This week, TikTok has erupted into a heated discourse over Australian content creator Chloe Baradinsky, also known as Chloe Barry Hang, sharing videos documenting her trip to Afghanistan.
While some followers have praised Chloe for sharing an honest, unfiltered review of a country not often travelled by Westerners, others took to the comments to criticise and question her for visiting — and essentially promoting — a country in a controlled dictatorship with terrifyingly restrictive laws around women’s rights.
The discourse truly heated up online when two Australian podcasts, Big Small Talk and Just The Gist, questioned whether Chloe was paid by the Taliban to go on a press tour. Taking to TikTok, Chloe vehemently denied these claims and explained why she decided to visit the war-torn country.
What came next was a slew of online hate and statements defending the positions of each key player in the complicated socio-political discourse. So, let’s unpack what went down and who said what.
What happened?
Back in August, Chloe began sharing videos from her self-funded trip to Afghanistan on TikTok. While some videos featured the content creator out and about in Afghanistan, others were Chloe telling stories to the camera about her travels. In the comments on each video, many TikTokers questioned why the travel creator ventured to Afghanistan — especially following the Taliban reclaiming power in 2021.
In one TikTok video, Chloe addressed why she decided to visit Afghanistan.
“In my early 20s, I had the view that you should vote with your wallet and you shouldn’t travel to places that you don’t agree with what is going on. My views have changed, obviously,” she explained.
“By choosing not to travel to a place because you don’t agree with the government, you’re mostly hurting the people, and it’s the people who are probably struggling when these kinds of governments are in power.”
Chloe admitted that she thinks it’s “bizarre” that the Taliban continue to allow tourism when it’s so strict in general. However, she says the situation is “so dire that they really do need the money”. She also acknowledged that through her travels, a portion of her money used for her visa or other government documents would be going to the Taliban, as the current active governmental body.
“I knew by choosing this location, I would get a lot of hate on it. I still chose to share it because if it encourages just one person to view the country differently or to visit, I don’t care about the hate,” she said.
“I’m curious. I want to learn about people, and I have left the country feeling like I have a new perspective on the people. The people are not their government. The people didn’t vote for this. They didn’t choose it. They’re struggling. Why punish them because of their fucking government?”
What did Big Small Talk say?
In an episode of Big Small Talk released on August 26, hosts Hannah Ferguson and Sarah-Jane Adams discussed the “tourist boom”of people and influencers heading to Afghanistan and questioned the ethics of influencers promoting tourism in a country. While they referenced Chloe as a recent example, the podcast also named other influencers who they say have created propaganda-esque content and explained the extremely limiting laws women are held to, including being banned from education, most jobs, and visiting public places.
Hannah and Sarah-Jane discussed that their biggest worry was that by influencers sharing their glamorised tourist experiences in Afghanistan, it serves as a reputation rehab for the Taliban.
“I think while these influencers are posting and roaming freely, that’s tough when the same privileges aren’t being granted to the women of that country,” Sarah-Jane said.
They went on to slam tourism for “indirectly legitimising” and “sustaining” the Taliban, and question the ethics surrounding promoting travel to a place that is widely understood to be dangerous, especially to women.
Commenting on Chloe’s assertion that the government does not share the same views as the people, Hannah and Sarah questioned whether videos like Chloe’s really did anything tangible to help the people.
“You’re essentially going over there as a tourist and talking about it,” Sarah-Jane said.
While the pair raised some very valid points, they received backlash from TikTokers and listeners for questioning whether Chloe wasd gifted her trip to Afghanistan without verifying the information, and for the way they referred to Chloe as an “influencer”. This was particularly in light of Hannah’s widely-covered comments that the term “influencer” was used by media in the recent federal election to discredit women.
“There is nothing wrong with being an influencer, but the label is intended to cause significant reputational damage,” she told the National Press Club earlier this year.
“The impact is deeply misogynistic.”
Chloe Baradinsky’s response to Big Small Talk
Chloe responded to this episode by denying that her trip to Afghanistan was paid for or funded by the Taliban.
“It would have taken all of about two seconds for them to email me or DM me, asking whether my trip to Afghanistan was sponsored or gifted. I would have said, ‘Are you out of your fucking mind? No,” she said.
Chloe said that she didn’t think the country, or the Taliban, had enough money to be gifting trips to influencers before calling the podcast out for referring to her as an “influencer”.
“People use it because they know it has a negative connotation to it. If you don’t know me, you’d say ‘oh, she’s an influencer’, trying to paint me as some dumb, pathetic, aesthetically driven female.
“Secondly, do you think I have zero moral compass where I’d accept that? Use your brain, guys.”
She took offence at claims she was not political in light of her federal election content, and added that she didn’t want to talk about money she’d donated to local groups on a public platform.
“What they said was cruel, and it was biased, and they had nothing to substantiate it. They literally said, ‘That’s really important to know if it was gifted’. Well, why don’t you ask?” she said.
Big Small Talk‘s response to Chloe Baradinsky
On September 3, Big Small Talk followed up with another podcast episode responding to Chloe’s clapback. They acknowledged that some feedback from Chloe’s video, along with messages from listeners, was very important for them to take on board. They also claimed that they apologised to Chloe immediately after seeing her video on their segment.
One criticism they faced was from listeners who compared their trip to New York back in March with Chloe’s travels to Afghanistan. Both Hannah and Sarah-Jane conceded, admitting that while they still believe their trip for work is distinctly different to Chloe’s, they will not return to the United States under the current fascist regime of Donald Trump.
Hannah also admitted that her use of the word “influencer” wasn’t fair.
“I have spoken at length about the way that word has been applied to me in the media. I understand the impact of this and completely agree that Chloe is a content creator, and we should have used that language first and foremost,” she said.
However, the hosts asserted their belief that critiquing Chloe’s choice to visit and promote travel to Afghanistan is not bullying; it is a “discussion about influencer and responsibility”.
They also denied saying that Chloe’s trip was paid for by the Taliban, and said it was “entirely valid” for them to question whether the trip was paid for, despite Australian law requiring influencers and content creators to disclose partnerships. In response to claims that they should have verified the information by reaching out to Chloe, Hannah asserted that Big Small Talk is based in “analysis, not investigative journalism”.
“We discuss and commentate on questions that form part of the Zeitgeist. In any given week, we commentate, we provide information on what has already been put into the public forum. In terms of Chloe, we spoke to the videos and the content of what she had already published, and like many other outlets, including the ABC, these are questions that can be raised,” she stated.
While the pair were criticised for not performing due diligence by fact-checking the implications made in their podcast episode, they questioned Chloe’s due diligence by promoting tourism in an “unsafe country”.
“Our conclusion, fundamentally, is that due diligence wasn’t taken by Chloe, and we believe that she would have known that her content would have opened up this forum for feedback,” Sarah-Jane said.
Finally, the pair also referenced a perspective from Afghan women’s rights activist Pashtana Durrani from ABC Radio National, which also reported on Chloe’s travels.
“Afghanistan is a beautiful country, and I wish the world could see it beforehand, and I wish all Afghans and exiles could go back home. But the one thing I feel like everybody should know and understand is that this is legitimate propaganda that is being funded by the Taliban to soften their image in the world and sort of show foreigners that the country is safe and much nicer and can host other foreigners,” she said.
“At the same time, you need to call out the hypocrisy of all these people who pay taxes to fight against terrorism but are now going to Afghanistan and furthering the Taliban propaganda.”
PEDESTRIAN.TV reached out to Big Small Talk and was directed to their latest episode in lieu of a statement.
Okay, what happened with Chloe Baradinsky and Rosie Waterland’s podcast, Just The Gist?
Big Small Talk wasn’t the only podcast to comment on Chloe’s travels. In a now-deleted episode, Just The Gist‘s Rosie Waterland also criticised Chloe’s trip, although notably did not name her.
“I wouldn’t even call her an influencer, I mean, maybe, I guess. She’s been trying desperately to be an influencer for more than a decade,” Rosie said, noting that she didn’t want to talk about Chloe by name because she believed her content was “abhorrent”.
Rosie raised similar questions about whether the unnamed influencer’s trip was paid for by the Taliban. She also referred to influencers as having “cooked brains” and said she was “desperate for attention”.
“This girl, she knows this country is bad. I think she also wanted a free trip and attention,” Rosie claimed.
“Imagine working in coordination with the Taliban just for money or for clout. It’s either for money or clout or both, either way, it’s despicable,” Rosie continued, following a mocking reading of a voice-over from one of Chloe’s videos.
“If you are an influencer who has coordinated with the Taliban to do fancy travel content from Afghanistan, you are a despicable person.”
Chloe Baradinsky’s response to Just The Gist
Following the release of the Just The Gist episode, Chloe took to TikTok with a 10-minute video slamming Waterland and accusing her of bullying.
“It is a very malicious podcast and a very hard listen. I wouldn’t let anyone speak like that in a private setting, let alone a public setting,” Chloe said, before playing clips of the podcast, which sat behind a paywall.
Chloe denied claims that she was desperately trying to be an influencer and confirmed that Rosie did not reach out to verify whether Chloe funded the trip herself or whether it was gifted. She also slammed the implication that she was glamorising a trip to Afghanistan.
“I made it clear, it’s a pretty fucked situation,” she said. “I also spoke about the nuances and that not everything was how we were portraying it in the media. I was just sharing what I saw and how people spoke to me verbatim”.
You can watch Chloe’s full statement below.
Rosie Waterland responds to Chloe Baradinsky’s video
Rosie received significant criticism for her statements in the episode, including some pretty abhorrent online hate.
Rosie responded in a now-deleted statement on Instagram, but shared with PEDESTRIAN.TV when we reached out for comment.
“I can’t believe I’m commenting on this but what was initially just bizarre to me has now become something else entirely,” she began.
“I read a news story online about female travel influencers doing fancy travel content from Afghanistan. I found it appalling, and brought it up on my podcast two weeks ago. Yesterday, an influencer made a video and she directed her followers to come after me for publicly bullying her. In the hours since, I’ve been on the receibing end of some of the worst online abuse I’ve ever experienced”.
In her statement, Rosie denied referring to Chloe, despite reading out a voice-over from Chloe’s videos, and believed that Chloe called her out in an “attempt to manufacture some viral drama”. She also called her out for allegedly stating that they’ve had beef for years.
“This influencer wasn’t bullied. She knows it,” the statement reads.
“Women are travelling to Afghanistan to film travel influencer content — people are going to have conversations about the ethics of that, and people (including me) are going to find it awful. But I intentionally left her name out of it to avoid her getting any time of harassment. That she’s now put herself front and centre in some kind of attempt at viral content over a podcast in which her name wasn’t mentioned and nobody was talking about… I think it says a lot about her motivations here.”
Rosie finished her statement by pointing to the charities supporting women in Afghanistan in her Instagram bio.
You can read Rosie’s statement in full below.
PEDESTRIAN.TV has reached out to Chloe for a comment.
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