity, gender double standards, and mental health in the diaspora. We've had her on twice. Here's the first time.

We also brought on Tamanna Roashan, the Afghan-Indian celebrity makeup artist behind DressYourFace and founder of DressYourFaceLIVE, the online beauty academy with a global subscriber base in the millions. Tamanna built one of the largest beauty platforms in the world from scratch, and the conversation traced the path from an Afghan immigrant household to international beauty empire.

Elham Nasra and John Ahmad rounded out that cultural commentary side, each bringing their own angle on Afghan identity, faith, and the diaspora's contradictions.

On policy and politics, Joseph M. Azam, a prominent Afghan-American lawyer and advocate, joined us in Episode 24 to break down Kamala Harris's role in post-2021 Afghanistan, her relationship to the Afghan community, and the broader stakes of the 2024 election for Afghan-Americans.

On the founders and tech side, Laymah Murtaza, the Chief Partnerships Officer and co-founder of Aseel, walked us through what it actually looks like to build a hybrid tech platform serving 3,000+ Afghan artisans, partner with USAID, Save the Children, and the Vitol Foundation, and earn MIT Solve recognition. Aseel started as the "Etsy of Afghanistan" and turned into something significantly bigger. The conversation got into the questions VCs actually ask during seed rounds, how their dev team runs remotely inside Afghanistan, and why most humanitarian tech is a decade behind. If you want to hear an Afghan woman founder talk to two Afghan men about scaling a real business, this is the episode.

On the legal side, Elmira Yousufi, an Afghan-American attorney, sat down for Legal Advice (Afghan Edition). Immigration paperwork chaos, criminal defense strategy from the inside, jury selection, and what cultural competence actually means in a courtroom when your client is Afghan and the system has never seen anyone like them. She also survived our Afghan vs. Filipino Pictionary segment.

We've also platformed people we openly disagree with. Yosaf, also known as PocoLoco, is an Afghan-American entrepreneur who runs a tourism company in Afghanistan and is sympathetic to certain Taliban policies. We pushed back on plenty of his points during that episode. We also let him talk. Because that's what a podcast is supposed to do.

Older voices like BlueHairFitness, a Gen X Afghan from the Bay Area, reminded us that the diaspora has been here longer than our generation likes to admit. Mixed-heritage and queer guests, women who lead, men who push back, our biggest critics: the booking strategy was never to make the show comfortable. It was to make the show interesting.

The Outrage Online

The reaction in some Afghan online spaces has been intense. There are threads on r/Afghan and r/afghanistan, and a long back-and-forth on Twitter that's been running for months. The arguments cycle through the same handful of accusations: we're embarrassing the culture, we're acting too American, we're not real Afghans, we shouldn't be claimed, we're going to make non-Afghans think badly of Afghans.

It's worth pausing on that last one. The argument isn't that the jokes aren't funny. The argument is that we're saying these things in front of the wrong audience.

Which is the most colonial thing an Afghan online can possibly tweet.

The Diaspora Double Standard

Here's the pattern. The same accounts that share Joe Rogan clips on Tuesday post angry threads about AwJiz Boys on Wednesday. The same uncles who quote Dave Chappelle bits at family weddings will tell you we're embarrassing the community. The same audience that consumes mainstream Western comedy without flinching gets very flinchy when the comedians have Afghan last names.

The problem isn't the content. The problem is that we're the ones making it.

Comedy doesn't bother people. Afghan comedy bothers people. Specifically, Afghan comedy that doesn't ask the diaspora for permission first.

This is what cultural gatekeeping actually looks like. It's not theoretical. You can watch it happen in real time in any of the threads linked above. The same accusations get deployed every time. You're not Afghan enough. You're too American. You don't represent us. We don't claim you. None of it addresses the actual content. All of it exists to put the awjiz boys back in the corner where they belong.

Champions of an Afghanistan That Never Was

Here's the part nobody wants to admit out loud.

Most of the loudest voices online demanding that diaspora Afghans behave more "Afghan" are themselves living abroad. They post TikToks praising how amazing Afghanistan is under the current government, but they post them from apartments in countries with running water, stable governments, and the freedom to post whatever they want. They want the rest of us to be the cultural representatives of a place they themselves chose to leave.

We left because we wanted a better life. Our parents left because they wanted a better life. To some degree, we did not approve of what life in Afghanistan had become. Whether that was the social rules, the government, the lack of economy, the war, or all of it together, the diaspora exists because Afghanistan as it currently is was not a place enough Afghans wanted to stay in.

If Afghanistan were the paradise some of these influencers describe, there would be no diaspora to argue with.

If we were a monolith, we'd have a successful country. The fact that we have a diaspora is proof that we're not.

The online demand that every Afghan reflect a single, idealized, religiously conservative, traditionally masculine version of identity isn't love of culture. It's a control mechanism. It's the same instinct that uses religion to bring people down instead of using religion to find peace, purpose, and salvation. It's blame as a way of life. The only acceptable Afghan, in this framework, is one who never left, never thought differently, never made anyone uncomfortable, and never told a joke that traveled past the family living room.

We are not that Afghan. We were never going to be.

What Actually Triggers People

Let's name the real triggers, since the threads keep dancing around them.

We're feminist. We joke with women. We bring women on the podcast as guests, as equals, not as decorations. Madina Wardak. Tamanna Roashan. Elham Nasra. Laymah Murtaza. Elmira Yousufi. They're some of the sharpest people we've had on, and we treat them that way. That's apparently a problem for some of you.

We bring on mixed-heritage Afghans. Omar, also known as O.Wavey, sat down with us to talk openly about being half Black and half Afghan, never feeling Black enough or Afghan enough, the colorism that runs through our community even when we won't admit it, and the album he made out of it called "Girl Problems." That's a conversation the diaspora needed to have publicly, in plain language, on a platform that wasn't going to soften it.

We bring on gay Afghans. We support Afghans who express themselves outside the narrow lane the community wants to draw. That's apparently a problem too.

We make jokes that aren't politically correct, because we're not running for office. We're not trying to impress an editorial board. We're not building a brand for a community-center grant.

We're trying to make you laugh.

What We Actually Are

The AwJiz Boys is a comedy podcast with two guys who happen to be Afghan and happen to be Muslim. We're proud of both of those things and what they mean to us personally. Neither identity gives anyone in the comments section editorial control over the show.

We are two adults who grew up shy and obedient and now have a microphone. We are not perfect. We are not pretending to be. We are not the cultural ambassadors of Afghanistan, because we never auditioned for that role and nobody appointed us to it.

We're not defined by how you perceive us. That's the whole point of growing up.

Our humor is probably not PC. It's authentic, which is a different thing. Authentic means we aren't performing a version of ourselves designed to keep the loudest people in the comments comfortable. Authentic means the jokes are coming from somewhere real. Authentic means if you don't like it, you don't have to listen, but you don't get to make us small either.

The Platform the Diaspora Needed (And the Reaction Proves It)

Here's the part the loud accounts keep accidentally proving for us.

Every Reddit thread, every angry quote tweet, every long winded comment about how AwJiz Boys is ruining Afghan dignity is engagement. Engagement on a topic that, before us, almost nobody was talking about in our format. We're getting more views, more saves, more conversations than any other Afghan comedy podcast in the diaspora right now. Not because we're the smartest in the room. Not because we're the most credentialed. Because we're willing to push the envelope and not save face.

That's the gap our community had. Most Afghan podcasts are interview-style and informative. They're careful. Sometimes they have to be. The other shows are doing important work, and we are not in competition with them. We have those moments too, especially with our heavier guests. But there has been a missing slot for a comedy podcast that isn't trying to win a community award, isn't trying to please an editorial board, isn't asking permission before saying the thing.

The numbers say we filled that slot. The outrage says it too. You don't get this many strangers writing essays about a podcast they claim doesn't represent them unless on some level it does.

We Need More Voices, Not Fewer: Afghan Diaspora Podcasts You Should Know

Here's the other thing we want to be honest about. There aren't enough Afghan voices doing this work. We're loud about AwJiz Boys because we made it. We're not the only show that should exist. We need a hundred more. Comedy podcasts. Interview podcasts. Politics podcasts. Mom podcasts. Cooking podcasts. Whatever you want to make. Make it. The diaspora is bigger and weirder and more interesting than the small handful of voices currently representing it online.

In that spirit, here are the Afghan diaspora podcasts we listen to, point friends toward, and want more people to know about. This is not exhaustive. We will come back next year with our 2026 list. For now, these are the ones currently doing the work.

Burqas and Beer Podcast (Los Angeles)

Hosted by Madina Wardak and her best friend Kyna Wise, two LA social workers, Burqas and Beer is in our opinion the most important voice in our community right now and we don't say that lightly. Madina has been speaking publicly about Afghan masculinity, gender double standards, mental health, and political identity since 2015, long before any of us were on microphones. Their show covers decolonizing wellness, Afghan-Pakistan politics, refugee stories, the Charlie Kirk news cycle, and the messy art of being a millennial Afghan woman with a therapy degree and an opinion. Recorded in a walk-in closet studio because they're more committed to the work than the aesthetic. She needs to be championed more. Listen to her. Here's the second time she came on our show.

The Bestie Podcast (Toronto, Canada)

The Bestie Pod is doing some of the strongest output in the entire Afghan podcast scene. They're funny when they want to be, serious when it matters, and they have over 300 clips on Instagram alone. The discipline to keep producing that consistently is rare. They were one of our two favorite Afghan podcasts of 2025, and if you're not following them yet you're behind.

The Dimah Podcast

Hosted by Nila and Adise, The Dimah Podcast has been running since 2020 with over 170 episodes deep, which makes them one of the longest-running Afghan-American comedy and culture podcasts going. Raw, open, and honest conversations about trends, personal stories, relationships, sports, and whatever the world is dragging that week. We linked up with them at the Afghan-American Conference in San Diego and the energy is genuinely fun. Follow the TDP fam.

HerStory (Vancouver, Canada)

Co-founded in 2023 by Nila Ibrahimi, an 18-year-old Afghan refugee and UN Young Leader for the Sustainable Development Goals, HerStory is a storytelling platform documenting the lives of Afghan women and girls both inside Afghanistan and across the diaspora. Essential listening for anyone who wants to understand what's actually happening to women under the current government, told by women themselves and not summarized by a Western correspondent.

The Afghan Experience (Vancouver, Canada)

Another Vancouver-based show working in the documentary-style interview lane. The Vancouver Afghan podcast scene is quietly running circles around a lot of larger markets.

Sispective (debuting 2026)

A new podcast hosted by the four Sozahdah sisters (Jamila, Shakur, Siddiqa, and Nooreya), with Lil Jon among the executive producers. Bills itself as where sisterhood meets real-life conversations. Worth keeping an eye on. @sispective on Instagram.

Journey x Reality (Nevada, USA)

A Nevada-based interview show that has done some great long-form sit-downs with Afghan artists and musicians, including Samir Roashan. Underrated. @journeyxreality on Instagram.

There are more. We will keep adding to this list. If you have an Afghan diaspora podcast worth knowing about, send it to us. We'll listen.

Two pods stood out to us in 2025: Burqas and Beer and The Bestie Podcast. We will be back next year with our 2026 list of Afghan podcasts you need to listen to.

The Bigger Point

Every diaspora goes through this. The first wave of comedians from any community gets called shameful. The second wave gets called groundbreaking. The third wave gets a Netflix special and a documentary about how brave they were. We're aware of where in the cycle we sit. We're aware that being early means being misunderstood. We're also aware that the people loudest about the show today will quietly become fans of the genre in five years, the same way every culture eventually claims the artists it tried to silence.

The show isn't going anywhere. The camel isn't going anywhere. Dauood and I aren't going anywhere. And every episode, every guest, every Reddit thread that spirals out of control is one more piece of evidence that comedy, like culture, belongs to whoever has the guts to make it.

Let's get Luchak with the AwJiz Boys. 🐫