{"id":48745,"date":"2026-04-25T10:48:43","date_gmt":"2026-04-25T10:48:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/?p=48745"},"modified":"2026-04-25T10:48:43","modified_gmt":"2026-04-25T10:48:43","slug":"irans-meme-war-against-trump-ushers-in-a-future-of-slopaganda","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/?p=48745","title":{"rendered":"Iran\u2019s Meme War Against Trump Ushers In a Future of \u2018Slopaganda\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n<\/p>\n

Iran\u2019s success in spreading these memes<\/strong> has surprised experts who study foreign influence operations. They say the tactics and technology on display during the war will almost certainly be replicated in other international crises, as well as major political events, including the looming elections in the United States.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s spoken to the sort of Gen Z language of the internet in ways certainly diplomats don\u2019t normally do,\u201d said Bret Schafer, a senior director at the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, an international nonprofit that has tracked Iran\u2019s activity.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey have taken a regime that is, I mean, brutal and pretty awful and didn\u2019t have exactly a great global reputation and turned them into kind of a plucky, fun underdog.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dozens of accounts belonging to Iranian government officials and diplomats have peppered their social feeds with a previously uncharacteristic edge, reposting biting videos that mock the United States and Israel.<\/p>\n

They portray Mr. Trump as an imperialist out for blood or as an incompetent lackey of Israel\u2019s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, often stoking antisemitic tropes. They regularly suggest the war was launched to distract from the disclosures in the Jeffrey Epstein files.<\/p>\n

Collectively, the posts by roughly 150 official Iranian accounts gained about 900 million views over the first 50 days of the war, a thirtyfold increase from the same period before, according to an analysis published on Thursday by the Institute for Strategic Dialogue.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re talking in a way that\u2019s fundamentally changed,\u201d said Moustafa Ayad, another researcher at the institute. \u201cIf you go back two months and look at what they were putting out, it\u2019s nothing like this.\u201d<\/p>\n

Propaganda is always adapting, reflecting the era in which it is made. Iran\u2019s deft use of technology, experts say, has highlighted a new era of meme warfare that expands the information battlefield by using the algorithmic engines of social media to undermine an adversary\u2019s political support. The new tactic has been called \u201cslopaganda.\u201d<\/p>\n

Iran\u2019s effort, the institute\u2019s analysis concluded, \u201coffers a blueprint that authoritarian actors can replicate in the future.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Meme War<\/h3>\n

The number of posts from Iranian Consulate accounts that included memes, jokes or A.I.-generated content skewering the United States or Israel has risen sharply in recent weeks as the online meme war intensified.<\/p>\n

Note: Includes Iranian Consulate accounts with more than 20,000 followers on X.<\/span> Source: TweetBinder by Audiense.<\/span> The New York Times<\/span><\/p>\n

Of all memes posted by the Iranians, none have resonated as much as a series of videos featuring Legos. A small team of content creators in Iran has turned the globally recognized toy, which has its own movie franchise, into one of the most potent weapons in the meme arsenal.<\/p>\n

In the videos, a character resembling Mr. Trump sweats or cowers. Iranian soldiers and civilians, by contrast, are cast as resolute in the face of the combined military might of the United States and Israel.<\/p>\n

The people behind them call themselves Explosive Media \u2014 or, as they put it in their biography on TikTok, simply the \u201cIranian Lego team.\u201d They have used artificial intelligence tools to generate short videos with the toy figurines manipulated to resemble Mr. Trump, Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth and Satan, an Iranian epithet for the United States for decades now.<\/p>\n

They have posted mostly on YouTube, but they also have accounts on Instagram, X, Telegram and, since last week, Facebook. They have inspired a virtual army of imitators.<\/p>\n

The group was founded during the 12-day war between Israel and Iran last year. They call the series of videos \u201cVictory Chronicles,\u201d which in Persian shares a name with the Revayat-e Fath Institute, a cultural center in Tehran sponsored by Iran\u2019s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps.<\/p>\n

That has led some news accounts to link them to the government, but a representative, reached through Facebook, said the team, with fewer than 10 members, operated independently. They have sold the broadcasting rights in Iran, including to state news agencies, the representative said.<\/p>\n

A spokesman for Iran\u2019s mission at the United Nations declined to comment about the country\u2019s messaging online.<\/p>\n

Explosive Media<\/h3>\n

A.I.-generated videos from Explosive Media, an Iranian group, depict world leaders as Lego characters.<\/p>\n

Pay attention to the sermons Pete Fiction <\/p>\n

@PeteHegseth<\/p>\n

Views<\/span> 331.1k<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

The veil is thinning.
Good. Evil.<\/p>\n

Time is running out.
Choose your side.<\/p>\n

RISE UP!<\/strong><\/p>\n

Views<\/span> 397.6k<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Note: Videos edited for length.<\/span> <\/p>\n

In the United States, the videos have tapped into opposition from the war\u2019s critics on the left, but also on the right.<\/p>\n

Renee DiResta, an associate research professor at Georgetown University who has long studied digital influence operations, attributed the widespread popularity of the Lego videos to the creators\u2019 \u201cincredible cultural fluency.\u201d<\/p>\n

They use rap songs. They refer to familiar tropes, like Mr. Trump\u2019s love of Diet Coke or criticism of Mr. Hegseth\u2019s drinking habits. And they are extremely topical, responding to events as they happen, as recently as Mr. Vance\u2019s postponed trip to Pakistan for peace talks on Tuesday.<\/p>\n

Today\u2019s rapidly evolving technology has enabled them to create longer, scripted animations. They transform the horror of war into the realm of child\u2019s play, depicting the violence in a sanitized way that does not necessarily repel potential viewers in the space where most are watching: social media.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey managed to hit on all of the identity-culture aesthetics that the internet is really there for,\u201d Ms. DiResta said. \u201cIt\u2019s kind of immediately graspable.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Lego Group, based in Denmark, did not respond to a request for comment about the use of its product in wartime propaganda.<\/p>\n

The White House also declined to respond to specific questions about Iran\u2019s propaganda, including the president\u2019s response to the mocking Lego memes and whether the administration had taken any steps to respond. A spokeswoman, Anna Kelly, instead questioned in an email why anyone would call \u201cterrorist regime propaganda\u201d effective. <\/p>\n

The Trump administration arguably started the meme war.<\/p>\n

It has long shown a penchant of turning political issues into memes that it spreads on official and unofficial accounts. Since the first strikes on Feb. 28, a team in the White House has posted numerous videos using images generated by A.I. or spliced with clips from action movies and video games like Call of Duty and Grand Theft Auto.<\/p>\n

After a slow start when the war began, Iran responded in kind. Many of its memes have been produced in Iran, including the Lego videos, though not all, according to the researchers who have tracked them.<\/p>\n

The videos are obviously animations, not deepfakes of attacks that can be debunked and thus defused, as false reports of downing jets and sinking aircraft carriers have been.<\/p>\n

Iran\u2019s spread of memes has largely not been restricted on social media, despite the platforms\u2019 policies against inauthentic amplification and deceptive or excessively violent images.<\/p>\n

X, owned by Elon Musk, has been one of the biggest outlets for Iranian propaganda, much of it spread by the country\u2019s government agencies and diplomatic outposts around the world that have paid for X\u2019s blue check for paid users. X did not respond to a request for comment.<\/p>\n

Explosive Media\u2019s accounts on Instagram and YouTube were taken down in March, though the one on Instagram was restored because it did not violate the platform\u2019s policies, according to Meta, Instagram\u2019s parent company. YouTube said in a statement that the account there had violated rules against deceptive practices, which apply to coordinated foreign influence campaigns.<\/p>\n

In a measure of the campaign\u2019s perceived value to the Iranian government, a spokesman for its Foreign Ministry, Esmaeil Baqaei, posted a rebuke on X. He called YouTube\u2019s ban an effort to \u201cshield the American administration\u2019s false narrative from any competing voice.\u201d<\/p>\n

The popularity of the Lego videos has inspired efforts to fight fire with fire.<\/p>\n

Charlie Curran, a 35-year-old filmmaker in Hollywood, was distressed by the shooting down of an F-15E jet in Iran, which prompted a frantic American search for the two surviving crew members. In response, he made a video in the Iranian style, depicting the rescue of one of them.<\/p>\n

\u201cI saw this all taking place and happening,\u201d he said in an interview, referring to Iran\u2019s memes, \u201cand I was like, how is there no American response to this?\u201d<\/p>\n

Fighting Back<\/h3>\n

Charlie Curran, an American filmmaker, created his own response to Iranian videos featuring Lego characters.<\/p>\n

Rescuing American Pilot in Iran (2026, colorized)<\/p>\n

Views<\/span> 804.4k<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Note: Video edited for length.<\/span> <\/p>\n

Mr. Curran said he had embraced the potential of A.I. in filmmaking. He used Anthropic\u2019s Claude to write a script and Seedance 2.0, the video generator from China\u2019s ByteDance, which drew international attention recently for generating a simulation of Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt brawling on a roof.<\/p>\n

It took 30 minutes, he said, to make his 72-second video. Since he posted it on X on April 7, it has been seen more than 800,000 times. It has also been shared across other platforms, with and without credit, and seen by millions more.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not inherently difficult,\u201d Mr. Curran said, \u201cwhich is why I think you\u2019ll see a lot more of this.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Iran\u2019s success in spreading these memes has surprised experts who study foreign influence operations. They say the tactics and technology on display during the war will almost certainly be replicated in other international crises, as well as major political events, including the looming elections in the United States. \u201cIt\u2019s spoken to the sort of Gen<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":48746,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[49],"tags":[2284,218,15863,14476,81,24328,261],"class_list":{"0":"post-48745","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-business","8":"tag-future","9":"tag-irans","10":"tag-meme","11":"tag-slopaganda","12":"tag-trump","13":"tag-ushers","14":"tag-war"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48745","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=48745"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48745\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/48746"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=48745"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=48745"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=48745"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}