Inside the Pro-Iran Meme Machine Trolling Trump With AI Lego Cartoons | WIRED

Overview

Inside the Pro-Iran Meme Machine Trolling Trump With AI Lego Cartoons

Minutes after President Donald Trump announced that he would not wipe out “a whole civilization” on Tuesday evening, a team of self-described young Iranian activists jumped into action.

Details

Members of the group known as Explosive Media were putting the finishing touches on their latest AI-generated, Lego-inspired Trump video. The video features a Trump mini-figure colluding with leaders from Gulf states, Iranian officials pressing a big red button labeled “back to the stone age,” and Trump throwing a chair at US generals.

This was the latest of more than a dozen videos the pro-Iran group has released since the beginning of the war in February, many of which have racked up millions of views on mainstream platforms. While Iranian government accounts have posted Lego-style videos in the past, Explosive Media’s content is more sophisticated and scripted. And it's produced by a team of young pro-Iranian creators who appear deeply knowledgeable about the internet and American culture. Already some critics have alleged the group has ties to the Iranian government.

“We were almost certain Trump would back down; it was clear to us,” a member of the Explosive Media team, who did not want to publicly identify themselves, tells WIRED. “We were prepared for this scenario and had content ready in advance. We just made a few adjustments and released it.”

The team even added mention of the 10-point plan Iran proposed as part of its recent ceasefire agreement. As the video concludes, a Lego Trump sits next to the document, sobbing while holding a white flag and eating a taco—a knowing reference to the acronym for “Trump always chickens out.”

Within hours of Trump’s announcement, the video was published on Explosive Media’s X account and Telegram channel, where it had the caption: “IRAN WON! The way to crush imperialism has been shown to the world. Trump Surrendered. TACO will always remain TACO.”

While the Trump administration has been posting memes that intercut war footage with movie clips that appeal to a narrow audience of loyal followers, Explosive Media’s Lego videos have reached a much broader audience in the US—some of whom clearly liked what they saw.

“We’ve committed ourselves to learning more every day about American people and culture,” the Explosive Media team member tells WIRED. “In this process, Americans themselves have been helping us—and that support and guidance continues. They share impactful tips and ideas with us.”

Explosive Media began in 2025 as a You Tube channel featuring political commentary delivered by a young Iranian man. The content never gained traction, with most videos racking up only a couple hundred views.

But all that changed in February, when the group began posting Lego-inspired videos, with the team scripting, producing, and editing each video using AI tools. (The group would not reveal which AI tools it was using.)

The videos quickly took hold on platforms like Tik Tok, X, and Instagram.

“People are disengaging from some of the real conflict content and looking for something that can distill what's happening quickly and in a language and tone that they understand and that's what those Lego videos are doing,” Moustafa Ayad, a researcher with the Institute of Strategic Dialogue who has closely tracked the online content being shared by Iranian groups during the war, tells WIRED. “They're making it easily accessible to understand the conflict from Iran's point of view, and it's hitting on points of disaffection in the United States at the same time. It's working on two fronts.”

Iran has previously used Lego-style videos in war propaganda. Back in 2024, according to Ayad, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps shared links to a Lego video, and during the Twelve-Day War in 2025, Iranian state media proclaimed victory over Israel in another Lego video.

But none of those bore the sophistication or cultural insight of the videos currently being shared by Explosive Media.

In one video, the group depicts Trump ordering the strikes on Iran after reviewing an “Epstein File,” while standing alongside Satan and Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu. In another, Iranian missiles bearing the names of everyone from Malcolm X to the victims of Jeffrey Epstein are shown being fired at the US. In a short video posted over the weekend, the group showed Trump holding up a victory sign while his behind was on fire. Many of the videos also feature catchy music including original rap tracks in English. The group has even set up their own Spotify page where they have posted the songs from the videos.

The group claims that it is not associated with the Iranian regime, but its pro-regime stance, coupled with the fact it seemingly has internet access in a country that is virtually cut off from the global internet, may suggest otherwise. “Seeing as how the regime in Iran has effectively cut off the internet to everyone else, I think you'd have to be pretty close to the government to have access to the internet,” says Ayad.

The group told WIRED that it obtained internet access because it was viewed as a media organization, claiming over 2.5 million followers on different “Iranian messaging channels.”

The Iranian regime has leveraged social media to push their side of the conflict to a non-Iranian audience, often combining AI and humor.

After Trump warned Iranians that they would soon be “living in Hell” this week, the country’s embassy in Zimbabwe posted on X suggesting they had lost the keys to the Strait of Hormuz. The Iranian embassy in Tunisia posted an AI-video of Trump walking off Air Force One holding a large white flag.

“All that stuff has been really demonstrating both Iranian capabilities to understand what American audiences gravitate towards, and also a firm understanding how the internet functions, especially social media platforms and what gets the most attention, what gets people re-sharing the content, engaging with the content,” says Ayad. “And they've done that well with the Lego videos. I don't think there's another piece of media that has come out of this conflict that has been talked about, re-shared as much as the Lego videos.”

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Key Takeaways

Inside the Pro-Iran Meme Machine Trolling Trump With AI Lego Cartoons
Minutes after President Donald Trump announced that he would not wipe out “a whole civilization” on Tuesday evening, a team of self-described young Iranian activists jumped into action
Members of the group known as Explosive Media were putting the finishing touches on their latest AI-generated, Lego-inspired Trump video
This was the latest of more than a dozen videos the pro-Iran group has released since the beginning of the war in February, many of which have racked up millions of views on mainstream platforms
“We were almost certain Trump would back down; it was clear to us,” a member of the Explosive Media team, who did not want to publicly identify themselves, tells WIRED