Following media, academic, and public debates, it seems the Arab protests have been reduced to mono-causal narratives. Several analysts have produced limited interpretations by making parallels between current revolts and previous uprisings or, worse, by looking for explanations that follows their own political agenda. Another problem is a persistent black-and-white view, where different factions only recognize political actors that fit into their worldview. It is a difficult task to read the Arab revolts and even more difficult to establish their nature. Before we can understand these phenomena, we must first deconstruct several interpretations that only prevent us from recognizing their originality. This paper seeks to organize these tendencies, illustrating them with examples, and, thus, contribute to the discussion of the root causes of the revolts. It is not an analysis of the revolts, but a discussion related to the discourses most commonly used to explain them.