Iran's Lego Videos Spark Narrative War Against US

A unique Lego set has taken the internet by storm, featuring a Native American chief riding a horse onto a barren landscape bathed in moonlight. The animated video rapidly shuttles between various people who have been victims of the United States government, including Black Americans in chains and survivors of Iraq's notorious Abu Ghraib prison complex.

The video then pans to Iranian soldiers sticking large banners on missiles, with the tempo of the background music picking up. The banners read: "For the stolen Blacks," "For the people of Hiroshima and Nagasaki," and "In memory of victims of Iran Air flight 655." Other messages include "In memory of Rachel Corrie's freedom struggle" and references to victims of US war and abuses in Afghanistan, Vietnam, and Iraq.

Explosive Media's Viral Videos

The March 29 video is one of many released by Explosive Media, an Iran-based group that uses bespoke lyrics and rap beats to mock US President Donald Trump. The group's YouTube account was recently deleted by Google-owned YouTube, but they are not giving up. An Explosive Media representative stated that their channel was shut down on the grounds of promoting violence, but they believe their Lego-like brick animations are not violent.

The videos have ranged from sombre stories reflecting on Shia-Muslim history to upbeat rap-style music videos, all set to motion in Lego-like brick figures and environments. The group's spokesperson explained that the green and red colors featured in the animation are symbolic, representing the traditions of green for Hussain, the grandson of Prophet Mohammed, and his fight for justice against oppression, and red for the oppressor.

Other videos use phrases like "Epstein regime" and depict Trump's supporters wearing brick red hats with MAGA, referencing Trump's Make America Great Again movement. The videos show Trump's promises to keep the US out of new wars and help ordinary working-class Americans, then use the president's own words to accuse him of betraying his commitments and prioritizing Israeli demands.

Breaking Through the Noise

Explosive Media isn't alone in creating these Lego-themed videos. Other creators, including PersiaBoi and Southern Punk, have made similar videos. The trend has also spread beyond Iran to Pakistan, where local creators like Nukta media have made their own version. Fasi Zaka, an Islamabad-based social commentator, said that the brilliance in the Lego-style videos lies in how they tackle multiple subjects amid a global information narrative that has been set against Iran.

Zaka noted that the videos are ways of breaking through what is an information highway stacked against Iran in times of war. He said that the videos, by focusing on faultlines within US domestic politics, had been really "smart." The use of Lego, a brand and look that parents and children around the world recognize, adds a deeper level of symbolism to the videos.

Marc Owen Jones, a professor at Northwestern University in Qatar, stated that Iran's efforts to win the narrative war were a critical part of its strategy, as it knows it can't win militarily. "Their best bet of success is to have public opinion on their side, pressuring the United States to stop," he said. Jones argued that the carefully chosen themes in the Lego-style videos would have resonated even more with Western audiences if they weren't coming out of Iran.