which_chick (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
which_chick) wrote2026-04-12 07:36 am
which_chick) wrote2026-04-12 07:36 am
Entry tags:
Iran's AI lego animations are surprisingly strong
My media-aware readers are, I'm sure, aware of Iran's AI Lego meme propaganda game. To be completely fair, I did not have this on my bingo card for 2026. Heck, I would not have considered Iran to have any AI Lego meme propaganda game.
Explosive Media is, I guess, the ... thing behind the AI lego memes.
Who the hell are they? The BBC reports that they've interviewed a person calling himself "Mr. Explosive" who claims to be a representative of Explosive Media. According to the BBC's article, the Iranian government is a "customer" of Explosive Media. That would suggest that the Iranian government isn't the same as Explosive Media but also that the Iranian government is aware of Explosive Media's efforts and is throwing some money and/or endorsement behind them.
The memes are good. The jokes are on point. The production is slick, the iconography is solid. The people behind this are doing, honestly, a good job with this propaganda, AI or not. In the article, Mr. Explosive claims that Explosive Media's labor force is a team of fewer than ten people. If that's true, AI is a hell of a force multiplier.
(In the future we will drown under a tidal wave of information, real and fake. Eventually we will have AI to read for us because we cannot do it ourselves, lest we be washed away in the flooding of the zone.)
BBC's article cites propaganda expert Dr. Emma Briant, who posits that the AI output was so solid because the AIs have been extensively trained on "western media". Maybe that's true. I don't know fuck-all about AI but I can say that the efforts of Explosive Media hit with native fluency.
I live in the US and admittedly I am not a huge fan of the current administration and specifically not this... effort in Iran. Now, I am only aware of the "US meme propaganda" for this not-a-war effort insofar as I know that it effing sucks. The US shit sucks. Iran, though... Iran is putting out bangers.
I first became aware of the AI lego memes with "Narrative of Victory" which I personally titled as "Pink Backpack". It's just... effective.
This video is visual storytelling with a semi-classical background track.
It opens with Bibi (Netanyahu, the Israel dude in charge) and Trump (our *sigh* duly-elected president) and Satan looking at a folder of the Epstein files. There's a visible AI error on the name Jeffery in the upper left corner, but otherwise no notes.
Trump gets mad and presses a big red button. Y'know, this is a compelling narrative that is very palatable to a lot of people. Is the Iran bullshit at least partly a distraction from the Epstein Files? Our own pundits are calling it Operation Epstein Fury (or at least they werehalf a year three weeks ago. Was Epstein a Mossad agent? Why DOES Trump dance to Bibi's tune??
American missile flies (here and elsewhere, flags are used to indicate nationality of weapons, troops, etc.)
Cut to scene of a school, teacher in black, little girls in pink. There's Arabic on the chalkboard. There's an Iranian flag off to the left, indicating that this is in Iran, in case we're not up to speed on Current Events. This scene is a clear reference to the US bombing of elementary school girls in Iran in Minab on day 1 of the Iran not-a-war, where we slaughtered civilian innocents because our peeps used "outdated coordinates" when preparing the strikes.
The leader of the free world (or at least we used to be) should not be making dumb-ass rookie mistakes in LIVE FIRE ACTIVITIES. What the fuck, did they hit "decline" on the software updates for the targeting software? Y'know, when the opposition doesn't have to make shit up to cast you as the baddie doing war crimes... maybe you need to rethink the righteousness of your cause and the way you're conducting your affairs.
Cut to rubble and the pink backpack. Pink backpack is the signifier for murdered Iranian schoolgirls, obvi.
Iranian everyman military locates the backpack, is enraged.
Next we have missile command in Iran, shown by picture of old Khahmenei (prior leader of Iran, killed in attacks by the US. Current leader of Iran is new Khahmenei, his son.), lighting up targets for Iranian counterstrikes. They push the button.
This is followed by clips of the various targets:
British in Cyprus
downed US plane
Arab tower
Tel Aviv (this is in Israel)
mobile missiles
Israelis running scared
US embassy in Saudi Arabia
Now, the BBC notes in their article that the Lego videos portray things in a slanted or biased light that makes the Iranian government and military look way better than reality. D'oh. It's propaganda. That's what it's FOR. Nobody is fucking watching AI Lego videos for actual news content.
Iran's leadership is shown wargaming. (again, picture of old Khahmenei in background, Iranian flag, also Iran in lego on the wargame table) This is shorthand for "Our guys are working hard..."
Next is Israel under attack, air raid sirens. (The Beeb mentions that the videos are anti-Semitic. I mean, okay maybe? But you can't play the anti-Semitic card every single time someone is not rah-rah-Israel. It's got to be allowed, sometimes, to say that Israel is doing a genocide if in fact Israel is doing a genocide. (That's just as an example apropos of nothing.) And calling Israel out, in that instance, is not anti-Semitic. It's just, y'know, the truth.)
We see Bibi & co fleeing underground (rats a nice touch, maybe they're in a sewer?) The only grey haired dude in a business suit in this video is Bibi. Also there's Hebrew text on the wall of the underground tunnel. It's Bibi & co.
US base in Bahrain
US base in Erbil
Closing strait of Hormuz
Iranian speedboats
US oil execs panicking
Saudi oil execs panicking
Hermes drone hunting
Iranian military leadership looking at strikes landing in Israel
Ben Guiron air base
Mq5 drone hunting
Bibi's office
US solidier dead
Iranian soldier standing guard on the shore
Attacks on aircraft carrier
And a callback to pink backpack.
I mean, it's well done for what it is and the cuts are good and the visuals are good. Yes, yes, AI slop but also effective.
Next we have LOSER, which is a rap video, again with the AI lego. This is a fairly banger affair, here. No notes.
Or maybe you like Orange Pig?
Like, these are just fucking good. They're catchy. "Your government is run by pedophiles." I wouldn't have guessed that was a singable refrain but it totally is.
Here's a news person talking about it in one of those smarter than Americans accents, if you'd like to feel more informed.
Explosive Media is, I guess, the ... thing behind the AI lego memes.
Who the hell are they? The BBC reports that they've interviewed a person calling himself "Mr. Explosive" who claims to be a representative of Explosive Media. According to the BBC's article, the Iranian government is a "customer" of Explosive Media. That would suggest that the Iranian government isn't the same as Explosive Media but also that the Iranian government is aware of Explosive Media's efforts and is throwing some money and/or endorsement behind them.
The memes are good. The jokes are on point. The production is slick, the iconography is solid. The people behind this are doing, honestly, a good job with this propaganda, AI or not. In the article, Mr. Explosive claims that Explosive Media's labor force is a team of fewer than ten people. If that's true, AI is a hell of a force multiplier.
(In the future we will drown under a tidal wave of information, real and fake. Eventually we will have AI to read for us because we cannot do it ourselves, lest we be washed away in the flooding of the zone.)
BBC's article cites propaganda expert Dr. Emma Briant, who posits that the AI output was so solid because the AIs have been extensively trained on "western media". Maybe that's true. I don't know fuck-all about AI but I can say that the efforts of Explosive Media hit with native fluency.
I live in the US and admittedly I am not a huge fan of the current administration and specifically not this... effort in Iran. Now, I am only aware of the "US meme propaganda" for this not-a-war effort insofar as I know that it effing sucks. The US shit sucks. Iran, though... Iran is putting out bangers.
I first became aware of the AI lego memes with "Narrative of Victory" which I personally titled as "Pink Backpack". It's just... effective.
This video is visual storytelling with a semi-classical background track.
It opens with Bibi (Netanyahu, the Israel dude in charge) and Trump (our *sigh* duly-elected president) and Satan looking at a folder of the Epstein files. There's a visible AI error on the name Jeffery in the upper left corner, but otherwise no notes.
Trump gets mad and presses a big red button. Y'know, this is a compelling narrative that is very palatable to a lot of people. Is the Iran bullshit at least partly a distraction from the Epstein Files? Our own pundits are calling it Operation Epstein Fury (or at least they were
American missile flies (here and elsewhere, flags are used to indicate nationality of weapons, troops, etc.)
Cut to scene of a school, teacher in black, little girls in pink. There's Arabic on the chalkboard. There's an Iranian flag off to the left, indicating that this is in Iran, in case we're not up to speed on Current Events. This scene is a clear reference to the US bombing of elementary school girls in Iran in Minab on day 1 of the Iran not-a-war, where we slaughtered civilian innocents because our peeps used "outdated coordinates" when preparing the strikes.
The leader of the free world (or at least we used to be) should not be making dumb-ass rookie mistakes in LIVE FIRE ACTIVITIES. What the fuck, did they hit "decline" on the software updates for the targeting software? Y'know, when the opposition doesn't have to make shit up to cast you as the baddie doing war crimes... maybe you need to rethink the righteousness of your cause and the way you're conducting your affairs.
Cut to rubble and the pink backpack. Pink backpack is the signifier for murdered Iranian schoolgirls, obvi.
Iranian everyman military locates the backpack, is enraged.
Next we have missile command in Iran, shown by picture of old Khahmenei (prior leader of Iran, killed in attacks by the US. Current leader of Iran is new Khahmenei, his son.), lighting up targets for Iranian counterstrikes. They push the button.
This is followed by clips of the various targets:
British in Cyprus
downed US plane
Arab tower
Tel Aviv (this is in Israel)
mobile missiles
Israelis running scared
US embassy in Saudi Arabia
Now, the BBC notes in their article that the Lego videos portray things in a slanted or biased light that makes the Iranian government and military look way better than reality. D'oh. It's propaganda. That's what it's FOR. Nobody is fucking watching AI Lego videos for actual news content.
Iran's leadership is shown wargaming. (again, picture of old Khahmenei in background, Iranian flag, also Iran in lego on the wargame table) This is shorthand for "Our guys are working hard..."
Next is Israel under attack, air raid sirens. (The Beeb mentions that the videos are anti-Semitic. I mean, okay maybe? But you can't play the anti-Semitic card every single time someone is not rah-rah-Israel. It's got to be allowed, sometimes, to say that Israel is doing a genocide if in fact Israel is doing a genocide. (That's just as an example apropos of nothing.) And calling Israel out, in that instance, is not anti-Semitic. It's just, y'know, the truth.)
We see Bibi & co fleeing underground (rats a nice touch, maybe they're in a sewer?) The only grey haired dude in a business suit in this video is Bibi. Also there's Hebrew text on the wall of the underground tunnel. It's Bibi & co.
US base in Bahrain
US base in Erbil
Closing strait of Hormuz
Iranian speedboats
US oil execs panicking
Saudi oil execs panicking
Hermes drone hunting
Iranian military leadership looking at strikes landing in Israel
Ben Guiron air base
Mq5 drone hunting
Bibi's office
US solidier dead
Iranian soldier standing guard on the shore
Attacks on aircraft carrier
And a callback to pink backpack.
I mean, it's well done for what it is and the cuts are good and the visuals are good. Yes, yes, AI slop but also effective.
Next we have LOSER, which is a rap video, again with the AI lego. This is a fairly banger affair, here. No notes.
Or maybe you like Orange Pig?
Like, these are just fucking good. They're catchy. "Your government is run by pedophiles." I wouldn't have guessed that was a singable refrain but it totally is.
Here's a news person talking about it in one of those smarter than Americans accents, if you'd like to feel more informed.
no subject
Anyways, I saw those Iran Lego AI videos and yes they are powerful story telling.