For several days in a row, the White House has posted videos on X of the U.S.’s strikes on Iran spliced with footage taken from video games and action movies, in a dystopic form of propaganda that treats the war like a game or like social media content to be mined.

Crude memes about attacking Iran hint at a deeper connection between video games and the desensitizing features of modern warfare.

The White House’s video Friday began with a brief clip from the video game Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas.

War video games have been popular for years, but they vary widely in quality. There are arcade shooters and massive open-world battles, but only a few make you feel like you were dropped onto a battlefield. Among the crowded market, ARMA 3 is the most ...

Through its social media feed, the White House has sent out a series of pumped-up videos that mix real Iran war explosions with movie action heroes, video game footage and sports heroes.

Various official X accounts have posted videos intercutting real bombings in Iran with clips from more violent video games, war films like Braveheart, sports highlights, and speeches from Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth set to movie-trailer-style epic music.

The pontiff told an Italian television program that it is up to journalists "to show the face of war and to relate it through the eyes of the victims, so as not to transform it into a video game."