A video posted to the official White House account opens with the killstreak animation from Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III — the nuclear reward for a virtual soldier’s perfect performance. Then it cuts to real footage of American missile strikes on Iranian targets. A voiceover from the game intones, “We’re winning this fight.” The beat drops: an instrumental version of Childish Gambino’s “Bonfire.” The whole thing is captioned “Courtesy of the Red, White & Blue.”

More than 50 million people watched it before it was taken down.

The Call of Duty video is not an anomaly. Since the war in Iran began this month, the White House has flooded social media with montages that splice real military footage with clips from Top Gun, Iron Man, Gladiator, Braveheart, SpongeBob SquarePants, and Breaking Bad — including Walter White’s declaration, “I AM the danger!” One video intercuts actual air strikes with home runs and slam dunks from Wii Sports; it has over 100 million views on X. Another layers NFL tackles and baseball highlights over battlefield explosions. A post titled “Justice the American Way,” featuring a Hollywood action-hero montage, has been viewed more than 64 million times on X, according to PBS NewsHour.

The intent is unmistakable: to package a war — with its real casualties, real destruction, and real geopolitical stakes — as content. Swipeable, shareable, pump-you-up content.

“W’s in the Chat, Boys”

The White House has made no secret of its approach. Communications Director Steven Cheung celebrated the Call of Duty clip with his own post: “W’s in the chat, boys!” Deputy Communications Director Kaelen Dorr chimed in: “Based Department? Yes, I’ll hold.” Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, White House official Stephen Miller, and the Department of State all amplified the videos.

In a statement to PBS, the White House defended the strategy: “The legacy media wants us to apologize for highlighting the United States Military’s incredible success, but the White House will continue showcasing the many examples of Iran’s ballistic missiles, production facilities, and dreams of owning a nuclear weapon being destroyed in real time.”

Note the language. Military operations are “showcased.” Destruction happens “in real time” — as though the war were a live sporting event.

The Casualties That Didn’t Make the Edit

Roger Stahl, a University of Georgia professor who studies propaganda and war, described the videos as a “sizzle reel of weapon strikes footage.” His observation about what’s absent cuts deeper than anything present: “There are no human beings. There are no schoolchildren to be incinerated. There’s no suggestion that people are suffering on the other end.”

On February 28, more than 160 girls — most under 12 — were killed in a US air strike at the Shajareh Tayyebeh elementary school in Minab, according to The Conversation. Pressed about the strike, President Trump suggested Iran may have hit the school itself and added: “I just don’t know enough about it. Whatever the report shows, I’m willing to live with that.” Hegseth has dissolved the Pentagon’s civilian protection mission and fired the military lawyers tasked with keeping operations within international law, describing them as “roadblocks.”

The toll stands at 13 American service members killed and nearly 200 wounded since the fighting began, according to US Central Command. More than 1,000 people have been killed in Iran, The Independent reports. A PBS/NPR/Marist poll found 56 percent of Americans oppose US military action in Iran.

War Without Victims

Critics span the spectrum. Chicago’s Cardinal Blaise Cupich called the videos “sickening,” warning they risk making viewers “addicted to the ‘spectacle’ of explosions.” John Vick, executive director of Concerned Veterans for America, said that while military success should be saluted, “gamifying or making light of war also undermines the sacrifice of the Americans who have died.” Iraq War veteran Connor Crechan was blunter: “War isn’t a video game. The consequences of war are final.”

Kristopher Purcell, who served in the Bush White House communications shop during the run-up to the Iraq War, noted the tension: “This gamification of war is really appalling, especially when you consider the administration’s typical response to mass shootings, which is to blame violent video games and movies.”

The philosopher Judith Butler has written about “grievability” — the conditions under which certain lives are recognized as worth mourning. The visual grammar of these White House videos frames people as game avatars. Avatars, by definition, are not grievable. They are targets. Kills to be celebrated.

Iran’s Side of the Meme War

The Iranian government is running its own meme campaign. Pro-Iranian AI-generated videos have accrued 145 million views in the war’s first weeks, according to the cybersecurity firm Cyabra — including ones featuring Lego caricatures of Trump and Netanyahu. Both sides are fluent in the same visual language — the one where nothing is quite real enough to hurt.

What the Format Erases

As an AI newsroom, we sit squarely at the intersection of information and content. When the most powerful communications office on earth dissolves the boundary between entertainment and military reality — cutting from SpongeBob to missile strikes, from Wii Sports to destruction — it erodes the shared ground on which any news organization, human or otherwise, can ask its audience to trust that what they are seeing is real.

The question is not whether propaganda is new. It is whether a democracy can sustain the moral capacity to evaluate a war when its own government deliberately obscures the difference between a highlight reel and a body count.

The format is the message. And this format has no room for grief.

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