Taylor Lorenz’s Power User - Inside Iran's Gen Z Meme Army: How LEGO Became War Propaganda

Episode Date: April 15, 2026

Iranian LEGO videos mocking the US government are taking over the internet. Support my independent journalism: 🙏 Patreon: ⁠https://www.patreon.com/cw/taylorlorenz    ⁠ 🗞️ Buy a paid subscription to my Substack: ⁠https://www.usermag.co    ⁠ We are living in an era where global internet culture and meme warfare are just as influential as traditional media and LEGOs are being used to create the most effective messaging around the US-Iran war.I sat down with Areeba Fatima, a journalist for Dropsite News, who's been reporting on the team behind "Explosive Media," the group of seemingly Gen Z Iranians producing this viral content.We dive deep into how these LEGO videos are actively reshaping Americans' perceptions of modern warfare, and why this content is uniquely bridging the gap across the American political spectrum. 🔥 EXCLUSIVE BONUS EPISODE: I tracked down and interviewed a member of Explosive Media, the team in Iran behind these viral LEGO videos. To hear directly from the Iranians making these LEGO videos, watch the full bonus interview on my Patreon or Substack.🙏 Patreon: ⁠⁠https://www.patreon.com/cw/taylorlorenz⁠    ⁠ 🗞️ Buy a paid subscription to my Substack: ⁠⁠https://www.usermag.co⁠    ⁠ We discuss: How these viral LEGO videos are actively reshaping how Americans view our war with Iran.The fascinating Telegram history of Explosive Media, revealing they started as young internet natives posting about sports, exams, and movies before the war escalated.Why mainstream liberal accounts and right-wing podcasters in America are both sharing this content by the millions.How this Gen Z team uses AI to bypass sanctions, generate rap songs, and tap directly into global internet culture.The relentless cat-and-mouse game of Explosive Media getting banned from platforms like YouTube and X, only to immediately return.Support Independent Journalism: I currently have zero brand sponsors or advertising partners. My work is solely funded by viewers like you. If you value this content, please consider supporting me so I can keep producing these deep dives🙏 Patreon: ⁠https://www.patreon.com/cw/taylorlorenz    ⁠ 🗞️ Buy a paid subscription to my Substack: ⁠https://www.usermag.co    ⁠ 

They were not that serious, and the war made them serious, and it made their content acceptable to people. That's why it got so viral, and that's why everyone's now talking about it, because it's hitting. If you spent time on social media over the past six weeks, you might have encountered these Lego videos about Donald Trump and the U.S. government. These videos have gone viral, amassing millions and millions of views across platforms and spurring endless copycats. And there's strong evidence that these Lego videos are actively reshaping Americans' perceptions

of our war with Iran. Ariba Fatima is a journalist for DropSight News. She's been reporting on these Lego videos and the team behind them. They're called Explosive Media, and it's a group of seemingly Gen Z Iranians who are making incredibly effective political propaganda. But that's actually not how explosive media started.

Today, Arriba is joining me to break down the rise of political messaging through Lego videos, talk about the inside reporting she's done on explosive media, and break down what her findings reveal about how the Internet is shaping modern world. warfare. I also interviewed a member of explosive media myself. And if you want to listen to that interview and hear directly from the Iranians making these Lego propaganda videos, you can watch that interview on my substack or Patreon, both linked below as a bonus episode. Currently, I have no brand sponsors. So my work is solely and completely funded by people like you. So please, please click the links below and support my work. Now, without further ado, we're going to talk to Eribe. Hi, Arriba. Welcome to Power User. Thank you so much for

bringing me here today. So I started to notice these Lego videos online, maybe like early March, not that long after the war started. And I feel like they really specifically started to go viral on Twitter. When did you start to notice them bubbling up online? So I feel like around 7th March, the first week of March, it was pretty clear that these videos are really popular. And I started seeing them honestly, all that runs at all the social media platforms. They were on TikTok, they were on YouTube, They were on Instagram. And this kind of virality for content that is totally animated, there's no sense of factual news in it. It's literally just for fun.

This kind of content was getting so viral and I didn't really understand why Lego and who is really doing this. For initially, it honestly felt like this was just a bunch of kids here in the US or something. I think the first video that came out was more about Nathan Yahoo and Trump's little Lego versions, signing a deal together. Epstein was featured in the video. The Minab School Strike was directly referenced in the video. And that was like a big thing. I think a lot of people were already talking about the school strike

on multiple social media platforms. So when they started seeing this video that showed, honestly, quite like a sad imagery of all these, like, kids being bombed, that picked it up. From that point onwards, I feel like it was just a snowball effect. All these activist groups on Instagram, like, New York Indivisible, they started publishing these videos regularly. It's interesting you mentioned that the Indivisible page was sharing it.

I started to notice these videos get a lot of traction with like liberals and specifically kind of like mainstream normie liberals that I think are already consuming a huge amount of like anti-Trump AI slap online. And this kind of just seemed to like feed right into it. It was definitely more critical of Israel like you mentioned. What stood out to me is that so many of these like kind of normy. liberal accounts were comfortable sharing, you know, this video that villainized Netanyahu and Trump. And I think it just speaks to kind of like how against the war they are. And the fact that

they will share kind of any anti-Trump content, even if it is, you know, from Iran. Yeah. I think Trump was like the biggest thing. There was a lot of sentiment already in people that this war is just not something that they're behind. And it was after that poll went viral. The 67% Americans don't want this war to go on. This kind of resonated with a lot of people. Although I would say that it has all the hallmarks of war propaganda, because a lot of stuff is basically very sanitized. Like, for example, when the pilot was captured, they published a video showing the Iranian villagers shooting at the plane. And it came out like within a few seconds of when that news broke on the newsfires.

So it was very interesting how closely they were coordinating with the war. And because it was such a direct commentary, so, so. It almost felt like people are part of some kind of like a Lego series on the board as it is happening. Yeah, I think the format of the Lego videos, like you said, it's kind of like so, it's sanitized in a way where like you see like rivers of blood and all this other stuff, but it almost feels like a game or like you're watching video game footage. I'm also just thinking of like the Lego movie and like Legos are this like iconic American kind of brand. And I mean, they're not a video game, but I feel like it likes it. that's people kind of like almost put themselves in a video game scenario. We've seen video game footage already used in different wars,

often misappropriated by the White House or used in propaganda films. But this seems kind of like like cartoon-y almost, and it does make it feel like almost you're like following different characters in this like cartoon, you know, war. And these are very well-defined characters. They have each episode, like, little episode, it has a villain and there's like this big devil at the end that everyone meets. So it's almost fantastical.

It's a very mythological version of what was happening in the war. And I think it made people feel like they were part of the behind the scenes, which they actually had no idea about. Because when Trump went to war, everyone was just wondering, wait, why is this happening? Didn't we just destroy all the nukes in the 12-day war last year? So what's up? And it made everyone feel like they were a part of that room

where Lego Netanyahu and Lego Trump are making these decisions and signing these deals. and looking at these Epstein files. It's also really interesting in a lot of these little videos. Every time they show Trump, they show him with a little doll and a phone. So it's very consistent, the kind of animation they're doing. It's consistent across the different videos. So they're trying to create this narrative around.

Nathan Yahoo always gets almost, always gets like little horns towards the end of the video when things are reaching a climactic point. And all the Iranian leaders, they look like they're very well-saved and crum. and these little Lego toys like Lego Abbasarraf tree and Lego Ghalibha. They're all there. So it's a full action-packed sequence, every little clip. And I think it is just this high production value that really shocked everyone. Because how the hell is this happening in Iran?

I know. It's like they barely have internet. I think also the songs are so catchy. Like past propaganda was often very like it had much more like religious iconography. This kind of content, it just feels. feels so internet native. And they have this like, what sounds like an American rapper, it's probably generated by AI, like rapping over, you know, singing these songs that they've now put on Spotify as

well. I think they have like tens of thousands of listens. And it's just catchy. Like I literally hear that like LOSEs are song in my head like over and over. It was playing at the No Kings March and people were going crazy over it. Like it's a really popular tune. And now you see other people using this as a trend on their. reels on Instagram, just like this song itself is so popular.

You mentioned the No Kings March. And I mean, there were people that had like these little Lego like icons. They were making signs off this. I feel like this Lego propaganda has like really proliferated and a lot of Americans have embraced it themselves and they're using it in their own protest, you know, signage. Yeah, for sure. And I feel like it's just, it was also somehow coincidental timing like people at every No Kings March, people really like to mock.

and make like a whole comedy festival out of it. Like there's all kinds of little men dressed up as Trump with like the cape and a crown and everything. So there's so many of these images and making fun of Trump is just something that everyone loves to join Democrat or at this point. A lot of the people on the right are also really, really upset for Trump. Well, exactly. And I think that this, I mean, these American Lego videos have also been shared by a lot of big right-wing accounts. We saw like big right wing podcasters, like laughing at them, being like, this is so based. Like this is hilarious.

Like these videos have gotten millions and millions and millions of views. It's hard to even categorize like how viral they've become. There's like slews of copycats of them. Like this is like, I mean, I would say this content is just like pervasive across the internet. And at the end of these videos, there was like a Persian saying, right? Can you tell me what you noticed and how you started investigating this group that actually produces this content? Yeah, I think I knew from the start that this is something that's going to get big.

And I started seeing this little watermark at the bottom of these videos, which said Akbar and infarjarity. So, Akbar is news and infidiarity is explosive. So it's basically explosive news. And that was their name on Telegram. That was a Telegram channel with Explosive News. There was an X account with explosive news. There was an Instagram account. Very quickly, they got onto all the platforms and very quickly they got banned from those platforms.

But it could all be traced to this one telegram channel, which has, I think, now thousands of subscribers. But it's getting really viral on Instagram as well. The Instagram account, despite being blocked and despite these guys having to make it again and again, I think around 23rd March, both the Instagram account and the X account kind of solidified. And ever since then, it's pretty much been the same account. And now there's like 25,000 or more subscribers on Instagram. There's around 50,000 followers on Twitter. They have their, as we said, there's a rap album, three-song album, but still, I would say it is pretty much into baking.

I think it's pretty interesting that they got back on all the platforms pretty quickly, and they were able to back up a lot of the media. But a lot of the initial videos you can still really originally only find on their telegram channel. Yeah, I feel like they got banned and then they got back on pretty quickly and then they've gotten banned again. They were just banned again on YouTube last week. It's definitely this game of cat and mouse where like they're obviously not violating terms in any way, like with the actual content itself. But I think because these are American run social media platforms, they often moderate in a way that's obviously friendly to the American government's interests and they don't want propaganda, foreign propaganda. So they're banning them. So you've saw the sort of that little watermark at the end that says explosive news.

You start to notice that explosive news, explosive media has some of these handles that they're distributing this content out. But you also mentioned that they have this telegram. group. What did you find when you went into that telegram group? Yeah, that was actually the most interesting part because I realized that that's the only place where there's an archive of their activities that goes way before the war. I could find posts as early as like December 2025. When it was peak Iran protests, there were like the whole region was unstable, politically unstable. There was a lot of conversation about how Razar Shah Pahlavi is going to come back.

A lot of people in the Iranian diaspora really wanted that to happen. So December, January, that's when they posted a lot, like every single day. So you look at this telegram channel. It's basically like a broadcast channel. You can't post any messages. You can only react to messages that the team is sending and the team is explosive media. It's the team that's making all this Lego content that has their logo on all this Lego content. And you see that the kind of post they're posting in January and late December are a mix of anti-regime and pro-regime.

There's some videos that are about the Iranian economy. It's critiquing the policies that have been put in place or the new finance minister and how quickly he keeps changing. But there's other videos at the same time which are commenting directly on the protests that were happening in Iran at that time. A lot of people were demanding regime change. A lot of people were criticizing the economy. But there was a lot of discussion on Western news media about how all these people are being killed by the regime and they're being persecuted. At that time, the conversation that this channel was tapping into

was about foreign intervention, because that was a big debate. And they were trying to do these visual investigation format pieces where they show that there's a protester, but that protester is wearing a mask. And there's a bunch of animated content that is trying to depict the same thing, the same idea. It kind of shows that they have a complicated understanding of their relationship with the government.

They are not exactly pro-government. or anti-government, at least in January and December, they are criticizing the Iranian economy, but they are also very critical of foreign intervention in Iran. They want to maintain their sovereignty, but they are also the kind of people who want a better economic governance in the country. They want the inflation to go away, but they're also not people who want Israel to come into power in Iran, or does al-Shapel-be to come into power in Iran. So that, it kind of showed that their relationship with the state was complicated, that they

were thinking about a lot of other things at that time. It's interesting what you're saying about this channel, not just being like a complete government mouthpiece channel way back in December and January. Because I think if you look at the content from explosive media now, obviously they're best known as like Iranian propagandists. People are like, oh my God, we love their Iranian propaganda, et cetera. But back then, it sounds like the original kind of founding of explosive media was not necessarily for propaganda.

And it was, I guess, seemingly to like kind of cover a range of issues. In addition to all of this sort of like commentary on like the political and economic system at the time, were they sharing any other kind of content? Yeah, there was a lot of stuff about exams. They were worried about giving exams, a lot of meme content about that. And there were a lot of young people featured in these videos. I could literally not find someone who looked older than 30, 35, to be honest, in all the keyframes I searched. And there was a lot of content about sports. They were picking up old videos of footballers, but some of their best goals being featured.

They were talking about Gladlega, which is this big football league. It made me think that these people must be very young. They're interested in sports. They're worried about their exams. And they're interested in watching Iranian films and recommending them to their subscribers, however many they have on telegram. So that was pretty interesting. And it made me feel like they were trying to have a lot of fun with their content before the war started. You could see that they were also using a lot of references to American media.

They were talking about articles published on the New York Times. In January, they were very interested in Nicholas Maduro. They were showing a lot of footage from Maduro and his wife being taken to the court in Brooklyn. They were also talking about how Maduro being kidnapped was illegal. So there was a lot of commentary on international news, especially Venezuela. And there was a lot of commentary about Russia, about India. Just talking about how India is still buying Russian oil, despite the fact that America doesn't want it to. I feel like they really had their hands on the American pulse, like what are people consuming, what pop culture references are they watching and sharing, especially the Olympics.

They were sharing a lot of content from the Olympics, JD Vance being at Olympics. And it felt like they could connect with a lot of young American people. Like if this team met young American leftists, who you could see at Mamdani rallies, who you could see in rallies that happened in Brooklyn, it seemed like they would love to talk to each other about these memes and about the political. content that they were all consuming. It feels like a lot of their content that was in just Iran, like about maybe the films, we might not be fully able to understand or relate to here. But they were really watching everything. And they were in on all these jokes since before the war started.

They knew what people were talking about, how Israel is kind of whispering into Trump's year. And then Trump does something and that's reported in their little videos and snippets. One thing that I feel like is so interesting that we've seen with like the globalization of social media. And ironically, Iran has like been pretty cut off from this because of their like localized internet, kind of like how China is technically cut off. Although there's VPNs everywhere is like it seems like especially when it comes to young people, they're able to connect across borders. Like I mean, we saw this with when the beginning of the genocide in Palestine when these young Palestinians would get on TikTok and share about their lives. And like you said, talk about like internet culture, pop culture and like online culture stuff that resonates almost no matter where you. you are in the world. It's in a lot of ways, American, like, we generate so much culture, but it spreads so

much. And I don't know. I think it's interesting that there's this sort of like global class of like young people that are all kind of like culturally adjacent to each other because of the internet, no matter where they are. Yeah, I felt like they could really connect with the kind of discussions that were happening here in New York. And there was, for example, during December, there was a lot of Christmas content and they were sharing a lot of little Christmas reels. Even one of the people who appear in the video again and again, there was this one AI-generated photo of this guy sitting like this in front of a Christmas tree. It was very interesting to see that they were really trying to make a comment on everything that was happening. What sort of content were they sharing?

Like when we're talking about, you know, the discussion in the telegram groups back before the war, obviously they're most known for making these like iconic Lego videos now, but were they sharing like AI-generated content back then? Was it mostly memes? Was it most Was it mostly like link posts? Like, what did explosive media's content look like? Yeah, honestly, a significant part of it was just also weather, updates, and landscapes. Like just videos of snowfall in Iran, in different parts of Iran. They have a particular obsession with how people deal with snow in Japan.

So there were a lot of videos about snowfall in Japan. But what was more significant to the buildup to how their content changed when the war happened? For example, there was a bunch of, videos about Jeffrey Sachs and what he's been talking about. He's a Columbia University professor and he talks about how sanctions have hurt the Venezuelan economy, how they've heard the Iranian economy on a bunch of left-wing podcasts here in the U.S. So it was interesting to see him there. Obviously, there was a lot of commentary on Gaza and Israel and the genocide happening in Gaza and the fact that American military aid is complicit in that. Every time there was a protest

reference, they talked about the No King's March. They actually made an AI generated video about the No Kingsmarts showing their content. Wait, they did? They did. And it's so self-referential. It's kind of like young people in America and the young people in Iran are trying to have this conversation with each other through memes, and they were responding. So they featured the No Kings March in one of their videos later on. There's a lot of commentary on AI as well. When it comes to AI, they were talking a lot about how to circumvent sanctions, how to use a VPN, how to use Google Gemini, by using a

a VPN. They were talking about stuff like AI benchmarks and evaluations and what new things are happening. Their AI coverage really showed that they knew what was happening in the AI industry in the US and they really wanted to be a part of it. They wanted to know how to use AI. They were very interested in tech. And it kind of also opened a window into what the Iranian society thinks about AI, because there were some clips from state media channels where there are experts, Iranian experts sitting on state media talking about how to decipher whether an image or videos AI generated or what are the hallmarks of AI generated footage. And they're just disseminating these clips about what was said on state media. And one very particularly interesting story was

how this professor, this mathematics professor in Tehran University, used AI to kind of convert numbers while he was teaching math and use it on as a projection. So it showed that people in Iran know what's happening with AI. They're kind of in on it. And they're trying to use it as much as they possibly can, given the fact that they're facing sanctions. They also mention a lot of Chinese AI stuff like Seedance and how Seedance was used in one of the new Transformer equivalent movies in China. So that was very interesting. And I think it shows that they're tech savvy. They know how to use AI. They know how to use multiple different AI tools. They can probably generate audio with AI. They can generate video with AI. They can make animation with AI. And that's what

were doing with Lego. It's so interesting. I mean, like, the AI stuff really has pervaded the whole world. When I did a story on these AI Slap channels back when I worked at the Washington Post, I interviewed people that were running like a lot of these like AI sloppy YouTube channels and they were all over, especially in India, but also in South Asia, Africa, South America. Like, it just seems like there's a lot of people in foreign continents that recognize the value of using AI to reach people, especially in America and shape American's perceptions around certain issues or topics or whatever, or they just want to make money

on YouTube shorts. And so they're like leaning pretty heavily into it. So the war breaks out, you know, end of February, beginning of March. When did explosive media start generating this Lego content? Yeah, I think the Lego content got really popular 7th March onwards. But

even before that, you could see some little clips which showed like the precursor videos to what these Lego videos would look like as a complete visual package. There were some rudimentary drawings of Trump looking really orange, having really, really yellow hair. There were some rudimentary joints of Netanyahu looking like a red devil bear. And they were already using AI to do commentary on Trump.

They even had a Persian song about Trump, and it was a full animated video, clearly looked AI-generated. But the Lego visual package got very coherent 7th March onwards. That's when their first Lego video came out. And before that, they were also using AI-generated videos for other war-related content. I remember there was this one video which showed the Native Americans. It showed people in North Korea. It showed people in Iran. It showed people in Palestine.

Just like trying to build this narrative of all these countries, which are or have been at war with America, or have like this anti-imperialist history or local movements, which are kind of opposed to American intervention in their foreign policy. They were trying to build this narrative and they were trying to use AI to do it. But 7th March is when they really hit the mark and they made this one perfect Lego visual video that I think everyone has seen. Yeah, it's the most viral one. I don't want to play too much of the video because I'm worried that it will get my YouTube channel banned. They've been repeatedly banned from YouTube.

But this video hit like crazy. Like, I mean, it blew up. And as we were talking about before, these videos have only sort of further continued to be a success. And, you know, it's interesting because after they blew up, I think very quickly, Americans started to be like, well, what's going on? Like, these are Iranian propaganda videos potentially, like who's making them, who's behind them. And you reached out pretty early to the explosive media team, right? Yeah, I reached out to them on X.

And I literally did not think they would ever respond to me. So around April 2nd, the New Yorker article comes out. And it was clear that now finally, this team was talking to people of the American press. They spoke to New Yorker. They spoke to 404 media. They spoke to BBC. They started speaking to all these people.

I was having conversations with them as well. Yeah, I feel like they're getting all this mainstream media press. This is when they finally started responding to me. And I was like, hey, like, I think I messaged them about the BBC interview or around that time. They did this interview with the BBC that I have to say was like crazy hyperbolic. Like the BBC was kind of like slandering them and negging them and making. them seem like really shady. And I get that these are Iranian propagandists, I guess. But I also

think that the way the BBC covered it was like a little bit inflammatory. And they kept trying to make it seem like they were effectively just like a mouthpiece for the Iran government, which I think they are. But I think it's a lot more complicated than that. Yeah. It feels like they definitely had a very complicated relationship with the government. And in the BBC articles, you can see that they're kind of like making a big headline about this is the first time explosive media has confessed that they are paid by the Iranian government. I think it's very clear that at some point the Iranian government reached out to them and they were like, hey kids, you guys are doing a pretty good job. Why don't you just like take money from us and do it better?

And all the White House memes that were coming out and have been coming out ever since Trump 2.0, I feel like it was directly clashing with that narrative because the White House memes show all this like grant version of how American someone can be, what it means to be American. and hyper-masculine imagery, a lot of old American country songs, and then Trump walking like he is the king. The content that they were making was kind of like directly targeting that. So it may appear that there is a force of a state machinery behind this group, but from the previous content, you can see that it was very clear that this content developed over time.

And initially, they were just like a bunch of young kids sharing media sources with their subscribers, that they were consuming themselves. And I wouldn't say that there's any way they are producing such high-quality imagery so quickly without the Iranian government support on some level. But I would also not say that they're just doing this as like tired propaganda activists who don't even believe in what they're making.

Because the quality of their content is like they're trying to create art and this, and war propaganda is art. Yeah, it's offensive art, but it is artistic. It's so interesting because some of the, imagery that they were sharing in these Lego videos. So for example, when they're showing the Bahrain embassy, when they're showing the Qatar embassy, the people who are running, the little Lego people running away from those embassies,

they're trying to make them look like the people who actually worked in those embassies. So there's a lot of attention to detail. And of course, AI is not that great. AI generated content is still not super amazing. You can't make high quality budgeted Lego movies on it. So you definitely need some money to make this happen. And these kids did not have that money. I could sense that over time, their production value really changed.

But the way in which BBC was trying to kind of gotcha them, that gotcha interview was not what I would have done. Because if you're getting a chance to open a window into a society, which has largely remained opaque for you. As a journalist, you kind of should try your best to also learn what you can learn about that society that you didn't know before. I think there's a lot of. of preconceived notions about what happens in Iran. I've been to Iran myself and I've met young

people there. Yes, they are forced to wear the hijab and everything, but I had a bunch of young girls come up to me and ask me about my eyebrow piercing. And they were like, where did you get this from? So I know that every society like this is complicated and it is hard to live there and you, you criticize your government, but you also just want to be a young person, global citizen who's on the internet and who's watching a lot of rap songs and wants to make one about Trump. I mean, there's so much of that happening in the U.S. People are talking about Trump all the time. Young people are shitting on Trump. They do not like him. He is literally the worst, most unfavorable president of America has ever had. So I feel like this is all part of a pop culture

that they're creating. And they just happen to be in a position where the quality of their content was so good, the Iranian state hired them. Yeah, I think it's so hilarious also because like, I mean, not only does America put out so much propaganda, like for us to criticize anyone for making propaganda, it's like America makes insane levels of propaganda, but this White House specifically has hired all of these zoomers to make the most aggressive American propaganda that we've ever seen on the internet. And so I think it's like, I mean, should we be skeptical of state propaganda? Yes, I'm very skeptical of American state propaganda as well, which is like also shoved down our throats.

And so I think much the way that like, I guess Elon Musk at Doge was like hiring random shit posters off Twitter that he found, you know, that we're already posting like effectively white nationalism. The Iranian government likely, you know, like you mentioned, saw what these kids were doing and we're like, wow, this is clearly hitting. We like the message. The explosive media said themselves on Twitter repeatedly that like they consider it an honor to work for the government and, you know, and that they want to support their people against American imperialism, which I completely understand as well. It's like if you're getting bombed by America, you hate Donald Trump. You're making this content already.

And then, you know, the government comes and says, hey, we want to pour gasoline on the fire. Like it just doesn't seem, you know, that different from what Donald Trump is doing. And that's the thing, right? Like they were already doing this. They were commenting on international politics. They were using AI to do it. All the seeds of what this movement of Lego Media looks like was already present. These seeds had been sown in December, in January.

You could see it in their content. And yes, they have a complicated relationship with their government. They are also religious people. Like a lot of these videos, you can see the actual members of the team talking to the camera, either doing a news report or just doing a vlog. I remember there was this one really funny one where they talk about Area 51 and they share a bunch of clips of Obama's when he was questioned about Area 51 and when Trump has been questioned about Area 51. So it's, they were not that serious and the war made them serious and it made their content

more serious and seriously acceptable to people. And that's why it got so viral and that's why everyone's now talking about it because it's hitting. And I think that it's hitting in large part because of this sort of like global, I don't want to say like solidarity, but like certainly understanding of culture. And like, I think the internet is. so global, even despite the fact that Iran has all of these, you know, firewalls up and America's increasingly building firewalls. Like, you know, VPNs are a thing and culture travels. And I think

the language of the internet is so pervasive that they've really been able to tap into it effectively. Honestly, just the way that a lot of the people hired by the Trump administration have also been able to tap into it. Like, I know that they're not as good as the Iranians lately. But, you know, Donald Trump got into power through the internet. His entire first presidency as well was defined by the internet and like through posters and through leveraging effectively putting out propaganda through the internet. And this is also a very global phenomenon. Like I feel like a lot of people have this misconception that internet culture or meme culture

is like just so big in America. Like Nepal literally voted on their prime minister on discord in Pakistan when this recent government came into power and hosted a fake election. In 2024, the internet was banned and mobile internet was shut down and people were kind of like coordinating electoral symbols by making AI bots and stuff so that they can know exactly which polling station to go to. So I think there's like, it's happening all over the world and it is happening now in Iran as well. I think it's also like important for people. I don't know. I've posted a little bit about this and people are like, it's so bad.

How can you glorify Iran is a horrible country that's oppressing its people and how can you glorify their propaganda? there are like those people online as well. And what I would say to them is like, again, you can criticize these regimes. Hopefully you criticize the American oppressive government as well, which is doing atrocities around the world and murdering girls' schools and murdering people and, you know, committing genocide. But also like recognize that like you said, the people are not necessarily the government, even those doing propaganda for the government are still like people.

And it's worth like understanding why certain propaganda works well and like what it taps into even here in America so that you can better understand people around the world and understand the motivations and the messages, you know, that they're trying to kind of get out. I think it's important for us to understand that. I don't think this is like 1995. And we're just going to wait for like the New York Times to report on what we should think of Iran. I think we can like hear directly from their propagandists, I guess, or whatever. I could see over time that they had been trying to be a part of this larger internet culture

online. What has really been preventing them has been. sanctions. They were trying to post these stories and share information about how to use the VPN to make an account on X or how to use the VPN to use Google Gemini. And that really shows that these people are also people who just want to be like in a group of young people from all over the world who are maybe anti-imperialist or progressive leftist. Yeah, some of them are crazy religious as well. But that's the kind of vibe that I thought I got from this group of kids and just the fact that they got rolled into the war,

it's very much like the rest of us. We got rolled into Trump's war. We had no idea what was going to happen. And this is how it ended up affecting them. It rose them to the ranks of state media for Iran, which I don't think they were anticipating to do. I don't think that was on their checklist, that this is going to be my 2026 gig.

Like, that's not what they were thinking. Well, Ariba, thank you so much for joining. Where can people continue to follow your work? They can follow me on X or Instagram at Arriva Fatma A. And there's also a link to my substack. Amazing. Well, thank you so much again for joining. Thank you.

All right, that's it for this week's episode of Power User. Once again, if you want to watch the full interview between me and representatives from Explosive Media, the Iranian group making all of these videos, please click the link below and support me on Patreon or Substack. It will be coming out as a bonus episode later today or tomorrow. I currently have zero advertising sponsors or brand partners. so my work is entirely funded by you. Your support is the only way I can continue to make these videos and produce my podcast.

Thank you so much and I'll be back next week with a brand new episode of Power User. See you then.