It seems social media platforms are changing the way we witness and document wars and conflicts. Instead of traditional press briefings and serious military updates, Reuters reported that some videos released during the ongoing conflict between the United States and Iran use editing styles that resemble popular video games such as Call of Duty.
One such video begins with a scene inspired by the first-person shooter game – COD and then quickly shifts to dramatic visuals of fighter jets taking off from aircraft carriers, missiles flying through the sky and explosions shown in slow motion. The clips play with energetic music and a narrator claims that the United States is ‘winning this war’.
According to the report, the video is part a social media campaign to promote the bombing campaign against Iran. One of the videos has already been viewed more than 58 million times online.
One video even displays a kill score style counter similar to what players see after eliminating enemies in war action games like Medal of Honor, COD or Battlefield video games.
Reuters reported that the style of these videos is very different from how governments used to communicate during conflicts in the past. According to them, previous government often relied on official briefings, charts and detailed explanations to justify military action.
Now, the approach seems more focused on social media videos that mix military footage with dramatic music and quick edits.
Some videos also include clips from movies such as Top Gun, Iron Man, Gladiator and Braveheart.
Others even show popular memes or animated characters, including a short clip of SpongeBob SquarePants saying ‘Wanna see me do it again?’ alongside footage of explosions.
Critics told Reuters that this approach risks turning war into entertainment or a video game, even though real soldiers and civilians are affected by the conflict.
Some experts have described it as the ‘gamification’ of war.
Kristopher Purcell, who served in the White House communications department in the run-up to Bush’s 2003 invasion of Iraq, told Reuters that he believed the target audience for the videos was young men, a demographic that Trump performed strongly with in his 2024 election victory.
He said the Bush administration spent months laying out the case for the invasion of Iraq but now the Trump administration is sending out these videos after the fact to justify the war and called it the ‘gamification’ of conflict.
“Before it took time and lots of knowledge. And now some social media manager at the White House could play around with one of these tools for a half hour and come up with something that looks pretty good,” Craig Silverman, a researcher and cofounder of Indicator, a newsletter and website dedicated to exposing digital deception, was quoted as saying.
Anna Kelly, a White House spokeswoman, told Reuters the US.military was meeting or surpassing its goals in the war against Iran.
“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,” Kelly said.
In the smartphone era, it seems the war is no longer just on the ground, it is also on social media feeds.
(with inputs from Reuters)
