When Iranian pop singer Morteza Pashaei, 30, succumbed to cancer mid-November, thousands of people attended his funeral, which was hailed as the biggest gathering of Iranians since the 2009 post-election protests.

The New York Times’ Tehran correspondent, Thomas Erdbrink, wrote that “the authorities were caught off guard” by the number of mourners for Pashaei’s fuenral. In an article in Iranian newspaper Shargh Daily, Sadra Mohaghegh wrote that Pashaei’s death sparked debate and analysis online among journalists and academics all asking the same question, “How could a singer we hardly knew be this popular?”

One of the more interesting points presented by Mohaghegh was that many believed that there was a significant distance between “intellectuals” of society and the general public. Perhaps in an attempt to bridge this gap, on Dec 9, a university in Tehran invited a panel of professors to discuss “the cultural phenomenology of a death” to discuss the passing of Pashaei from a sociological perspective. However, controversial comments by sociologist Yousef Abazari not only reignited the debate on Persian language social media, but raised important points about the relationship between the people and their government.

In the 26-minute audio file online, Abazari called Pashaei a “trite” musician and said that pop was one the “lowest” forms of music and after a verbal yelling match with a female audience member who defended her right to listen to his music, Abazari said that he was “happy to insult” the people who liked his music and added, “I'm the person who is saying the people are fools.”