An AI-generated animation created by a pro-Iran studio and depicting an Iranian man grilling four U.S. aircrafts like a kebab over a campfire is seen on a computer screen in Brussels, on April 8.Sam Mcneil/The Associated Press
In one video clip, posted online shortly after the U.S. and Iran reached a ceasefire in their five-week-old war, a Lego-inspired version of President Donald Trump sits on the floor of his bedroom with a white flag of surrender, crying and eating a taco, a reference to the phrase “Trump Always Chickens Out.”
The following week, as a Chinese oil tanker appeared set to challenge Mr. Trump’s blockade of Iranian ports, a viral tweet made fun of his supposed military impotence – and threw in a jab at his awkward photo-op with a DoorDash worker. “The blockade only applies to countries the U.S. isn’t afraid of. That list used to be long. It now fits on Trump’s McDonald’s receipt.”
A hip-hop diss track, meanwhile, dubs the U.S. government “the Epstein regime,” while its accompanying video, also a Lego-style animation, shows Mr. Trump being led like a dog on a leash by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
The source of these pieces of supremely unsubtle political satire? The government of Iran and its proxies.
Since Mr. Trump and Mr. Netanyahu launched the war in February, the regime in Tehran has run a humorous, Western-facing propaganda campaign that relentlessly portrays the U.S. President as an incompetent fool who cannot win the conflict he started.
Darren Linvill, a Clemson University expert in social-media disinformation, pointed to three important factors.
One is that many young Iranians study abroad and understand American internet culture. Another is that Iran has learned from and improved on the propaganda efforts of other regimes, such as Russia’s and China’s. Last is the use of artificial intelligence, which cannot only rapidly create videos and songs but bridge cultural and language barriers.
A screencapture from an AI-generated video by @ExplosiveMediaa on X.@ExplosiveMediaa/X/Supplied
“There’s a younger generation in Iran that absolutely has its finger on the pulse of Western culture and can create this content,” said Prof. Linvill, whose research group, the Media Forensics Hub, tracks such international propaganda operations. “Iran has been preparing for this war for a long time, and I’ve seen their influence operations improve over the years.”
Iran’s work is certainly slicker than Russia’s famous pro-Trump Facebook campaign of 2016, which often came across as both earnest and stilted. “Hillary is a Satan, and her crimes and lies had proved just how evil she is,” read one clunky caption for a meme showing Jesus Christ arm-wrestling the devil.
Tehran’s social-media bravado, of course, obscures the reality on the ground. Thousands of Iranians have been killed or wounded during the war, including more than 100 young girls at a school in Minab, the country’s navy and air force have suffered extensive losses, and former supreme leader Ali Khamenei has been assassinated along with much of the government’s top leadership. And nowhere do Iran’s videos mention that its regime killed tens of thousands of its own citizens in recent months to crack down on protests.
Much of the Iranian propaganda’s virality, in addition to the humour, has come from stoking what was already a major narrative in the U.S. about the war: that Mr. Trump failed in his bid to topple the Iranian regime and is now desperately seeking a way out of the conflict after Tehran drove up global oil prices by blocking the Strait of Hormuz. “L-O-S-E-R, yeah, we’re spelling out your name,” proclaims one of the diss tracks.
The Lego-style videos and raps are created by a Tehran-based group called Explosive Media. The organization has portrayed itself as an independent company, but a spokesman acknowledged in interviews with the BBC and Al-Jazeera that it is paid by the Iranian government. In the Al-Jazeera interview, the spokesman, whom the outlet did not name, said the group is made up of 10 people between the ages of 19 and 25.
Other content has come directly from Iranian government social-media accounts.
The Iranian embassy in Ghana, for instance, regularly posts anti-Trump zingers, including the DoorDash one. Another post took the form of notes from a future archeologist who had encountered millions of red MAGA hats. “No civilization in the excavated record has produced more headwear per capita and less lasting achievement per century,” it reads.
Mohammad-Bagher Ghalibaf, the Speaker of Iran’s parliament, also uses his X account to needle the President. At one point, he tweeted a Google Maps image of high gasoline prices at service stations near the White House. “Enjoy the current pump figures,” he taunted.
To Prof. Linvill, the jokes are a tactical calculation by Tehran’s propagandists based on the logic of the internet. Making fun of Mr. Trump sates a pre-existing appetite among the President’s critics in the West to see him skewered and ensures views and shares among an audience less likely to engage with more serious content.
“If you’re in a country going through what they’re going through right now, you’re not going to put out this tongue-in-cheek content unless it works,” he said. “I doubt they’re laughing.”