For this week’s Infinite Scroll column, Brady Brickner-Wood is filling in for Kyle Chayka.
A few months ago, the pro-Iran group Akhbar Enfejari (Explosive News) was just another unknown YouTube channel, a hapless content farm posting memes to an audience of hundreds. But after the U.S. and Israel attacked Iran, setting off a regional conflict, the group’s overtly propagandistic Lego-themed videos ...
The memeification of Charlie Kirk’s assassination and the rise of "slopaganda" reveal a disturbing convergence of digital culture, political violence, and propaganda. At its core, this phenomenon reflects the weaponization of absurdity—a tactic that flattens complex political realities into algorithmically optimized, emotionally charged content. The right’s attempt to canonize Kirk as a martyr, coupled with the suppression of dissent, created the perfect conditions for a backlash in the form of ...
