An AI-generated LEGO film out of Iran depicting Trump as a warfare hungry pedophile has gone viral on-line. The video is the work of Iran-based propagandists referred to as the “Explosive Information Staff” and is simply the newest in an extended line of AI-generated LEGO movies geared toward mocking Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu. LEGO-themed propaganda isn’t new and the Iranian video performs on acquainted wartime propaganda themes. What’s completely different in 2026 is velocity and scale.
Throughout World Conflict II, the Korean Conflict, and the Vietnam Conflict, America’s enemies littered the battlefield with pamphlets, cartoons, and radio broadcasts geared toward shaking the morale of American troops, however that stuff hardly ever received again dwelling. Now, Iran can use AI instruments to supply lavishly animated cartoons at scale for dissemination throughout social media all aimed on the US homefront.
The newest “Explosive Information Staff” video is about to a catchy rap track about how Trump is a LOSER and hundreds of thousands of persons are watching it throughout a number of platforms. On the similar time Iran is releasing AI-generated movies of Trump drowning in a river of blood, the US Division of Homeland Safety is sharing fashwave filtered footage of Gen Z ICE brokers milling round airports.
Iran’s use of LEGO set rap music tells me it’s been finding out us. These are movies meant for the American individuals crafted in a language Iran is aware of we’ll perceive.
In the meantime, the White Home is dropping Grand Theft Auto and Name of Responsibility memes that have been out of trend 10 years in the past on Reddit and vague-posting pixelated photos of Trump prefer it’s operating an ARG. Iran is making an attempt to talk to the broader American public. Trump is assured he solely has to impress the web freaks he thinks nonetheless love him.
In different phrases, there’s a AI slopaganda proxy warfare enjoying out, and Trump is talking solely to individuals whose brains are rotting out of their cranium, whereas Iranian propaganda is presently doing a greater job of talking to the considerations of the broad American inhabitants than the American president. Trump continues to narrowcast to his base whereas shedding assist for his wildly unpopular warfare as People fear about skyrocketing fuel costs, a tanking financial system and inventory market, insane strains at airports, and a warfare that has little rationale and apparently no actual aim. A latest Pew ballot discovered 61 % of People disapprove of Trump’s dealing with of the battle.
To be clear, it speaks to how unhealthy issues are on-line that we have to analyze whose AI disinformation and propaganda is “higher,” and, typically, the slopification of the web has been a catastrophe. And but, the stuff Iran is making is resonating and spreading on-line in a manner that Trump’s slop is just not. We have no idea who, particularly, is making the Iranian AI slop or which instruments they’re utilizing to make it. However the truth that Iranian AI slop is resonating with People whereas American slop is just not ought to maybe not be shocking; for the final a number of years, probably the most profitable purveyors of AI slop have largely been primarily based in international nations, the place they’ve been incentivized to make content material that particularly targets American audiences due to the best way that social media advert charges work. Due to that, a whole financial system has emerged wherein individuals who would in any other case have little curiosity in reaching American audiences have been incentivized to check what resonates with People on the web and have created whole companies targeted on instructing different individuals what People care about and how you can goal them with AI slop.
Propaganda, particularly war-time propaganda, is about inflicting a fast emotional response within the viewer. Iran has proved remarkably able to that and hits comparable themes in most of its movies: Epstein, Netanyahu, and blood. “The actually hanging throughline is the 1) connecting victims from Minab to Epstein, 2) a cartoonish antisemitism that attributes the bog-standard reactionary hawkishness of Trump and Netanyahu to a sinister and supernatural evil, 3) heavy emphasis on missiles and revenge-weapons,” Kelsey Atherton, Chief Editor at Heart for Worldwide Coverage, informed 404 Media.
“There is a grand custom of wartime propaganda geared toward convincing the opposite facet to give up and I believe Iran’s finest falls into that camp, like North Korea and particularly North Vietnam sending pamphlets geared toward getting black troopers to defect by highlighting inequity at dwelling,” Atherton stated. “Iran’s on-line propaganda is attempting to activate this by (charitably) interesting to class warfare and (uncharitably) leaning on antisemitism to get US troopers to give up and to erode assist amongst People watching short-form vertical video.”
In a single AI-generated video shared by Russian state managed information group RT depicts victims of American navy campaigns staring on the sky. It begins with an American Indian then cuts to a boy in Hiroshima, a schoolgirl in Minab, somewhat woman in entrance of the weird temple on Epstein’s Island, and ends with US-assassinated Quds Forces chief Qasem Soleimani.
US Underneath Secretary of State Sarah B Rogers tried to critique the video in a publish on X. “You do see frequent propaganda threads right here and elsewhere: the ideology is resentment-driven, civilization-skeptical, and obsessive about upending, cathartic violence enacted by the ‘traditionally downtrodden’ (ie ‘wretched of the earth’),” she stated.
The publish felt like projection and was particularly unusual given the Trump administration’s personal resentment pushed ideology, destruction of establishments, and obsession with revenge-driven violence on behalf of the “forgotten man.” Iran didn’t begin America’s warfare with it. And it didn’t begin the AI-generated propaganda warfare, it’s simply doing it higher than america.
There are different echoes of the previous. An AI-generated Iranian riff on Pixar’s Inside Out shared on X by Iran’s embassy within the Hague confirmed a Disneyesque model of the within of Trump’s mind. It confirmed frothing demons demanding the President misinform the press. A poster from World Conflict II depicts an X-Ray picture of Hitler’s Mind stuffed with skeletons and snakes. It’s the identical theme in several eras utilizing completely different instruments.
LEGO bricks, too, are a far older propaganda software than the present warfare. The Danish bricks are one of the recognizable toys on the planet. Final 12 months, Russian propagandists circulated photos of faux LEGO units depicting soldier’s funerals forward of an election in Moldova. In 2020, the Chinese language launched “As soon as Upon a Virus,” a LEGO brief movie that mocked America’s response to the Covid pandemic.
In reminiscence of the 168 harmless schoolchildren of #Minab whose lives have been cruelly taken by probably the most evil individuals on earth.
Their names could fade from the headlines, however they need to by no means fade from our conscience.#StandWithIran#WarCrime#مدرسه_میناب pic.twitter.com/sCG2kpfM71
— ☫ Iran Embassy in The Hague, The Netherlands (@IRAN_in_NL) March 12, 2026
The Trump administration’s new fascist aesthetic is outlined by AI slop. From Studio Ghibli-inspired grotesques to AI-generated Sora movies of ICE raids that by no means occurred going viral on Fb, Trump and his supporters are additionally utilizing the instruments of the second to churn out crappy propaganda. The distinction is that Trump’s movies aren’t about profitable hearts and minds, they’re about activating a quickly diminishing base of supporters.
“I believe Trump’s stuff is aimed on the similar viewers, besides to persuade them that what they’re doing is righteous and good,” Atherton stated. “Clearly we’re seeing the stuff put out in English to English video-watching audiences however White Home movies—AI or in any other case—are like group-chat in-jokes geared toward preserving cohesion. It isn’t an AI video however the Wii Sports activities/snuff movie one is so skin-crawling that it requires the viewers to be cooked within the feverswamps.”
The Trump administration has guess massive on online game memes because the car for its propaganda efforts. Final October DHS depicted Halo’s Grasp Chief as an anti-immigrant killer and in contrast immigrants to a ravening horde of senseless monsters. Two weeks in the past it revealed a now-deleted video that blended footage from Name of Responsibility with missile strikes in Iran. White Home Communications Director Steven Cheung posted the infinite ammo cheatcode for Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas above footage of airstrikes.
Video video games are extremely standard in america, however many of those memes require a stage of familiarity with particular video games and the tradition round them. LEGO, in contrast, is immediately recognizable to a lot of the world.
JUSTICE THE AMERICAN WAY. 🇺🇸🔥 pic.twitter.com/0502N6a3rL
— The White Home (@WhiteHouse) March 6, 2026
On March 5, the White Home’s X account posted a video mixing American popular culture figures like Walter White, Optimus Prime, Tremendous Man, and Tony Stark with footage from the warfare. Watching it, I used to be reminded of a second from six years in the past after America assassinated Soleimani in the course of the first Trump administration.
On an Iranian tv present, Cleric Shahab Moradi referred to as in to share his ideas on how Iran may strike again. Who may Iran assault that has the identical cultural buy as Soleimani did in Iran? Who have been America’s heroes? “Give it some thought. Are we presupposed to take out Spider-Man and SpongeBob? They have no heroes,” Moradi stated. “We have now a rustic in entrance of us with a big inhabitants and a big landmass, nevertheless it does not have any heroes. All of their heroes are cartoon characters—they’re all fictional.”
And so Iran has chosen to talk to People in a language it thinks we’ll perceive: with cartoons and LEGOs.
In regards to the creator
Matthew Gault is a author masking bizarre tech, nuclear warfare, and video video games. He’s labored for Reuters, Motherboard, and the New York Instances.
