Iran’s war propaganda homes in on Trump with Lego memes
Young Iranian women walk past a government building covered with a giant anti-US billboard showing a symbolic image of the destroyed USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier in downtown Tehran, Iran, on February 26, 2026, the last day of Iran-US talks in Geneva.
Morteza Nikoubazl | Nurfoto | Getty Images
Wartime propaganda has evolved in the age of social media, and Iran now competes with the United States to become the world’s greatest keyboard warrior.
As real-world bombardment in the Middle East continues and casualties mount, both sides of the month-long war are firing up ironic, pop-culture-infused memes on the online battlefield. Iran’s new leaders quickly adopted a war stance online, amplifying memes and targeting attacks against the United States and Israel.
“What we are seeing is not just a war of weapons, but also a war of aesthetics,” he said. Nancy SnowA professor and writer who works on propaganda. “He who controls the meme controls the mood.”
Iran’s main target is President Donald Trump; state media and senior officials tirelessly mock the US leader and amplify criticism of him.
Senior members of Iran’s parliament, the Revolutionary Guard and even president Masoud Pezeshkian have tried to insult or undermine Trump in their messages. And they’re using the world’s most popular social media platforms like Facebook and X to get the word out.
Among the most striking examples: a series of apparently Videos created by artificial intelligence It depicts Iran’s military successes against the United States and Israel in Legoesque cartoon art style.
One of the photos shows Trump ordering an airstrike after reviewing the “Epstein Dossier” with Satan and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Another, a rap diss song, calls Trump a “loser” and accuses him of being Netanyahu’s “puppet” over stock market selloffs, missile strikes and coffin images.
These and other messages from Iran regularly reference jeffrey epsteinDeceased sex offender and former Trump friend, center conspiracy theories The president started the Iran war to distract the public from headlines about the release of files related to the Epstein investigation.
The clear aim of Iran’s message is not only to challenge and counter US assessments of Tehran’s military weakness, but also to weaken Trump by focusing on some of his biggest political weaknesses.
“Iran is blending grievance with meme culture, mixing Epstein, anti-war sentiment and popular imagery to penetrate fragmented Western audiences,” Snow said.
St. As for why they use Legos to convey their message, it may be because of their universal appeal, said Dan Butler, a political science professor at Washington University in St. Louis. uses toys in his teaching.
“The reason it works in education is the same reason gamers use it for propaganda: people love Legos and will start watching Lego-based movies,” Butler told CNBC in an email.
“In fact, if something is violent, using Lego can weaken people’s defenses and also make them more likely to share the material,” he said.
Air raids, bowling and Grand Theft Auto
Meanwhile, the Trump administration has even more literally merged wartime messaging with internet culture.
In the early days of the war, official accounts shared videos that added clips from sports, movies and video games to actual footage of military attacks.
The images match the relentlessly exaggerated and boastful rhetoric of Trump and his Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth repeatedly trumpets the “destruction” of the Iranian military while assuring that the United States is rapidly approaching its goals of victory.
The videos have faced criticism, including from some former US military officials, for trivializing a war in which more than a dozen US soldiers died and hundreds were injured.
But White House officials involved in creating the videos say they have proven effective in attracting attention and connecting with young people. One of them told Policy These efforts are intended to praise the heroic work of U.S. troops “in a way that captivates the audience.”
The White House told CNBC it plans to stick to its messaging strategy.
“The legacy media wants us to apologize for highlighting the incredible success of the U.S. military, but the White House will continue to showcase many examples of Iran’s ballistic missiles, production facilities, and nuclear weapons dreams being destroyed in real time,” spokeswoman Anna Kelly said.
The end game of the meme war
Roger Stahl, a University of Georgia communications professor whose research covers rhetoric and propaganda, said war propaganda is nothing new, but what is being produced now and what it is intended to accomplish is unprecedented.
Stahl said the Trump administration did not launch much of a war propaganda campaign before launching the first attacks on Feb. 28 and “made no attempt to legitimize this conflict before or after.”
“Instead we get a series of memes” and “some truly bellicose statements from Pete Hegseth,” Stahl said. “I don’t see any message discipline. I think they’re everywhere.”
He said the purpose of this was to mobilize Trump’s supporter base and attract attention.
By the second criterion, the strategy has been successful: Four videos have been published on the official White House X account. March 5 And 6 As of April 1, it had nearly 100 million impressions.
Stahl said Iran’s goal is not to persuade or surround its own people, who are reportedly facing prolonged internet blackouts, but rather to mount a “retaliation attack” that would undermine the United States globally.
“There’s a lot of erosion in terms of potential [U.S.] “Our allies have support for this war, and messages from Iran also play a role in this.”
Targeting Trump
This isn’t all memes and trolling. Iranian officials are also focusing on the destabilizing impact of the war on Iran. global economy and energy prices.
On Sunday, Iranian parliament speaker Mohammad-Bagher Ghalibaf suggested on X that Trump’s habit of announcing war updates on his Truth Social account was actually an effort to influence the stock markets.
“Caution: Pre-market so-called ‘news’ or ‘Fact’ is often a fiction used just to make profits. Fundamentally this is a reversal indicator,” Ghalibaf wrote.
“Do the opposite,” the speaker advised investors. “If they pump, short-circuit. If they drain, keep going for a long time. See something tomorrow? You know the drill.”
On Monday morning, Trump wrote: Real Social He said the US was “in serious talks with a NEW AND MORE REASONABLE REGIME to end our Military Operations in Iran.”
While oil prices continued their rise, the S&P 500 ended the trading day with a decline.
Galibaf on Tuesday shared A CNN article about Americans struggling with a war-induced rise in US gas prices.
“It’s sad, but this is what happens when your leaders put others before hard-working, ordinary Americans. It’s no longer America First, it’s Israel First,” he wrote.
