The White House’s social media profile published a video that turns US attacks against Iran into a video game. For each bombing the score “+100” appears. The montage is inspired by the game Call of Duty, in which the player scores with accumulated deaths. The video, approximately one minute long, is accompanied by the caption: “A courtesy of red, white and blue (the colors of the US flag)”.
In the video game simulation, the White House presents several images of recent US military strikes against Iran, with their respective elimination scores. Real scenes with missiles, which left more than a thousand people dead in Iran, are interspersed with fast-paced music. At times, a voice states: “We are winning this fight”; and “We take control.”
According to the specialized website GameSpot, it was not clear whether Activision or its parent company, Microsoft, agreed with the use of Call of Duty images by the White House.
Repetition
This is not the first time that the American government has resorted to these types of setups. The Department of Homeland Security faced backlash after using images and the Pokémon brand to promote controversial Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) operations in September, leading the company to distance itself from the videos.
On another occasion, the line between video games and reality confused a prominent Trump supporter, Texas Governor Greg Abbott, who mistakenly shared footage purported to be of an American ship shooting down an Iranian plane. In fact, the images were taken from the War Thunder video game, about World War II. Abbott deleted the post.
In the past, the American president has criticized video game culture, calling it the reason why society has “troubled young people”. This time, he did not speak.
