The embassy in South Africa has been particularly good since the war started. Funny thing is that Iran always was very stale, buttoned up and intellectual in it's communication before this war. Former president Khatami infamously referenced Alexis de Tocqueville’s classic work Democracy in America, remarking that it was a text he was "sure most Americans have read" in a CNN interview in 1998. Now they've realized that most Americans can barely read, so it's been memes and Lego videos during this war, and they've demonstrated that they are better at braindead propaganda too. Quite impressive.
Should've specified that I meant internationally. Unfortunately, I haven't followed the internal stuff. Before this war, the international public diplomacy was very academic and formal as far as I'm aware. I guess it's to be expected that the social media generations would excel at memes, Iranians tend to excel at most things they take seriously. That's apparent even outside Iran, where Iranian minorities in the west are generally more ambitious in most areas compared to the majority of immigrant communities.
Yes you're right, communication from within Iran has been almost exclusively formal, with the occasional journalist that tends to interview anonymous subjects quite naively and almost always with a heavy bias.
Unfortunately it's difficult to keep up with their discourse if you're not immersed in the culture. Iran is a bit of an island, and unless you're physically within the country I think it's pretty much impossible to keep up to date with everything even if you read the news, watch TV all day and read Whatsapp/Telegram all night.
I'd love to see communication restrictions and internal repression loosen up a bit. Information warfare has been a huge factor for Iran over the past 20 years so I can see the desire to guard against that (especially in this last war when they basically physically pulled the plug on the internet because the communication infrastructure was compromised and was being used to stage military strikes and disable the electrical grid). But ultimately I think those restrictions backfired over time, causing confusion, misunderstandings and security holes as people found ways to circumvent the restrictions anyway (as they tend to do). Repression is seldom the answer.
The concept of "mass anti-intellectualism" was probably a major culture-shock to most people.
Funny as it is, he's literally incapable of seeing fault in himself
I understand his mind so much better, oddly enough, due to watching South Park and seeing the mental gymnastics Cartman's mind uses to convince himself how he's actually incredible and everyone loves him.
They need to post this on, and I can barely bring myself to type its name, Truth Social.
Ronald McDonald is an asshole, but this is a bit extreme, he's not a rapist or anything. Kinda mean.
Why you doing Ronald so wrong?
lol it just occurred to me that I literally forgot he’s the mascot for the food place and not just the helping kids with diseases guy.
That’s how little I consider McDonalds to be food haha.
Wrong clown in reflection
The Ronald McDonald foundation gets lodging for families of sick kids. They often have to travel and stay long term in specialized children's hospitals. A lot of families can't afford it and only visit their kids when they can. Both family and kid suffer. I think it's a great cause that often goes overlooked.
Edit: as seen below, they're evil :(
Uh... They've been quietly predatory for decades, now. Not unlike Goodwill, The Salvation Army, etc.; but far worse, IMHO. A cursory search'll easily turn up all sorts of corporate halo-fostering, blanket criminal background screening policies in housing, and pandemic-era operational mandates, et al., just sayin'.
Shove him in.
Need to make it so parts of the paint are visibly peeling up
You are what you eat
Dancing clown, young and swown, only seventown
Ronald McGodDamnDonald
...ronald mcdonald insanity.
A rich clown born out of capitalism? Wait.
Too much self reflection for that “man”.
@sh.itjust.works
People tweeting stuff. We allow tweets from anyone.
RULES:
- Mark NSFW content.
- No doxxing people.
- Must be a pic of the tweet or similar. No direct links to the tweet.
- No international politcs
- Be excellent to each other.
- Provide an archived link to the tweet (or similar) being shown if it's a major celebrity, figure or any politician. If you replace the "x" at their site with xcancel (so it beomes xcancel.com), and you're not on mobile, it will save video. https://web.archive.org/save is another great option. Archive.is is no longer recommended because they remove/alter content.
- If a tweet (or similar) makes a statement of fact, either mark it as "satire" in the body or provide the original source link backing up the statement
go to feed...
@sh.itjust.works
People tweeting stuff. We allow tweets from anyone.
RULES:
- Mark NSFW content.
- No doxxing people.
- Must be a pic of the tweet or similar. No direct links to the tweet.
- No international politcs
- Be excellent to each other.
- Provide an archived link to the tweet (or similar) being shown if it's a major celebrity, figure or any politician. If you replace the "x" at their site with xcancel (so it beomes xcancel.com), and you're not on mobile, it will save video. https://web.archive.org/save is another great option. Archive.is is no longer recommended because they remove/alter content.
- If a tweet (or similar) makes a statement of fact, either mark it as "satire" in the body or provide the original source link backing up the statement
go to feed...
They're definetly winning the meme war so far...
save