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You've probably read recently about the wave of unrest in Iran that has led to at least 24 deaths and 8,000 arrests. Many of the protesters have chanted for the “death” of Iran’s leaders, President Hassan Rouhani and Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

But not everybody inside Iran is dissatisfied. Some are quite comfortable under the theocratic regime—and routinely document their exploits on the Internet. Western media have discovered an Instagram account called @TheRichKidsof-Tehran. The photos it posts (see left) look a lot like what you’d see from youngsters in the United States, with an occasional headscarf or Iranian flag thrown in.

There are subjects in sunglasses making pouty faces at mirrors while holding iPhones, young women in bikinis unwinding at pool parties and on luxury yachts, and plenty of Western-style conspicuous consumption. The account is where “attractive 20-somethings flaunt $1,000 Hermès sandals and frolic poolside at lavish mansions in a capital where, perhaps in another part of town, the desperate hawk their own kidneys to feed their families,” the Los Angeles Times reported.

The account reveals that regardless of religion, geography, and ethnicity, humans share a thirst for liberty—including the liberty to be Instagram narcissists.

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