It\u2019s a Lego set, with a difference.<\/p>\n
A Native American chief rides on his horse onto a barren landscape, bathed in moonlight. The animated video rapidly shuttles between a range of people who\u2019ve been victims of the United States government, from Black Americans in chains to survivors of Iraq\u2019s notorious Abu Ghraib prison complex.<\/p>\n list of 3 items<\/span>end of list<\/span><\/section>\n Then it pans to Iranian soldiers sticking large banners on missiles, as the tempo of the background music picks up. \u201cFor the stolen Blacks,\u201d says the first one. \u201cFor the people of Hiroshima and Nagasaki,\u201d comes up next.<\/p>\n \u201cIn memory of victims of Iran Air flight 655,\u201d says another, referring to the passenger aircraft brought down by US missiles in 1988, killing all 290 people on board. \u201cIn memory of Rachel Corrie\u2019s freedom struggle\u201d follows, referring to the American activist who was killed by an Israeli bulldozer in Gaza in 2003. Victims of US war and abuses in Afghanistan, Vietnam and Iraq \u2013 and the \u201cchildren of Epstein island\u201d \u2013 all get similar messages, plastered on missiles that then fire off. The video ends with giant statues of US President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu collapsing, and a line in bold, white and all caps: \u2018ONE VENGEANCE FOR ALL.\u2019<\/p>\n The March 29 video is one of many released by Explosive Media, among several Iran-based groups that have used the Lego figures and blocks that households around the world are familiar with to script a viral social media trend, bolstering Tehran\u2019s narrative amid the war against the US and Israel.<\/p>\n The video depicting the multiple victims of US aggression and domestic crimes has been viewed almost 150,000 times on X. Explosive Media\u2019s YouTube account has more recently been deleted by the Google-owned video-sharing platform.<\/p>\n But the Tehran-based group, which uses bespoke lyrics and rap beats to mock Trump \u2013 often using the US president\u2019s own words to accuse him of hypocrisy and of pandering to Israel\u2019s interests rather than America\u2019s \u2013 isn\u2019t giving up.<\/p>\n An Explosive Media representative, who requested anonymity, told Al Jazeera that their YouTube channel was shut down on the grounds of promoting violence \u2013 and that they are convinced that Lego-like brick animations are not at all violent.<\/p>\n \u201cThere was frustration, but no surprise \u2013 this story is not new,\u201d he said. \u201cWe know well how the West wraps truth in silence and tries to mute every voice that speaks it.\u201d<\/p>\n The videos have ranged from sombre stories reflecting deeply on Shia-Muslim history to upbeat rap-style music videos, all set to motion in Lego-like brick figures and environments.<\/p>\n The Explosive Media spokesperson said the green and red featured in the animation are symbolic, as it interprets the traditions of green representing Hussain, the grandson of Prophet Mohammed and his fight for justice against oppression. Red symbolises the oppressor.<\/p>\n \u201cThat\u2019s actually one of our team\u2019s favourite animations. Especially that moment when war helmets are placed on missiles and drones \u2013 it was truly brilliant,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Other videos use phrases like \u201cEpstein regime\u201d, \u201cLoser\u2019\u2019 and show the US president\u2019s supporters wearing brick red hats with MAGA \u2013 Trump\u2019s Make America Great Again movement \u2013 on them. They depict Trump\u2019s promises to keep the US out of new wars and help ordinary working-class Americans, then use the president\u2019s own words to accuse him of betraying his commitments and instead prioritising Israeli demands.<\/p>\n \u201cLOSER is one of our best creations,\u201d the group\u2019s spokesperson said. It\u2019s how Trump often refers to his opponents. \u201cSo we flipped it \u2013 and showed that, in the end, he\u2019s the biggest loser of all.\u201d<\/p>\n The Trumpesque figure is sometimes shown holding a little doll.<\/p>\n Another video was aimed at addressing the Lebanese people, stating that Iran\u2019s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) will not leave them behind, released after the brutal pounding of the country, where more than 100 bombs were dropped in 10 minutes.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n The team making these videos comprises 10 people, all between the ages of 19 and 25.<\/p>\n And they clearly have access to the internet \u2013 including US-owned social media platforms that Iran\u2019s government has blocked access to for most Iranians since the start of the war.<\/p>\n In the interview with Al Jazeera, the Explosive Media spokesperson acknowledged that Iranian state media outlets are among their customers, but said the group itself was independent.<\/p>\n \u201cWe produce high-quality media content, so it\u2019s natural that different local media outlets \u2013 including some state-affiliated ones \u2013 sometimes purchase our work for broadcast,\u201d he said. \u201cIn practice, we create the content first, and if the quality is strong enough, media organisations choose to buy it from us. This way, our independence is fully preserved.\u201d<\/p>\n Explosive Media isn\u2019t alone. Other creators, including PersiaBoi and Southern Punk, have made similar Lego-themed videos. The trend has also spread beyond Iran to Pakistan, where local creators like Nukta media in Pakistan made their own version ahead of the first round of Iran-US negotiations in Islamabad on April 11.<\/p>\n 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 for decades \u2013 courtesy of Western media \u2013 has been set against Iran.<\/p>\n \u201cThese videos are ways of breaking through what is an information highway stacked against them generally in times of war,\u201d said Zaka.<\/p>\n Zaka said the videos, by focusing on faultlines within US domestic politics \u2013 such as on the Epstein files \u2013 had been really \u201csmart\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cThey\u2019re just calling it the \u2018Epstein regime\u2019, and that\u2019s a domestic fissure that they\u2019re choosing to bring forward again. They\u2019re also using, like, the election MAGA tropes and being subordinate to Israeli interests, so in that the way they\u2019re doing it, it seems like fun, but it\u2019s really, really smart,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n There\u2019s also a deeper level of symbolism that Zaka spots. He referred to the bombing of the Minab girls\u2019 school by the US on the opening day of the war, in which more than 160 Iranian school girls were killed.<\/p>\n \u201cThe war opened with an atrocity against Iranian children,\u201d so the use of Lego \u2013 a brand and look that parents and children around the world recognise \u2013 means \u201cit all comes together in this way\u201d.<\/p>\n Marc Owen Jones, a professor at Northwestern University in Qatar, who researches media analytics, said Iran\u2019s efforts to win the narrative war were a critical part of its strategy, because it knows that it can\u2019t win militarily.<\/p>\n \u201cTheir best bet of success is to have public opinion on their side, pressuring the United States to stop,\u201d he told Al Jazeera. \u201cAnd the communications game in this day and age is one in which this kind of troll propaganda, this kind of \u2018owning smack-talk type\u2019 propaganda wins.\u201d<\/p>\n He said that the carefully chosen themes in the Lego-style videos would have resonated even more with Western audiences if they weren\u2019t coming out of Iran \u2013 a country they\u2019ve been told, over decades, to distrust.<\/p>\n Zaka argued that in many ways the undiplomatic tone and ruthless messaging in the Iranian videos mirrored Donald Trump\u2019s own communication style.<\/p>\n \u201cUltimately, the Iranian Lego videos are very good,\u201d Jones said. \u201cThey\u2019re actually well thought out. There\u2019s a lot of details in them. There\u2019s actually a narrative. Whereas US propaganda is just, you know, explosions with Hollywood films cut through them.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n It\u2019s a Lego set, with a difference. A Native American chief rides on his horse onto a barren landscape, bathed in moonlight. The animated video rapidly shuttles between a range of people who\u2019ve been victims of the United States government, from Black Americans in chains to survivors of Iraq\u2019s notorious Abu Ghraib prison complex. Recommended […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":19342,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19341","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-us-canada-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19341","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=19341"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19341\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/19342"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=19341"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=19341"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=19341"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Recommended Stories <\/h2>\n
Deep symbolism<\/h2>\n
Breaking through the noise<\/h2>\n
![\"Courtesy:](\"https:\/\/www.aljazeera.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/HE-zvmiWcAAoeqG-1776396867.jpeg?w=770&resize=770%2C513&quality=80\")
\u2018Owning smack-talk\u2019<\/h2>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"