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Operation Epic Fury could as well have been a video game; it comes packaged with visuals of live combat footages and slick social media montages. Since the start of the attacks on Iran, the White House communications team has been releasing clips of strikes juxtaposed with footage from Call of Duty, Top Gun and Mortal Kombat’s ‘flawless victory’ soundbite. The White House has turned its war communication into spectator sport, sharing memes and trolling videos of real missile impacts blended with Hollywood style entertainment, and sports. The US successfully gamified the war. At the same time Iran responded to its war and AI slopaganda with its own Lego styled videos. 

One popular video shared by the White House opened with Grand Theft Auto meme – Ah, shit, here we go again – and cut into actual live missile strike footage of attacking Iran. Not everyone might understand the nuance and context of this meme. But this has been a popular meme on American social media platforms to reflect on moods of fear, boredom and irony.   

Iran’s videos have been more nuanced; with actual storylines, showing actual people involved in the war – Lego versions of Trump, Netanyahu, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Abbas Araghchi, the 160 girls killed in a primary school in Minab and more. One of the most popular Lego video from Iran is a rap song that begins with the lines, “you crossed the ocean just to find your grave.” Though English is not the first or second language in Iran, this rap in American English, is as much a message to the American administration and its citizens, as to the people of the world. 

There is another video from Iran titled: One vengeance for all, that goes on to call for justice for the victims of Epstein Island, for the children of Gaza, for the girls of Minab, in memory of people of villages killed in Afghanistan and Vietnam.   

There is a subtext to the type of games chosen by these countries. While the US chose popular war game imagery, sports and action films, Iran chose a harmless game, Lego, that rests on the idea of ‘building and creating.’

Yet this marks a shift in how the governments communicate during wars. Corporate media has taken a backseat in war reporting, while brave independent journalists have been killed in the war. The........

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