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Iran’s meme war against Trump ushers in a future of ‘slopaganda’

TOPSHOT - This illustration photo created in Los Angeles on April 9, 2026 shows a Lego-style AI-generated war-themed video playing on a smartphone screen in front of a photo of US President Donald Trump and US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth. Shortly after news of a US-Iran ceasefire, an Iranian group released a new Lego-style video lampooning President Donald Trump and declaring "Iran won," the latest in a wave of war-themed AI-generated propaganda flooding the internet.
Cartoonish video memes -- amplified by Iranian diplomatic missions and pro-Tehran accounts on social media -- are emerging as an effective tool in an intensifying information war, a phenomenon analysts have dubbed the "legofication" of war propaganda. (Photo by Chris DELMAS / AFP)

This illustration photo shows a Lego-style AI-generated war-themed video in front of a photo of US President Donald Trump and US Secretary of Defence Pete Hegseth.

PHOTO: AFP

Steven Lee Myers, Stuart A. Thompson

When the US-Israeli war with Iran started two months ago, online accounts linked to Tehran tried building sympathy with defiant and emotional appeals. They had little impact.

Then, as the war dragged on, Iran shifted tactics. It circulated short animated videos that scorched US President Donald Trump and others with biting satire. Mr Trump appeared as a hapless Lego figure, as Woody from Pixar’s Toy Story, as a shag-haired pop star of the 1980s era of MTV.

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Wars and conflicts