In a masterclass of trolling, the Iranian Embassy just hit Donald Trump where it hurts
There have been a lot of memes about the Iran war as of late—not all of them are in good taste. But the diplomatic spat between Iran and the United States has reached comedic heights through memes.
President Donald Trump was asked by a reporter about the Strait of Hormuz. They inquired about who would be controlling the narrow waterway. To that, Trump said, “It will be jointly controlled.” “By who?” the reporter followed up. “Maybe me, maybe me. Me and the Ayatollah, whoever the Ayatollah is,” Trump said. He continued, “There’ll also be a very serious form of regime change. Now, in fairness, everybody has been killed from the regime.”
Trump said that he’s “dealing with some people,” hinting that the United States is vetting to install an ayatollah that Trump approves of. The official embassy of Iran in South Africa posted a meme in response to Trump’s bold claim about negotiating joint control of the Strait of Hormuz. The caption sarcastically reads, “The Strait of Hormuz will be controlled by me and the Ayatollah.”
Harmless memeing
Call it brainrot—call it an unserious post—but it’s the least problematic meme about the war that’s been posted so far. This wouldn’t be the first time that the same Iranian embassy dissed Trump and his allies. Late last week, they also took a shot at Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, calling him an “idiot of idiots.”
Perhaps the senseless memes would aggravate Trump, but there’s some value in finding humor during an extremely dark time. It’s also arguably better than the dark memes posted by Hegseth’s Department of War. Most of the war propaganda clips feature spliced popular media to entice young people to join the war. The pop culture references are meant to target Gen Z.
Ironically, the White House has been blasted by media personalities over the use of their work for war propaganda. This isn’t to say that artists should agree to their materials being used to promote a war. But at the very least, propaganda posters back in World War II were funded by the government.
It would be morally dubious for artists to accept the funding, but at least the government wouldn’t be appropriating the rights of artists to feed its murder machine. Regardless, war is typically no laughing matter—and good jokes are few and far between. But it almost seems mildly unbelievable when the White House, Department of War, and even the Embassy of Iran in South Africa’s accounts all seem to be run by Gen Z. That, or these social media account managers are just extremely savvy with internet-speak.
Will there be peace talks soon?
On social media, Trump claimed that he and Iran “have had very good and productive conversations,” implying that there are negotiations in place to stop the war. He even called for a five-day ceasefire, postponing “any and all military strikes against Iranian power plants and energy infrastructure.”
Nevertheless, there is contradictory information online from an Iranian official who called the claim “fake news.” Speaker Mohammad-Bagher Ghalibaf accused the United States and Israel of “manipulating” the financial and oil markets through Trump’s ceasefire post. This has not been verified, and it’s also unclear if Trump and his cabinet are meeting with senior Iranian officials regarding the war.
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