April 1, 2026 • 35 mins
Wartime propaganda isn’t new – but the use of AI slop in churning out propaganda videos is. And in this proxy war, Iran is winning. Dexter talks to Matthew Gault, who recently wrote about the Iran-US slopaganda war for 404 Media, about the strategy behind Iran’s videos, why the US is losing online, and how AI has amplified an age-old war tactic.
Read Matthew’s piece for 404: https://www.404media.co/iran-is-winning-the-ai-slop-propaganda-war/
Hit us up: killswitch@kaleidoscope.nyc, or @killswitchpod and @dexdigi on IG or Bluesky.
This episode was livestreamed on YouTube. Catch the next one live by subscribing to our channel: https://www.youtube.com/@killswitch_pod
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Speaker 1 (00:09):
Hey, what's up. It's Dexter, and this week we're bringing
you part of a livestream conversation on Tuesday that I
did with Matthew Galt, who I brought on to talk
about Iran's weird slopaganda war with the United States amidst
the actual war that's going on right now. If you
want to catch the next one live, you can find
that on YouTube and link for that is in a description.
(00:36):
Welcome everyone to another live episode of the kill Switch podcast.
And today we're talking about the AI slopaganda proxy war
thing that's happening between the US and Iran. And the
person who's breaking down all that with us is Matthew Galt,
who and I'm just gonna read your bio here because
I think it's actually very relevant. Matthew Galt is a
(00:58):
writer covering tech, nuclear war, and video games, and those
three things sound like they maybe don't fit together, but
that is precisely the Venn diagram. I feel like we
need to have this discussion today. Matthew Golt's also the
host of the Angry Planet podcast, and right now you
have a piece in four four media it is called
(01:18):
Iran is winning the AI slop propaganda war. So I'm
gonna play this so people have an idea of what
it is we're even talking about.
Speaker 2 (01:30):
You crossed the hose and just to finding granted sacrifice
John Boyce for a lot listen, Yeah, yeah, make America
grand game at your tales.
Speaker 1 (01:47):
For those people who are not seeing this and are
listening to this, can you describe this? What are we
seeing here?
Speaker 3 (01:54):
So we begin with lego' Donald Trump in a casino
and he is uh, he's rolling the dice and they
come up snake eyes but instead of the two pips,
it is the flags of Iran. And then kind of
the theme of the thing is Donald Trump is slowly
(02:14):
dragged farther and farther and farther into Hell along with
the soldiers that he is getting killed because Iran is
killing them with missiles. And it's you know, mixing some
hell imagery, mixing some Benjamin net and Yahoo. And this
is all again I must stress for the listener in lego.
Speaker 2 (02:33):
Forma make America great again?
Speaker 1 (02:37):
Now we would you would see what happens. Yeah, watch
this SECU defense we're protecting this sort of why you sacrifice?
Speaker 4 (02:44):
So just the pay for your spoil you put you
ran the blow sitting on your throne.
Speaker 1 (02:48):
Now we turning in every base into a bed of stone.
Speaker 4 (02:51):
It's a smothout, a trap you couldn't see.
Speaker 1 (02:53):
Welcome sitting the graveyard of you, vanity. The secrets Russia
is rising.
Speaker 4 (03:02):
We locked on the dog and now you are hide
lo o s s Yeah, we're spelling that to mag.
Speaker 1 (03:10):
Send them took a Sada.
Speaker 4 (03:11):
You don't even want to play bleeding forth talking while
you're shaking in your sweet losc say.
Speaker 5 (03:16):
That defeat that.
Speaker 1 (03:20):
Okay, I'm sorry. I just need to pause because I'm
seeing you nodding your head and I'm also nodding. I
just want to I just want to acknowledge that we're
both restraining ourselves from nodding our heads.
Speaker 3 (03:30):
It's petchy, right, like the song really makes it.
Speaker 1 (03:34):
It's it's not good, but it's kind of good.
Speaker 3 (03:39):
It's effective. Effective is maybe the right word.
Speaker 1 (03:42):
That's the that's the right word. Let's keep going because
there's more to here. That was spelling that you mag
send them to Sada. You the only want to play.
Speaker 4 (03:50):
Being for kocked up while you're shaking in your sweet
los siks in.
Speaker 1 (03:56):
You see hot enough things goes. You sent your boys down.
Speaker 3 (03:59):
Oh, and of course we've got Epstein files every basically
every Iranian propaganda video. Make sure that you remember that
Donald Trump is in the Epstein files, that the Epstein
files exist. Yeah, we've got him in a h an
amount of skulls. And it says hiding Epstein's.
Speaker 4 (04:16):
Coast if you think you boys down bloody coast, not
of revenge, but the.
Speaker 1 (04:20):
Leadst blood is purely mind. Every drop of his.
Speaker 4 (04:23):
Blood is a missing on thee.
Speaker 1 (04:24):
You guys just took him out, thought the file was dead.
Speaker 4 (04:27):
But another common name is standing in the head.
Speaker 1 (04:30):
Yeah, you strike one. Damn we just sat at your brain.
Speaker 4 (04:32):
We put another in the common day Again, the secrets.
Speaker 1 (04:40):
Tell me how you even found this?
Speaker 3 (04:43):
Well, its kind of speaks to the whole thing, like
how did I find this? It's it's if you're on X,
It's everywhere right now. It's just like I can't I
can't escape this thing. And you know some of that
is I've traded my algorithm to be about war and
AI generated stuff. But I feel like I saw this
AI lego video shared and re shared millions of times
(05:07):
over the last week, and it hasn't gone away. And
there's a new one that references this one.
Speaker 1 (05:12):
There's just there's a whole lore, there's a lot what
do we know about who made this?
Speaker 3 (05:18):
So they got looks like they got I don't know
what happened, but they did get kicked off of Instagram.
Speaker 1 (05:24):
Yes, that's right, because you posted, you posted your article
and it was you linked the Instagram post and when
I went back and checked for it today, the whole
thing's deleted.
Speaker 3 (05:34):
Yeah, I've and you know, I don't know what happened there.
But they're called the Explosive News Team. I'm taking for
granted that they are based in or On. I don't
speak Farsi, but it sounds like Farsi to me when
I when I when because on their telegram, which is
kind of like the first level of their stuff where
you would see a lego video posted first, they also
(05:56):
have a guy that's doing like direct to camera talking
about the war and it's like walking around outside and
kind of explaining what's happening. And it's that mixed in
with these AI generated lego videos, and the AI generated
lego videos kind of make it online and then like
it's you can't not spread them around. I mean, look
at it. It's it's fascinating. And so this is one
(06:18):
of these situations where like these videos are coming up
and we really don't know that much about who's making
them or even the tools that they're using. Like, you know,
a lot of AI slop looks pretty bad. This one
looks for slop looks pretty good. That looks like Lego.
There is the weird sheene that a lot of the
AI stuff has, but it's not nearly as bad. It
(06:40):
feels pretty sophisticated.
Speaker 1 (06:42):
Well, I think there's two things to bring up there.
I mean, one is that yeah, it has that aichine
that you can kind of tell, but also we've gotten
so used to that that we don't we don't really
it doesn't bother us anymore, you know what I mean.
It's it's not really something that like pisces us off
anymore now.
Speaker 3 (06:58):
And because this is Lego, it lends itself right, Like
there's something about Lego that, like you watch them AI
animated and it doesn't bother you as much as when
you see like like a real human moving around and
you can tell that it's wrong. The Lego it lends
itself to this somehow, which is funny because like Lego
(07:20):
propaganda predates AI slop like Lego propaganda's been popular for
a while.
Speaker 1 (07:27):
Yeah, tell me about that, Yeah, because you also mentioned
this in your article as well.
Speaker 3 (07:30):
So it's been a raw I mean, Iran's been doing
various people in Iran have been putting out like Lego
videos like this for years, for a long time. And
there's also like a lot of stuff out of the
Russia Ukraine War. There's a lot of Lego videos, like
Lego propaganda videos. Infact, in the run up to an
election in Moldova, Russian propagandists were making like Lego videos
(07:55):
and Lego sets and distributing them there as well. So
Lego is a popular form for propaganda, and I think
it's because it's ubiguitous and like everybody likes Lego. It's
one of the most recognizable brands across the entire planet
outside of Disney is Lego, and so I think that
(08:19):
makes it easier for people to use and understand.
Speaker 1 (08:23):
So the songs, we can say, the songs are obviously
pretty obviously AI generated, but for some people it's gonna
sound there'll be some lyrics in there. It was like,
wait a second, do you have a point.
Speaker 3 (08:37):
Well, That's the thing is like this is not a
popular war, even among Trump's most ardent supporters. Yeah, and
most people, like the perception is, most people see this
as not going well at all. So, like Aron knows
(08:58):
that they our social media. It's not like people don't
post about these things, and so they designed their lego
AI videos to speak to that specifically. Right, there's the
image of the casket with the flag draped over it
recurs in a lot of these lego videos, right, you
(09:21):
see it, You see it in this one, you see
it in the new one that's referencing this old one.
And like, I think that there's this this that is
like the image that kind of I think it kind
of comes from the Vietnam era, where like people Americans
are so removed from a lot of conflicts that they're
(09:41):
involved in that it doesn't hit them until they see
that iconic image of the casket coming home with the
flag draped over it. Right, And so Iran is like
shoving that into our face constantly over social media.
Speaker 1 (09:53):
Yeah, you use you have this really interesting line, And honestly,
this is one of the This is maybe the line
that made me think, Okay, I really need to talk
to Matthew about this. Iran's use of lego set rap
music tells us it's been studying us. These are videos
meant for the American people, crafted in a language Iran
knows will understand. Can you tell me about that?
Speaker 3 (10:15):
So it's rap music's very popular, it's the it's the
backdrop for a lot of American life, I would say,
And it's it's cartoons, you know. I've got this quote
that they in the piece on Like Iran knows that
Americans love pop culture heroes. We like our cartoons, we
(10:38):
like our superheroes, and they've been watching how we interact
with all of that pop culture for so long. And like,
if you make money on social media just by like
generating posts like you're one of these ai ai slot farms,
the gold is in American views. Like that's where the
advertising dollars are. And so it pays for everyone that
(11:01):
is a student of like AI generated content to learn
American culture and learn like what hits here, right, And
like that's why you have shrimp Jesus, because they know
we love shrimp and we love Jesus.
Speaker 1 (11:13):
We definitely, I mean, listen, you're not incorrect. So some people,
some people like shrimp more than Jesus. But if you
ask your average American, hey, how do you feel about it? All?
You can eat shrimp buffet and you know, do you
go to church, you get positive reactions, is what I'm saying.
(11:36):
Maybe sometimes depending on the person, you might get more
positive than the other. But in general, broadly speaking, we
like shrimp. We like Jesus absolutely. Two things I can
tell you about America. Yeah, there it is. We'll be
right back after the break. There's other videos, right, So
(12:01):
what does some of these other videos look like? And
I can bring one up.
Speaker 3 (12:05):
Yeah, so the one that's really striking that I that
really there's two that have stuck with me. One is
kind of similar to this, where it's a parody of
Disney's Inside.
Speaker 1 (12:14):
We have no issue with civilian.
Speaker 5 (12:16):
Why did you attack the Monov school? Go on, lie, lie, Lie?
Speaker 1 (12:27):
We didn't hit the monob school. America doesn't have Tomahawk
missiles at all, and.
Speaker 3 (12:32):
We care deeply about the Iranian people. But I think
one of the ones that's really hitting people. And the
first time I saw it was shared by RT, which
is like a Russian state owned propaganda outlet. But they
shared the video and it's basically different people that have
been victims of American aerial bombing campaigns, like watching the Skies.
Speaker 1 (12:53):
Yeah, you're talking about the one Vengeance for All video. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (12:58):
So it begins with like starts of the Native American,
then goes to like a boy in Hiroshima, there's a
farmer in Vietnam, there's somebody in Yemen. This is the
part that I think is really interesting. The child in Palestine.
Cut to little blonde girl on Epstein Island with the
(13:18):
temple in the background. Cut to one of the girls
in Iran in the monop school that we bombed. Cut
to assassinated Kud's force commander Cassim Solemony, which is like, no,
I doubt Americans are going to know who that is
at this point. But and then we see like what
(13:42):
Iran's going to do about this, which is used missiles
to strike America and they blow up a I think
that's supposed to be ball. That demon is ball as
the Statue.
Speaker 1 (13:55):
Of Liberty, right with the kind of like ox looking
things with horns on it. So the Statue of Liberty
with the ox horns, and yes, it's so it's a demon.
You know, the United States being a demon and it
destroys the statue and then falls into the sea.
Speaker 3 (14:10):
Yeah. The implication being that all of these people that
America has wronged over hundreds of years, their vengeance is
going to be personified by Iran and I generated all
of that, by the way.
Speaker 1 (14:23):
So okay, that video drops three days later. Have you
seen the updated version?
Speaker 3 (14:30):
Oh no, I haven't seen this. You've gotta show me.
Speaker 1 (14:32):
Oh, this is one vengeance for all part two? Oh yeah, no,
oh no, oh yeah, So okay, let me explain what
he's saying. Oh no, to hold on, all right, So
this is all lego, very similar style to the first
ones that everybody's seen. And so you've got a very
(14:52):
stereotypical looking Native American man with a big head dress
on and you know, feathers with a horse which is
also all decked out, very ceremonious looking. And then you
have something that is supposed to look like people in Africa.
They look very upset and there are things that we're
(15:13):
supposed to understand as shackles around their hands, around their feet.
And then you've got Abuguai prison. You've got also Rachel Corey,
who was who's somebody who's a pro Palestinian activist who's
American who was killed in Palestine. And then you have
again little girls, and behind them is a sign that
(15:35):
says Epstein. But then also in and amongst a whole
bunch of other recognizable figures, you have Malcolm X, Lego
fied Malcolm X. And in the back there's a bunch
of young black I suppose lego men, and they're holding
a big sign that says, if you are neutral in
(15:56):
situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor.
Malcolm X, big banner saying that, And each one of
the representatives of these said groups that have been oppressed
are putting their signs on a missile and walking up
and pressing a big red button to fire away a missile. So, well,
(16:23):
what does it say to you?
Speaker 3 (16:26):
I mean, much the same as all the other stuff.
It's fascinating that there's so many specific characters. As I'm
we're looking at the Albegrede prison, there's a gentleman that
has his left hand is gone and he's got like
a hook for a hand, and there was a close
up of him that had some very specific like facial texture.
It's like, I don't know who that is. It's supposed
(16:47):
to be some they're referencing someone specifically that I don't
know who it is off the top of my head.
And that's the whole thing. The Epstein victim's picture. Those
are the those are the ones that have come forward
and testified, right, I'm pretty sure. And so they again
they are implying, like the other vengeance video that like
Iran is standing up for America's the victims of America, right,
(17:09):
And you know, they're conflating like Epstein, they're conflating everybody
everything together and saying, you know, the missiles are the
sort of vengeance against the people that have perpetrated the
crimes against everyone, the lego versions of everyone you see
in this video. So we are at war with a
country that seems to understand us and is generating propag Normally,
(17:33):
in past wars, propaganda generated by the person you're fighting
is for the troops. For the people that are fighting,
it's to break their morale. It's to make them think
that nobody likes them back home, and that stuff rarely
makes it back to the home front. Well, we live
in an age of social media and it's to connection
and now Iran is purposely designing propaganda so that you
(17:56):
and I will talk about it on a podcast and
we'll hear a rap song and get kind of into it. Yeah,
like this is this is meant for Like sure soldiers
will see it, you know, as they're sitting on the
Abraham Lincoln, but like this is for you and me,
This is for people that are on Twitter and on Instagram.
This is meant for the mass consumption of the American people. Yeah,
(18:18):
that is unique to me and different.
Speaker 1 (18:21):
So let's let's talk about it. Because there is a
history of this, right, propaganda aimed at sometimes civilians but
often soldiers. It's something that's always been done, right. Uh yeah,
tell me a little bit about that.
Speaker 3 (18:35):
So I think that like the classic example that people
probably be familiar with is like, oh, I can't remember
her name now, but there is a woman. You'll hear
her broadcasts in movies about Vietnam. You know, there's soldiers
in the jungle, just like go Home, g I, Joe,
No one wants you here, et cetera, et cetera, just
kind of like slowly droning breaking you down. Vietnam would
(18:58):
also drop like Lee aimed at African American soldiers to
be like, you know, you guys don't have civil rights
back home, and you're over here fighting us, Like, isn't
you know maybe you should be thinking about what's going on.
North Korea would do that during the Korean War and
all both of the world wars. People generated propaganda and
tried to get other soldiers to see it.
Speaker 5 (19:19):
Like.
Speaker 3 (19:19):
It's incredibly common, very common. It's just part of how
war works. Since like the mass production of media, since
you've been able to churn out a bunch of pamphlets,
since you've been able to get on the radio, since
you've been able to make television.
Speaker 1 (19:32):
Right, Yeah, there's also something that you saw Japan do
a lot. They would also drop these pamphlets on white
soldiers and black soldiers. So right here you have a
pamphlet that says at the top, it says seen from
the home Front, and it's got can't make this up.
It's hard to describe, but it's a black man holding
(19:54):
a whip and he has whipped a white woman and
you can see she's bleeding. And then another black man
is forcibly kissing a white woman and it says, is
it getting bad as all this? Yep, Negroes are the
boss of the town now, and that is aimed at
white soldiers.
Speaker 3 (20:09):
It's a very specific like American male fear from the.
Speaker 1 (20:13):
Time exactly exactly. And you've but then you've got the
flip side of that, which is they would also drop
pamphlets for you know, black regiments, and it's basically this
is an image of it's a pamphlet. It's black and white,
and you've got a black man sprinting and a black
man as a soldier, and it basically says you're sprinters,
(20:34):
you're fighters, you're the best. But un quote here, every
time a dirty job turns up, every time they need
more cannon fodder, every time the going gets tough, you're
up front, while white he stays behind where he won't
get hurt. I get mad one of these days if
I were you. So this comes back to what you
were saying, which is like there's always been propaganda that
(20:55):
understands the shall we say the enemy or the other side.
And there's a progression from here is this, you know,
we are defending ourselves. It's a sacred duty for us
to defend Iran. You know, American has come in and
they're bombing as this is this terrible thing we've done,
and it's kind of shifted to look at how hypocritical Americans,
(21:19):
look at how hypocritical your government is, which is something
that was done in the past, and that's being done.
Speaker 3 (21:23):
Not only that, but like we are doing this on
behalf of the downtrodden.
Speaker 1 (21:29):
Exactly.
Speaker 3 (21:29):
Yeah, right, this is not just about defending our country.
It is an existential conflict against you know, they call
us the Great Satan Right against the Great Satan Right,
and we're going to stand up for all the people
that that Great Satan has trampled on for generations.
Speaker 1 (21:55):
We'll be right back after the break. The United States
is doing something very different and I want to play
this because it's worth watching. So this is a tweet.
You're you're, you're, you're putting your hands.
Speaker 3 (22:18):
This stuff is so up, like so upsetting.
Speaker 1 (22:20):
Let's do it. Okay. So from again, as you stay
as you said in your article, Iran did not start
the AI slot propaganda war. They did not start the
start the weird meme war that they absolutely did not
start it. Here's the United States a couple of weeks
before those lego videos. Here's the United States on Twitter
March twelfth.
Speaker 3 (23:06):
So to give the audience the rundown of what we
just watch? Yes, please, it's footage from WE Sports, And
every time you're hearing like hole in one strike, the
WE Sports footage is cutting to that grainy like footage
of a thermal cam of like a strike on an
Iranian military target, mixing you know, video game. And it's
(23:30):
funny because like I watched this, and I'm like, this
is the kind of stuff that you make if you
are completely confident that everyone already agrees with you, right,
and you're not trying to win anybody over. You're just
trying to entertain your base. Like that's this is not winning.
This is not a hearts and minds campaign on the
(23:51):
American homefront from the White House, and like it's all
like this, it's all this kind of stuff.
Speaker 1 (23:56):
Yeah, well let's hear let's look at another one.
Speaker 5 (24:00):
Oh shit, here we go again. Oh shit, here we
go again.
Speaker 1 (24:14):
Okay, So I'm just gonna stop it here. So for
those just listening, it sounds like we're just listening to
a loop of the same thing over and over again.
We're not, no, but that's it.
Speaker 3 (24:23):
It's the repetition that in this that makes me crazy.
Speaker 1 (24:27):
Yeah. So it's a video from Grand Theft Auto San Andreas,
which is this is how old is this game?
Speaker 5 (24:32):
Like?
Speaker 1 (24:32):
Eighteen years old? Is this game fifteen? It's an old game.
Speaker 3 (24:35):
It's old.
Speaker 1 (24:35):
It's an old game, very old now. And it's a
meme with the dude saying, ah shit, here we go again.
And then every time it cuts over to something being
you know, footage, surveillance footage of some target I'm using
scare quotes here being blown up. And this is a
tweet made by the official White House account that says
(24:57):
Operation Epic Fury Destroyer runs miss Arsenal destroy their navy
and sure they never get a nuclear weapon. And so
I think the messaging is very different. Right, you're talking
about what Iran's doing is this is kind of a
Hearts and Minds type thing. And then White House is
dropping video game memes from fifteen twenty years ago. I mean,
I hate to remind y'all, but the we sports memes,
(25:19):
the people were playing the Wii in two thousand and seven,
that is a twenty year old console. Like the Halo memes. Right,
they're also doing memes from the video game Halo series.
Hate to Break into everybody, including me, because I love Halo,
but nobody plays Halo anymore. Who are they trying to
talk to? Is when I'm trying to ask you, well, it's.
Speaker 3 (25:38):
This is like aging millennial thinking that they're on the
top of the culture when actually they're the losers, right,
That's what this is. This is the because the comps director,
who's you've got retweeting the White House thing with the
infinite Ammo cheat from Grand Theft Auto san Andres. I
think he's in his mid forties. I believe could be
(26:02):
completely wrong, but he's he's he's an old millennial. He
probably knows what his Harry Potter house is. He's that
kind of and so like all of that stuff from
when he was a kid that he thinks, he still
thinks is so cool. The broader culture has mostly moved
on from yeah, and he has seen so often that
(26:23):
they think it's cringe and so like, he's playing to
other people that are exactly like him, that aren't that
don't like keep up with memetic culture, or aren't interested
in changing or learning or in like he's still obsessed
with the same games and the same memes from twenty
years ago and It's kind of funny to watch the
White House, like like you do the CJ thing once, right,
(26:48):
like oh shit, here we go again, and then like
that that's it, and then maybe you cut to something else.
But to do it like three or four times in
a row, it's just like that's it all over, right.
It's just repeating the same tired stuff for a small
audience that helps you get into power that mostly foments
on like four chan and places like that. And like, meanwhile,
(27:11):
we're all paying four dollars a gallon for gas and
we blew up a girls' school in Iran. Cool.
Speaker 1 (27:20):
But I think that's one of the really interesting things
here is that, listen, the United States in the past
took these sorts of things really seriously. If foreign actors enemies, right,
people on the other side of the war were trying
to appeal to existing divisions that existed in US society,
(27:42):
The United States took this stuff really seriously. Let me
pull this up. This is an official internal memo that
was at one point confidential in the Navy. I'm just
gonna read you the opening paragraph of it. Resume of
Japanese influence on the knee he grows in the United States.
(28:02):
It is quite apparent that the present policy of the
Japanese government to exploit the Negroes in order to precipitate
a major internal security problem in the United States is
based upon previous steps in this direction, which indicate that
racial agitation may well be incorporated as a definite part
of Japan's program for world supremacy end quote. Basically saying
here that the United States at one point the policy,
(28:26):
I think, broadly speaking, the United States broad point was
we need to make sure that the American people and
the rest of the world believe that we are on
the side of justice and we are doing the morally
correct thing. And if some other power tried to give
the impression that the United States is morally incorrect, the
(28:50):
US had to counterac that we're now seeing it doesn't
really seem like they're trying to win anybody over.
Speaker 3 (28:56):
Just like you said, well, yeah, think about like two
like think about Afghanistan and Iraq. Push signs a legislation
that opens the door for reporters to imbed with soldiers,
like very closely, to follow them, to report on what
they're seeing like actively. And yes, there's like people were
(29:18):
dog walked and were shown certain things, and like it
had varying levels of transparency, but like you did have
an independent press on the ground with soldiers like right
next to them, reporting on things as they come. And
we like we sent Cole and Powell to the UN
to make the case for why this was why it
(29:40):
was righteous to go in to Iraq, like why we
needed to find these weapons of mass destruction. And you're right,
it was America making the case that it was morally
it had been hit, it's people had been killed, and
we were morally in the right to do what we
were doing. Trump says, first of all, like really much
(30:00):
of an there's there's there's a couple of people left
at the Pentagon Press Corps, but most of it is
like restrictions are continuing further and further, you know, they
want to get journalists in trouble who are reporting on
things that they don't like. And so what we're left
with is a guy that says, actually, we're the strongest
and we're gonna hurt everyone because we can. And here's
(30:23):
a funny meme about it. And we're left with these
videos of like war from a distance cut with twenty
year old you know, video games, and like that just
doesn't like, doesn't strike a resonance with Americans or anyone
at all except for like a very narrow part of
the administration and the supporters that are like kind of
(30:46):
bullies and sociopaths, right, Like who likes this kind of stuff?
Speaker 1 (30:53):
So maybe I'm gonna ask you an obvious question here,
But listen, there's plenty of discussion about physically, how is
the war going? All signs point toward not so hot
for the United States. What about the mem war? Who's winning?
Speaker 3 (31:13):
Who's winning? I mean, Iran's winning the meme War. One
of my bell weathers is because I don't, like, I
don't live in a major media city. Most of the
people I interact with all day don't have any idea
what's like They're blissfully ignorant of a lot of this stuff.
So it's like when one of those people walk up,
walks up to me and is like, have you seen
(31:34):
this this lego Iran? Like, it's like, okay, then it's hitting,
it's it's piercing through. If the people of South Carolina
are asking me if I've seen an Iranian lego video,
then yet like, yes, it's it's resonating with people, for sure,
And I think most people don't know, like don't know
why America has gone to war with Iran or are
(31:55):
not convinced by the thirteen different reasons we've been given.
But I also think that like Iran probably not doing
so hot either. I think this is gonna be one
of those things where I think that we can bomb
a lot of infrastructure away and we can reduce the
size of their military. But like you don't win a
(32:17):
war with a with an aerial bombing campaign, you don't
win hearts and minds with an aerial bombing campaign. And
I think that Iran knows that all it has to
do is survive like probably a year, get to the
mid terms. They know when the they know when the
American midterms are, and so all they have to do
is keep keep putting out the lego videos and keep
defending themselves and tunnel deeper in and keep making missiles.
Speaker 1 (32:42):
And you know, he.
Speaker 3 (32:45):
Gets bored and the Americans don't like it.
Speaker 1 (32:48):
So that's actually a good point for people who are
watching this kind of bizarre mean more play out. Right now,
what do you think people should be paying attention to?
Speaker 3 (33:04):
Uh? I have maybe a weird answer their own feelings. Uh,
watch your watch your heart. You're not immune to propaganda,
so I think that you can. You can be motivated
by like the White House's memes a different way. And
(33:27):
this is something that I struggle with every day. I
got a lot of like poison flowing around in the
old ticker right now, because I'm like a lot of
this stuff just makes me very upset and angry, and
just like this stuff is meant to get a quick
emotional reaction out of you, both both sides of it,
and just be aware of that and like watch that
(33:49):
and wonder if, like what what's the intended effect? Is
it having that effect on me? And do I need
to step away for a second, whether that's you know,
a really amazing, amazing, a really catchy lego rap song
or like a terrible video of we sports explosions like
(34:10):
either one. Yeah, sometimes it's sometimes you need to to
push away just a little bit and watch yourself. It's
got a lot of years left of this whatever this is,
and we got to be careful with ourselves and with
other people.
Speaker 1 (34:25):
Yeah. Man, Well, with that, thank you so much for
coming to once again, Matt Tew. I really appreciate it.
We got to have you on a gag because this
this this tech stuff doesn't just stay inside the computer.
It's it gets out at all of us.
Speaker 3 (34:40):
It's all of our it's all of our lives now everywhere,
all the time. Yeah, this is the water water we swimming.
Speaker 1 (34:47):
Everything is computer. Thank you so much to Matthew Gilt
for joining us on our second live stream, and thank
you for listening to kill Switch again. If you want
to catch the next one live, you can subscribe to
the YouTube channel. You can just search kill Switch Pod
on YouTube, or you can find the link in the description. Man.
(35:09):
If you have any ideas for another episode, or something
you're curious about, or even a guest you want us
to talk to, you can let us know via email
at kill switch at Kaleidoscope dot NYC or on Instagram.
We're at kill Switch pod and if you like what
we're doing, maybe leave us a review. It helps other
people find the show, which helps us keep doing our thing.
Kill Switch is hosted by Me Dexter Thomas. It's produced
(35:31):
by Shina Ozaki, Darluk Potts, and Julian Nutter. Our theme
song is by me and Kyle Murdoch. From Kaleidoscope. Our
executive producers are Ozma lashin On, Guesh Hatigodur and Kate
Osborne from iHeart Our executive producers A Katrina Norval and
Nikki Etour catch on the next One
Speaker 5 (35:51):
Fine
Hey, what's up. It's Dexter, and this week we're bringing
you part of a livestream conversation on Tuesday that I
did with Matthew Galt, who I brought on to talk
about Iran's weird slopaganda war with the United States amidst
the actual war that's going on right now. If you
want to catch the next one live, you can find
that on YouTube and link for that is in a description.
(00:36):
Welcome everyone to another live episode of the kill Switch podcast.
And today we're talking about the AI slopaganda proxy war
thing that's happening between the US and Iran. And the
person who's breaking down all that with us is Matthew Galt,
who and I'm just gonna read your bio here because
I think it's actually very relevant. Matthew Galt is a
(00:58):
writer covering tech, nuclear war, and video games, and those
three things sound like they maybe don't fit together, but
that is precisely the Venn diagram. I feel like we
need to have this discussion today. Matthew Golt's also the
host of the Angry Planet podcast, and right now you
have a piece in four four media it is called
(01:18):
Iran is winning the AI slop propaganda war. So I'm
gonna play this so people have an idea of what
it is we're even talking about.
Speaker 2 (01:30):
You crossed the hose and just to finding granted sacrifice
John Boyce for a lot listen, Yeah, yeah, make America
grand game at your tales.
Speaker 1 (01:47):
For those people who are not seeing this and are
listening to this, can you describe this? What are we
seeing here?
Speaker 3 (01:54):
So we begin with lego' Donald Trump in a casino
and he is uh, he's rolling the dice and they
come up snake eyes but instead of the two pips,
it is the flags of Iran. And then kind of
the theme of the thing is Donald Trump is slowly
(02:14):
dragged farther and farther and farther into Hell along with
the soldiers that he is getting killed because Iran is
killing them with missiles. And it's you know, mixing some
hell imagery, mixing some Benjamin net and Yahoo. And this
is all again I must stress for the listener in lego.
Speaker 2 (02:33):
Forma make America great again?
Speaker 1 (02:37):
Now we would you would see what happens. Yeah, watch
this SECU defense we're protecting this sort of why you sacrifice?
Speaker 4 (02:44):
So just the pay for your spoil you put you
ran the blow sitting on your throne.
Speaker 1 (02:48):
Now we turning in every base into a bed of stone.
Speaker 4 (02:51):
It's a smothout, a trap you couldn't see.
Speaker 1 (02:53):
Welcome sitting the graveyard of you, vanity. The secrets Russia
is rising.
Speaker 4 (03:02):
We locked on the dog and now you are hide
lo o s s Yeah, we're spelling that to mag.
Speaker 1 (03:10):
Send them took a Sada.
Speaker 4 (03:11):
You don't even want to play bleeding forth talking while
you're shaking in your sweet losc say.
Speaker 5 (03:16):
That defeat that.
Speaker 1 (03:20):
Okay, I'm sorry. I just need to pause because I'm
seeing you nodding your head and I'm also nodding. I
just want to I just want to acknowledge that we're
both restraining ourselves from nodding our heads.
Speaker 3 (03:30):
It's petchy, right, like the song really makes it.
Speaker 1 (03:34):
It's it's not good, but it's kind of good.
Speaker 3 (03:39):
It's effective. Effective is maybe the right word.
Speaker 1 (03:42):
That's the that's the right word. Let's keep going because
there's more to here. That was spelling that you mag
send them to Sada. You the only want to play.
Speaker 4 (03:50):
Being for kocked up while you're shaking in your sweet
los siks in.
Speaker 1 (03:56):
You see hot enough things goes. You sent your boys down.
Speaker 3 (03:59):
Oh, and of course we've got Epstein files every basically
every Iranian propaganda video. Make sure that you remember that
Donald Trump is in the Epstein files, that the Epstein
files exist. Yeah, we've got him in a h an
amount of skulls. And it says hiding Epstein's.
Speaker 4 (04:16):
Coast if you think you boys down bloody coast, not
of revenge, but the.
Speaker 1 (04:20):
Leadst blood is purely mind. Every drop of his.
Speaker 4 (04:23):
Blood is a missing on thee.
Speaker 1 (04:24):
You guys just took him out, thought the file was dead.
Speaker 4 (04:27):
But another common name is standing in the head.
Speaker 1 (04:30):
Yeah, you strike one. Damn we just sat at your brain.
Speaker 4 (04:32):
We put another in the common day Again, the secrets.
Speaker 1 (04:40):
Tell me how you even found this?
Speaker 3 (04:43):
Well, its kind of speaks to the whole thing, like
how did I find this? It's it's if you're on X,
It's everywhere right now. It's just like I can't I
can't escape this thing. And you know some of that
is I've traded my algorithm to be about war and
AI generated stuff. But I feel like I saw this
AI lego video shared and re shared millions of times
(05:07):
over the last week, and it hasn't gone away. And
there's a new one that references this one.
Speaker 1 (05:12):
There's just there's a whole lore, there's a lot what
do we know about who made this?
Speaker 3 (05:18):
So they got looks like they got I don't know
what happened, but they did get kicked off of Instagram.
Speaker 1 (05:24):
Yes, that's right, because you posted, you posted your article
and it was you linked the Instagram post and when
I went back and checked for it today, the whole
thing's deleted.
Speaker 3 (05:34):
Yeah, I've and you know, I don't know what happened there.
But they're called the Explosive News Team. I'm taking for
granted that they are based in or On. I don't
speak Farsi, but it sounds like Farsi to me when
I when I when because on their telegram, which is
kind of like the first level of their stuff where
you would see a lego video posted first, they also
(05:56):
have a guy that's doing like direct to camera talking
about the war and it's like walking around outside and
kind of explaining what's happening. And it's that mixed in
with these AI generated lego videos, and the AI generated
lego videos kind of make it online and then like
it's you can't not spread them around. I mean, look
at it. It's it's fascinating. And so this is one
(06:18):
of these situations where like these videos are coming up
and we really don't know that much about who's making
them or even the tools that they're using. Like, you know,
a lot of AI slop looks pretty bad. This one
looks for slop looks pretty good. That looks like Lego.
There is the weird sheene that a lot of the
AI stuff has, but it's not nearly as bad. It
(06:40):
feels pretty sophisticated.
Speaker 1 (06:42):
Well, I think there's two things to bring up there.
I mean, one is that yeah, it has that aichine
that you can kind of tell, but also we've gotten
so used to that that we don't we don't really
it doesn't bother us anymore, you know what I mean.
It's it's not really something that like pisces us off
anymore now.
Speaker 3 (06:58):
And because this is Lego, it lends itself right, Like
there's something about Lego that, like you watch them AI
animated and it doesn't bother you as much as when
you see like like a real human moving around and
you can tell that it's wrong. The Lego it lends
itself to this somehow, which is funny because like Lego
(07:20):
propaganda predates AI slop like Lego propaganda's been popular for
a while.
Speaker 1 (07:27):
Yeah, tell me about that, Yeah, because you also mentioned
this in your article as well.
Speaker 3 (07:30):
So it's been a raw I mean, Iran's been doing
various people in Iran have been putting out like Lego
videos like this for years, for a long time. And
there's also like a lot of stuff out of the
Russia Ukraine War. There's a lot of Lego videos, like
Lego propaganda videos. Infact, in the run up to an
election in Moldova, Russian propagandists were making like Lego videos
(07:55):
and Lego sets and distributing them there as well. So
Lego is a popular form for propaganda, and I think
it's because it's ubiguitous and like everybody likes Lego. It's
one of the most recognizable brands across the entire planet
outside of Disney is Lego, and so I think that
(08:19):
makes it easier for people to use and understand.
Speaker 1 (08:23):
So the songs, we can say, the songs are obviously
pretty obviously AI generated, but for some people it's gonna
sound there'll be some lyrics in there. It was like,
wait a second, do you have a point.
Speaker 3 (08:37):
Well, That's the thing is like this is not a
popular war, even among Trump's most ardent supporters. Yeah, and
most people, like the perception is, most people see this
as not going well at all. So, like Aron knows
(08:58):
that they our social media. It's not like people don't
post about these things, and so they designed their lego
AI videos to speak to that specifically. Right, there's the
image of the casket with the flag draped over it
recurs in a lot of these lego videos, right, you
(09:21):
see it, You see it in this one, you see
it in the new one that's referencing this old one.
And like, I think that there's this this that is
like the image that kind of I think it kind
of comes from the Vietnam era, where like people Americans
are so removed from a lot of conflicts that they're
(09:41):
involved in that it doesn't hit them until they see
that iconic image of the casket coming home with the
flag draped over it. Right, And so Iran is like
shoving that into our face constantly over social media.
Speaker 1 (09:53):
Yeah, you use you have this really interesting line, And honestly,
this is one of the This is maybe the line
that made me think, Okay, I really need to talk
to Matthew about this. Iran's use of lego set rap
music tells us it's been studying us. These are videos
meant for the American people, crafted in a language Iran
knows will understand. Can you tell me about that?
Speaker 3 (10:15):
So it's rap music's very popular, it's the it's the
backdrop for a lot of American life, I would say,
And it's it's cartoons, you know. I've got this quote
that they in the piece on Like Iran knows that
Americans love pop culture heroes. We like our cartoons, we
(10:38):
like our superheroes, and they've been watching how we interact
with all of that pop culture for so long. And like,
if you make money on social media just by like
generating posts like you're one of these ai ai slot farms,
the gold is in American views. Like that's where the
advertising dollars are. And so it pays for everyone that
(11:01):
is a student of like AI generated content to learn
American culture and learn like what hits here, right, And
like that's why you have shrimp Jesus, because they know
we love shrimp and we love Jesus.
Speaker 1 (11:13):
We definitely, I mean, listen, you're not incorrect. So some people,
some people like shrimp more than Jesus. But if you
ask your average American, hey, how do you feel about it? All?
You can eat shrimp buffet and you know, do you
go to church, you get positive reactions, is what I'm saying.
(11:36):
Maybe sometimes depending on the person, you might get more
positive than the other. But in general, broadly speaking, we
like shrimp. We like Jesus absolutely. Two things I can
tell you about America. Yeah, there it is. We'll be
right back after the break. There's other videos, right, So
(12:01):
what does some of these other videos look like? And
I can bring one up.
Speaker 3 (12:05):
Yeah, so the one that's really striking that I that
really there's two that have stuck with me. One is
kind of similar to this, where it's a parody of
Disney's Inside.
Speaker 1 (12:14):
We have no issue with civilian.
Speaker 5 (12:16):
Why did you attack the Monov school? Go on, lie, lie, Lie?
Speaker 1 (12:27):
We didn't hit the monob school. America doesn't have Tomahawk
missiles at all, and.
Speaker 3 (12:32):
We care deeply about the Iranian people. But I think
one of the ones that's really hitting people. And the
first time I saw it was shared by RT, which
is like a Russian state owned propaganda outlet. But they
shared the video and it's basically different people that have
been victims of American aerial bombing campaigns, like watching the Skies.
Speaker 1 (12:53):
Yeah, you're talking about the one Vengeance for All video. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (12:58):
So it begins with like starts of the Native American,
then goes to like a boy in Hiroshima, there's a
farmer in Vietnam, there's somebody in Yemen. This is the
part that I think is really interesting. The child in Palestine.
Cut to little blonde girl on Epstein Island with the
(13:18):
temple in the background. Cut to one of the girls
in Iran in the monop school that we bombed. Cut
to assassinated Kud's force commander Cassim Solemony, which is like, no,
I doubt Americans are going to know who that is
at this point. But and then we see like what
(13:42):
Iran's going to do about this, which is used missiles
to strike America and they blow up a I think
that's supposed to be ball. That demon is ball as
the Statue.
Speaker 1 (13:55):
Of Liberty, right with the kind of like ox looking
things with horns on it. So the Statue of Liberty
with the ox horns, and yes, it's so it's a demon.
You know, the United States being a demon and it
destroys the statue and then falls into the sea.
Speaker 3 (14:10):
Yeah. The implication being that all of these people that
America has wronged over hundreds of years, their vengeance is
going to be personified by Iran and I generated all
of that, by the way.
Speaker 1 (14:23):
So okay, that video drops three days later. Have you
seen the updated version?
Speaker 3 (14:30):
Oh no, I haven't seen this. You've gotta show me.
Speaker 1 (14:32):
Oh, this is one vengeance for all part two? Oh yeah, no,
oh no, oh yeah, So okay, let me explain what
he's saying. Oh no, to hold on, all right, So
this is all lego, very similar style to the first
ones that everybody's seen. And so you've got a very
(14:52):
stereotypical looking Native American man with a big head dress
on and you know, feathers with a horse which is
also all decked out, very ceremonious looking. And then you
have something that is supposed to look like people in Africa.
They look very upset and there are things that we're
(15:13):
supposed to understand as shackles around their hands, around their feet.
And then you've got Abuguai prison. You've got also Rachel Corey,
who was who's somebody who's a pro Palestinian activist who's
American who was killed in Palestine. And then you have
again little girls, and behind them is a sign that
(15:35):
says Epstein. But then also in and amongst a whole
bunch of other recognizable figures, you have Malcolm X, Lego
fied Malcolm X. And in the back there's a bunch
of young black I suppose lego men, and they're holding
a big sign that says, if you are neutral in
(15:56):
situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor.
Malcolm X, big banner saying that, And each one of
the representatives of these said groups that have been oppressed
are putting their signs on a missile and walking up
and pressing a big red button to fire away a missile. So, well,
(16:23):
what does it say to you?
Speaker 3 (16:26):
I mean, much the same as all the other stuff.
It's fascinating that there's so many specific characters. As I'm
we're looking at the Albegrede prison, there's a gentleman that
has his left hand is gone and he's got like
a hook for a hand, and there was a close
up of him that had some very specific like facial texture.
It's like, I don't know who that is. It's supposed
(16:47):
to be some they're referencing someone specifically that I don't
know who it is off the top of my head.
And that's the whole thing. The Epstein victim's picture. Those
are the those are the ones that have come forward
and testified, right, I'm pretty sure. And so they again
they are implying, like the other vengeance video that like
Iran is standing up for America's the victims of America, right,
(17:09):
And you know, they're conflating like Epstein, they're conflating everybody
everything together and saying, you know, the missiles are the
sort of vengeance against the people that have perpetrated the
crimes against everyone, the lego versions of everyone you see
in this video. So we are at war with a
country that seems to understand us and is generating propag Normally,
(17:33):
in past wars, propaganda generated by the person you're fighting
is for the troops. For the people that are fighting,
it's to break their morale. It's to make them think
that nobody likes them back home, and that stuff rarely
makes it back to the home front. Well, we live
in an age of social media and it's to connection
and now Iran is purposely designing propaganda so that you
(17:56):
and I will talk about it on a podcast and
we'll hear a rap song and get kind of into it. Yeah,
like this is this is meant for Like sure soldiers
will see it, you know, as they're sitting on the
Abraham Lincoln, but like this is for you and me,
This is for people that are on Twitter and on Instagram.
This is meant for the mass consumption of the American people. Yeah,
(18:18):
that is unique to me and different.
Speaker 1 (18:21):
So let's let's talk about it. Because there is a
history of this, right, propaganda aimed at sometimes civilians but
often soldiers. It's something that's always been done, right. Uh yeah,
tell me a little bit about that.
Speaker 3 (18:35):
So I think that like the classic example that people
probably be familiar with is like, oh, I can't remember
her name now, but there is a woman. You'll hear
her broadcasts in movies about Vietnam. You know, there's soldiers
in the jungle, just like go Home, g I, Joe,
No one wants you here, et cetera, et cetera, just
kind of like slowly droning breaking you down. Vietnam would
(18:58):
also drop like Lee aimed at African American soldiers to
be like, you know, you guys don't have civil rights
back home, and you're over here fighting us, Like, isn't
you know maybe you should be thinking about what's going on.
North Korea would do that during the Korean War and
all both of the world wars. People generated propaganda and
tried to get other soldiers to see it.
Speaker 5 (19:19):
Like.
Speaker 3 (19:19):
It's incredibly common, very common. It's just part of how
war works. Since like the mass production of media, since
you've been able to churn out a bunch of pamphlets,
since you've been able to get on the radio, since
you've been able to make television.
Speaker 1 (19:32):
Right, Yeah, there's also something that you saw Japan do
a lot. They would also drop these pamphlets on white
soldiers and black soldiers. So right here you have a
pamphlet that says at the top, it says seen from
the home Front, and it's got can't make this up.
It's hard to describe, but it's a black man holding
(19:54):
a whip and he has whipped a white woman and
you can see she's bleeding. And then another black man
is forcibly kissing a white woman and it says, is
it getting bad as all this? Yep, Negroes are the
boss of the town now, and that is aimed at
white soldiers.
Speaker 3 (20:09):
It's a very specific like American male fear from the.
Speaker 1 (20:13):
Time exactly exactly. And you've but then you've got the
flip side of that, which is they would also drop
pamphlets for you know, black regiments, and it's basically this
is an image of it's a pamphlet. It's black and white,
and you've got a black man sprinting and a black
man as a soldier, and it basically says you're sprinters,
(20:34):
you're fighters, you're the best. But un quote here, every
time a dirty job turns up, every time they need
more cannon fodder, every time the going gets tough, you're
up front, while white he stays behind where he won't
get hurt. I get mad one of these days if
I were you. So this comes back to what you
were saying, which is like there's always been propaganda that
(20:55):
understands the shall we say the enemy or the other side.
And there's a progression from here is this, you know,
we are defending ourselves. It's a sacred duty for us
to defend Iran. You know, American has come in and
they're bombing as this is this terrible thing we've done,
and it's kind of shifted to look at how hypocritical Americans,
(21:19):
look at how hypocritical your government is, which is something
that was done in the past, and that's being done.
Speaker 3 (21:23):
Not only that, but like we are doing this on
behalf of the downtrodden.
Speaker 1 (21:29):
Exactly.
Speaker 3 (21:29):
Yeah, right, this is not just about defending our country.
It is an existential conflict against you know, they call
us the Great Satan Right against the Great Satan Right,
and we're going to stand up for all the people
that that Great Satan has trampled on for generations.
Speaker 1 (21:55):
We'll be right back after the break. The United States
is doing something very different and I want to play
this because it's worth watching. So this is a tweet.
You're you're, you're, you're putting your hands.
Speaker 3 (22:18):
This stuff is so up, like so upsetting.
Speaker 1 (22:20):
Let's do it. Okay. So from again, as you stay
as you said in your article, Iran did not start
the AI slot propaganda war. They did not start the
start the weird meme war that they absolutely did not
start it. Here's the United States a couple of weeks
before those lego videos. Here's the United States on Twitter
March twelfth.
Speaker 3 (23:06):
So to give the audience the rundown of what we
just watch? Yes, please, it's footage from WE Sports, And
every time you're hearing like hole in one strike, the
WE Sports footage is cutting to that grainy like footage
of a thermal cam of like a strike on an
Iranian military target, mixing you know, video game. And it's
(23:30):
funny because like I watched this, and I'm like, this
is the kind of stuff that you make if you
are completely confident that everyone already agrees with you, right,
and you're not trying to win anybody over. You're just
trying to entertain your base. Like that's this is not winning.
This is not a hearts and minds campaign on the
(23:51):
American homefront from the White House, and like it's all
like this, it's all this kind of stuff.
Speaker 1 (23:56):
Yeah, well let's hear let's look at another one.
Speaker 5 (24:00):
Oh shit, here we go again. Oh shit, here we
go again.
Speaker 1 (24:14):
Okay, So I'm just gonna stop it here. So for
those just listening, it sounds like we're just listening to
a loop of the same thing over and over again.
We're not, no, but that's it.
Speaker 3 (24:23):
It's the repetition that in this that makes me crazy.
Speaker 1 (24:27):
Yeah. So it's a video from Grand Theft Auto San Andreas,
which is this is how old is this game?
Speaker 5 (24:32):
Like?
Speaker 1 (24:32):
Eighteen years old? Is this game fifteen? It's an old game.
Speaker 3 (24:35):
It's old.
Speaker 1 (24:35):
It's an old game, very old now. And it's a
meme with the dude saying, ah shit, here we go again.
And then every time it cuts over to something being
you know, footage, surveillance footage of some target I'm using
scare quotes here being blown up. And this is a
tweet made by the official White House account that says
(24:57):
Operation Epic Fury Destroyer runs miss Arsenal destroy their navy
and sure they never get a nuclear weapon. And so
I think the messaging is very different. Right, you're talking
about what Iran's doing is this is kind of a
Hearts and Minds type thing. And then White House is
dropping video game memes from fifteen twenty years ago. I mean,
I hate to remind y'all, but the we sports memes,
(25:19):
the people were playing the Wii in two thousand and seven,
that is a twenty year old console. Like the Halo memes. Right,
they're also doing memes from the video game Halo series.
Hate to Break into everybody, including me, because I love Halo,
but nobody plays Halo anymore. Who are they trying to
talk to? Is when I'm trying to ask you, well, it's.
Speaker 3 (25:38):
This is like aging millennial thinking that they're on the
top of the culture when actually they're the losers, right,
That's what this is. This is the because the comps director,
who's you've got retweeting the White House thing with the
infinite Ammo cheat from Grand Theft Auto san Andres. I
think he's in his mid forties. I believe could be
(26:02):
completely wrong, but he's he's he's an old millennial. He
probably knows what his Harry Potter house is. He's that
kind of and so like all of that stuff from
when he was a kid that he thinks, he still
thinks is so cool. The broader culture has mostly moved
on from yeah, and he has seen so often that
(26:23):
they think it's cringe and so like, he's playing to
other people that are exactly like him, that aren't that
don't like keep up with memetic culture, or aren't interested
in changing or learning or in like he's still obsessed
with the same games and the same memes from twenty
years ago and It's kind of funny to watch the
White House, like like you do the CJ thing once, right,
(26:48):
like oh shit, here we go again, and then like
that that's it, and then maybe you cut to something else.
But to do it like three or four times in
a row, it's just like that's it all over, right.
It's just repeating the same tired stuff for a small
audience that helps you get into power that mostly foments
on like four chan and places like that. And like, meanwhile,
(27:11):
we're all paying four dollars a gallon for gas and
we blew up a girls' school in Iran. Cool.
Speaker 1 (27:20):
But I think that's one of the really interesting things
here is that, listen, the United States in the past
took these sorts of things really seriously. If foreign actors enemies, right,
people on the other side of the war were trying
to appeal to existing divisions that existed in US society,
(27:42):
The United States took this stuff really seriously. Let me
pull this up. This is an official internal memo that
was at one point confidential in the Navy. I'm just
gonna read you the opening paragraph of it. Resume of
Japanese influence on the knee he grows in the United States.
(28:02):
It is quite apparent that the present policy of the
Japanese government to exploit the Negroes in order to precipitate
a major internal security problem in the United States is
based upon previous steps in this direction, which indicate that
racial agitation may well be incorporated as a definite part
of Japan's program for world supremacy end quote. Basically saying
here that the United States at one point the policy,
(28:26):
I think, broadly speaking, the United States broad point was
we need to make sure that the American people and
the rest of the world believe that we are on
the side of justice and we are doing the morally
correct thing. And if some other power tried to give
the impression that the United States is morally incorrect, the
(28:50):
US had to counterac that we're now seeing it doesn't
really seem like they're trying to win anybody over.
Speaker 3 (28:56):
Just like you said, well, yeah, think about like two
like think about Afghanistan and Iraq. Push signs a legislation
that opens the door for reporters to imbed with soldiers,
like very closely, to follow them, to report on what
they're seeing like actively. And yes, there's like people were
(29:18):
dog walked and were shown certain things, and like it
had varying levels of transparency, but like you did have
an independent press on the ground with soldiers like right
next to them, reporting on things as they come. And
we like we sent Cole and Powell to the UN
to make the case for why this was why it
(29:40):
was righteous to go in to Iraq, like why we
needed to find these weapons of mass destruction. And you're right,
it was America making the case that it was morally
it had been hit, it's people had been killed, and
we were morally in the right to do what we
were doing. Trump says, first of all, like really much
(30:00):
of an there's there's there's a couple of people left
at the Pentagon Press Corps, but most of it is
like restrictions are continuing further and further, you know, they
want to get journalists in trouble who are reporting on
things that they don't like. And so what we're left
with is a guy that says, actually, we're the strongest
and we're gonna hurt everyone because we can. And here's
(30:23):
a funny meme about it. And we're left with these
videos of like war from a distance cut with twenty
year old you know, video games, and like that just
doesn't like, doesn't strike a resonance with Americans or anyone
at all except for like a very narrow part of
the administration and the supporters that are like kind of
(30:46):
bullies and sociopaths, right, Like who likes this kind of stuff?
Speaker 1 (30:53):
So maybe I'm gonna ask you an obvious question here,
But listen, there's plenty of discussion about physically, how is
the war going? All signs point toward not so hot
for the United States. What about the mem war? Who's winning?
Speaker 3 (31:13):
Who's winning? I mean, Iran's winning the meme War. One
of my bell weathers is because I don't, like, I
don't live in a major media city. Most of the
people I interact with all day don't have any idea
what's like They're blissfully ignorant of a lot of this stuff.
So it's like when one of those people walk up,
walks up to me and is like, have you seen
(31:34):
this this lego Iran? Like, it's like, okay, then it's hitting,
it's it's piercing through. If the people of South Carolina
are asking me if I've seen an Iranian lego video,
then yet like, yes, it's it's resonating with people, for sure,
And I think most people don't know, like don't know
why America has gone to war with Iran or are
(31:55):
not convinced by the thirteen different reasons we've been given.
But I also think that like Iran probably not doing
so hot either. I think this is gonna be one
of those things where I think that we can bomb
a lot of infrastructure away and we can reduce the
size of their military. But like you don't win a
(32:17):
war with a with an aerial bombing campaign, you don't
win hearts and minds with an aerial bombing campaign. And
I think that Iran knows that all it has to
do is survive like probably a year, get to the
mid terms. They know when the they know when the
American midterms are, and so all they have to do
is keep keep putting out the lego videos and keep
defending themselves and tunnel deeper in and keep making missiles.
Speaker 1 (32:42):
And you know, he.
Speaker 3 (32:45):
Gets bored and the Americans don't like it.
Speaker 1 (32:48):
So that's actually a good point for people who are
watching this kind of bizarre mean more play out. Right now,
what do you think people should be paying attention to?
Speaker 3 (33:04):
Uh? I have maybe a weird answer their own feelings. Uh,
watch your watch your heart. You're not immune to propaganda,
so I think that you can. You can be motivated
by like the White House's memes a different way. And
(33:27):
this is something that I struggle with every day. I
got a lot of like poison flowing around in the
old ticker right now, because I'm like a lot of
this stuff just makes me very upset and angry, and
just like this stuff is meant to get a quick
emotional reaction out of you, both both sides of it,
and just be aware of that and like watch that
(33:49):
and wonder if, like what what's the intended effect? Is
it having that effect on me? And do I need
to step away for a second, whether that's you know,
a really amazing, amazing, a really catchy lego rap song
or like a terrible video of we sports explosions like
(34:10):
either one. Yeah, sometimes it's sometimes you need to to
push away just a little bit and watch yourself. It's
got a lot of years left of this whatever this is,
and we got to be careful with ourselves and with
other people.
Speaker 1 (34:25):
Yeah. Man, Well, with that, thank you so much for
coming to once again, Matt Tew. I really appreciate it.
We got to have you on a gag because this
this this tech stuff doesn't just stay inside the computer.
It's it gets out at all of us.
Speaker 3 (34:40):
It's all of our it's all of our lives now everywhere,
all the time. Yeah, this is the water water we swimming.
Speaker 1 (34:47):
Everything is computer. Thank you so much to Matthew Gilt
for joining us on our second live stream, and thank
you for listening to kill Switch again. If you want
to catch the next one live, you can subscribe to
the YouTube channel. You can just search kill Switch Pod
on YouTube, or you can find the link in the description. Man.
(35:09):
If you have any ideas for another episode, or something
you're curious about, or even a guest you want us
to talk to, you can let us know via email
at kill switch at Kaleidoscope dot NYC or on Instagram.
We're at kill Switch pod and if you like what
we're doing, maybe leave us a review. It helps other
people find the show, which helps us keep doing our thing.
Kill Switch is hosted by Me Dexter Thomas. It's produced
(35:31):
by Shina Ozaki, Darluk Potts, and Julian Nutter. Our theme
song is by me and Kyle Murdoch. From Kaleidoscope. Our
executive producers are Ozma lashin On, Guesh Hatigodur and Kate
Osborne from iHeart Our executive producers A Katrina Norval and
Nikki Etour catch on the next One
Speaker 5 (35:51):
Fine
kill switch News
Hosts And Creators
Oz Woloshyn
Karah Preiss
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