War through memes

In early March, social media accounts linked to the White House posted several videos of airstrikes against Iran that resembled cinematic trailers for video games and action films. Set to high-energy music, footage of real explosions was interspersed with clips taken from pop culture references like Top Gun and Call of Duty. By the start of April, these videos had reached nearly 100 million views.

Meanwhile, networks with both direct and loose affiliations with the Iranian media also released their own videos. Using a Lego-style animation, they depicted American and Israeli political leaders in absurd and exaggerated scenes. These clips immediately accumulated millions of views, comments, and shares, with some users providing English translations to ensure non-Farsi speakers could fully understand them.

These two content streams appear to serve very distinct strategic aims. The United States-produced videos seem primarily directed at domestic audiences to consolidate public support. In contrast, the Iranian-linked content appears to be aimed toward a broader global audience in order to shape international perception and stoke dissent against the US. But what unites these otherwise divergent examples is their form. War narratives are now being repackaged into viral videos.

Welcome to war in the age of social media and artificial intelligence. Both sides draw from the same pop culture vocabulary of memes, games, animation, and algorithmically optimized storytelling. War is no longer fought only on the ground, but in social media feeds. And the side that wins the public perception game will not necessarily be the most accurate or substantive, but the most compelling.

In 2015, entrepreneur Jeff Giesea wrote in the Nato Defence Strategic Communications journal about the growing importance of what he called “memetic warfare.” He defined it as the fight to shape narratives and exert influence on a social media battlefield. He argued that this represents an evolution of traditional information operations, where the goal is no longer just to control information, but to influence how people understand and share it. Giesea urged Nato members to invest in this area, warning that the online battle for attention and perception would only become more important in both warfare and diplomacy, as a key tool in gaining a competitive advantage.

The use of narrative and visual techniques to influence public perception during wartime has always been a strategic priority, but what has significantly changed is the medium and speed. In the past, newspaper reports, broadcast footage, political speeches, and documentary images still enabled the audience to thoughtfully engage with the material being shown. They were also tied to formal sources or institutions, making it easier to assess bias and to hold someone accountable for any inconsistencies or misinformation.

In contrast, memetic warfare takes advantage of the digital attention economy, where anything novel, provocative, and “snackable” is likely to be shared and amplified. For example, promoting a rousing ideological message no longer requires formal, lengthy statements. Short-form posts designed for rapid consumption can accomplish the same intent faster and with greater emotional impact. Plus, the audience becomes active participants in its distribution, who at times may consume and share content without taking time to scrutinize the messaging. More importantly, these posts can be easily anonymized and coordinated, making them harder to trace to a single source.

Critics describe the phenomenon as part of a troubling “gamification” of war. Memes and stylized videos can bypass a person’s reflective process, making it easy to influence one’s perception without requiring critical evaluation. The juxtaposition of violent war content with entertainment on social media platforms also lessens its perceived severity. Over time, this could lead to an erosion of empathy, wherein disturbing images and narratives that may have once provoked moral attention and outrage become normalized due to crafted aesthetics and repeated exposure.

Public accountability depends on a citizenry that is capable of informed scrutiny and sustained moral engagement. When war is reframed as content, there may be less interest in deepening one’s awareness of the layered causes and consequences of conflict. The ethical weight of war, especially its devastating impact on the lives that are directly affected, risks being diminished or even rendered irrelevant to some.

In this context, the responsibility of those of us viewing the war from a distance becomes more urgent. We must resist the pull of easy, autopilot consumption and reassert habits of critical thinking, context, and reflection. If memetic warfare prioritizes engagement over understanding, then the challenge is to reclaim our capacity to see the war as a complex human reality that demands moral attention and judgment grounded in nuance, not bite-sized information.

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eleanor@shetalksasia.com