The video Thumbs Up presents an adaptation of a number of Instagram videos made by Iranian teenager Maedeh Hojabri. The account of the nineteen-year-old girl was immensely popular at the time, with over 600,000 followers. In her videos, she can be seen dancing to Western and Iranian pop and rap music in her bedroom, often in provocative poses and outfits that defy the regime’s restrictions. She does not wear the compulsory headscarf required in public spaces in the Islamic Republic, and often appeared with bare arms and midriff. As such, Maedeh violated several regulations and was arrested by the Iranian authorities in July 2018, along with several other young teenage girls accused of similar offences.

Hojabri appeared alongside the other detainees in a documentary on Iranian state television
in which they were seen confessing to their actions—most likely under duress, a strategy frequently employed by Iranian authorities. These controversial videos, created prior to the emergence of the social media app TikTok, remind of the more recent 2022 protests following the death of twenty-two-year-old Mahsa Amini. She died after being detained by the Iranian morality police for violating dress code regulations on wearing the veil in the Islamic Republic. Iranian women then widely shared videos of themselves cutting their hair as a protest against the regime, an action that gained international attention.