We spoke to the man making viral Lego-style AI videos for Iran | Hacker News Reader

We spoke to the man making viral Lego-style AI videos for Iran

bbc.com

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They didn't include the latest and best one, a terrific rap video that got the producer banned from YouTube.

A press website posted this archive copy:

https://youtu.be/5G9DNx7xIIc?si=XxIep3pySW7ZS8zb

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5G9DNx7xIIc share link wouldn't load

Why did he get banned?

“Violent content” according to their twitter account.

https://x.com/ExplosiveMediaa/status/2042388973729763746

Never would have found that. Poked around, interesting:

"In response to your completely valid request, and in line with the boycott of the US dollar, we have closed our USDT wallet. Please use Bitcoin or Solana instead."

https://xcancel.com/ExplosiveMediaa/status/20419442863300406...

Thanks for sharing. That shit slaps :clap:

Damn that shit slaps. The lyrics are actually not even that incorrect, the Epstein Regime is fucked, it's crazy how happy Americans are to humiliate themselves in front of the world and die for their paedophile regime and for Israel.

Has anyone figured out what AI tool the "Mr. Explosive" team is using to make these? I find the quality of the LEGO animation to be really good. I have made stop-motion LEGO videos in the past, and this is impressive.

Thanks for any insight.

I'm also curious about this

I’ve been wondering this as well. Could it be seedance 2?

If you have the backing off a government, I'd think ComfyUI on a seriously beefy computer would be the ideal choice so you're not reliant on a foreign company. Plus if they're getting help from the CCP, they'll have access to video generation models out of China. If the question is "could a dedicated teenager in America create a clap back video", I think the answer is no, but I not gonna bet against this hypothetical teenage either.

I'll give ComfyUi a try. I love that idea. Thanks!

A lot of comments talking about the Iranian regime. The videos I've seen say nothing positive about the Iranian regime, all they do is rightfully criticize the US regime that carried out an assault out on Iran, which as expected has led to nothing but more suffering for the Iranians, without improving their lives. That the Iranian regime killed thousands of protestors says nothing about both the legitimacy and the effects of the attack on Iran, and believing otherwise is caused by being raised on US propaganda.

If you truly care about the Iranian people, you'd be agreeing with these videos, because the attack has only made their lives worse. And this was completely expected, look at how the last two times of the US attacking a country in the Middle East went.

While civilian casualties are unavoidable in any conflict, the idea here is that if the regime falls, the face of the Middle East will completely change. Just look at Iran pre-1979 and imagine what it would be today had the theocracy not mercilessly oppressed the population for half a century. Perhaps this creator should use AI to generate a video of the IRGC killing an estimated 30,000 of their own people[0].

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2026_Iran_massacres

One might wonder what helped the theocracy take over the pre-1979 Iran.

One need not wonder. Your first guess is correct!

There is a certain leap between "civilian casualties are unavoidable" and "a civilization Is going to be destroyed and sent back to the stone age through war crimes"

Trump's comments are quite obviously saber-rattling. Until now at least, the U.S. hasn't executed 30,000+ Iranians in a short period of time, and countless more over the past five decades.

Regime change isn't the real goal here, is it? Haven't followed closely, but to me it seems the goal is to just destroy Iran as a regional power, with dire consequences for its population.

The only thing any of that has to do with the US is that the US backed that theocracy! We cannot unilaterally violate all international law and sovereignty without Congress and our allies… that’s obvious though so what are you talking about?

This is a pointless complaint if the person who has ended up in charge is worse. There's no point in imagining what could have been. The world is dealing with what exist now.

Some civilian casualties may be unavoidable in a conflict sure, but the US and Israel are not trying very hard

Maybe the US should have intervened in 1979. Oh, wait.

Except that the effect here has not been to overturn the regime, but rather to put a hardliner into absolute power while also murdering his entire family in the middle of diplomatic negotations. And then murdering plenty of innocent people, like that school full of literal children, to ensure that the country rallies around him.

Iran under the Shah was hardly a bastion of liberty:

“In a 1976 document, Amnesty International detailed some of SAVAK's torture practices and stated that the shah's regime was one of the worst human rights violators in the world.”

https://www.encyclopedia.com/history/legal-and-political-mag...

Some argue the excessive repression is what caused the reactionary backlash of the Islamic Revolution (which initially was also supported by liberal democratic and leftist parties as well).

Also SAVAK were trained and intimately tied into Mossad. It's not surprising that this caused a little bit of resentment against Israel.

One of my friends in Iran who was previously critical of the government is now highly supportive of them. I wonder how many other Iranians have become supporters of the government during this war.

I've heard the same from many Iranians I know. Western media presented the protests as an attempt to overthrow the order but it seems many protestors were simply calling for reform.

> seems many protestors were simply calling for reform

I mean, when you would have literally death penalty for attempt to overthrow the order, of course you will be "simply calling for reform".

According to Gallup, Iran's approval ratings of its leadership are as follows:

  2018: 45% approval vs 49% disapproval (net -4)
  2019: 44 vs 53 (-9)
  2020: 43 vs 51 (-8)
  2021: 50 vs 46  (+4)
  2022: 44 vs 51 (-7)
  2023: 43 vs 52 (-9)

https://news.gallup.com/poll/611210/iran-votes-lukewarm-lead...

We don't have numbers after that but I find it hard to believe a large majority in a country with middling approval ratings would suddenly want to completely overthrow their leaders in just a few years.

Generally I agree; i doubt that there is a large contingent of Iranians in Iran who are cheering for bombing and complete collapse of their civilization. However it’s not out of the question that the approval of the government could have plummeted precipitously within a couple of years - there’s lots of precedent for that across the world (UK conservatives come to mind, George W Bush 2nd term as well)

Sure, absolutely. And I'm sure it did plummet. But Bush or the UK conservatives weren't overthrown in a nation-wide revolution. To get something like that you need massive widespread disapproval that's been going on for at least a decade. That just isn't the case in Iran. It's been a pretty middling approval rating for years

Frankly, you sound like an Iranian bot. It's obvious that the Iranian government's approval ratings are, at best, around 20%. Measuring government approval ratings in a country where there's no freedom of speech, no political freedom, and where criticizing the regime is subject to mass executions is simply stupid.

Just out of curiosity, according to your methodology, what's Kim Jong-un's approval rating among North Koreans? 99.98%?

> Just out of curiosity, according to your methodology, what's Kim Jong-un's approval rating among North Koreans? 99.98%?

You're just being insincere. I clearly posted GALLUP.

Maybe you're handler forgot to turn on the ability for you to see and read links.

> Frankly, you sound like an Iranian bot. It's obvious that the Iranian government's approval ratings are, at best, around 20%.

This is not at all obvious... I've only seen one poll that indicates such a low approval rating - it was from GAMAAN, which uses highly questionable polling techniques

1. reaching out to people on social media, then asking them to share the poll with their friends 2. Repeatedly asking the same people to take different polls, effectively polling the same sample over and over again. 3. Asking users of ONE VPN provider, which is hardly representative of Iranian population.

Even looking at their cross-tabs in their report shows how out-of-whack their sample was:

https://gamaan.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/Iranians-Polit...

Only 13% of those polled were in lowest third of income. 53% of those polled where in top 40% of income. Only 29.0% of those polled indicated religion was important in their life, compared to 69.4% from the World Values Survey. Hilariously, they use that as an indication that their poll is somehow more accurate than World Values Survey, Gallup, etc.

GAMAAN is also headed by Tony Blair, one of the most notorious interventionist Neo-cons of the past 30 years.

I trust Gallup way more than GAMAAN here.

> no freedom of speech, no political freedom, and where criticizing the regime is subject to mass executions is simply stupid.

Your view of day to day life in Iran seems clouded by propaganda. Try talking with someone who actually lives in Iran and ask them what they think.

It’s really bizarre to me that, even before the war, the mainstream western media ignored the 30k protesters getting massacred in January. They have been using kid gloves with the Iranian regime for some time, like this article exemplifies.

How much control does China have on what comes across your screen do you think? I suspect it is not none.

(not parent)

Something's been bothering me, and it's how little control our leadership has over what comes across their screens.

1 - We've read the reputable reporting on the troll farms.

2 - We haven't seen reporting that the problem is fixed.

3 - We know our politicians are on social media.

Presumably, every single day, American politicians see at least one post from someone pretending to be their constituent. How are they avoiding conscious, if not subconscious, influence?

So, partially by not reading or caring about constituents. At least not the ones that call and bitch, the ones that donate get great care.

Then we’re back to square one… leaving ActBlue’s foreign donation allegations out for a moment… how much of soft power (China, US, or otherwise) is from campaign contributions, direct or a degree removed?

The protests and killings were extremely widely reported at the time.

Without access to the Internet from the Iranian people, the media reach was limited. It was not widely reported.

I'm not sure why you think that when even the US President was tweeting about it

The accurate number is 6,000 but someone from Israel's side said it could be up to 30,000.

Protesters are armed solders with guns organized by IDF and CIA.

Specifically, Human Rights Activists in Iran's count is 6,488. Iran International is the main outlet that claimed more (first 10k, then 30k and now 40k). Iran International is actually Saudi-owned and technically based in the UK but, as The Guardian's investigation showed, is not a real journalistic institution. It's just a propaganda outlet for Mohammed bin Salman

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/oct/31/concern-over-u...

Just annotating this as the Iranian regime’s talking point

Find better news sources. This was very much covered.

Day after day, reality seems less and less real… when I was a kid I didn’t think war would include LEGO style psyops videos…

You should look at how the US overthrew Guatemala's first elected leader. A self-proclaimed capitalist was labelled a "communist" by even the NYTimes because they wanted the banana companies to pay some minimal taxes.

NYTimes has since admitted to their close partnership with the CIA in its coverage but, crucially, it has never apologized for it.

It's sad to see the modern panic over "fake news" as if it's a new phenomenon. Rather, this feels to me like the "boomerang theory" in action

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imperial_boomerang

It's quite clear in view of recent events that the mullahs aren't interested in negotiating for the good of their people. It is obvious to anyone that if Iran put all the resources they poured into secret nuclear facilities and missiles into economic development, infrastructure, and education, Iran would be in a completely different place today. Sadly, the regime's primary objective is self-preservation, and the only language it understands is violence.

This comment is completely ignorant of at least the past 80+ years of Middle East history.

This comment is completely devoid of refuting evidence.

> It is obvious to anyone that if Iran put all the resources they poured into secret nuclear facilities and missiles into economic development, infrastructure, and education, Iran would be in a completely different place today

Funny, I was just thinking that about the US.

> Funny, I was just thinking that about the US.

I don't know how anyone in good faith can compare Iran's economy to the U.S.

They can't. And yet, it's true that the US would be a different place if it spent more money on education and less on missiles.

> if it spent more money on education and less on missiles

Wait, isn't the US has literally the highest spending on education in the world? And it is precisely the highest spending in the world on missiles that make it possible. So less money on missiles would mean less money on education.

Eh, it's also clear that nations without nuclear arms exist at the whims of great powers, particularly now. "behave and we'll let you have some prosperity unless you need defense in which case good luck" isn't exactly a strong argument.

And the people in power in Iran actively are not in favor of the good of their people, a large proportion of which want nothing to do with their religious fundamentalism.

How do you convince oppressive zealots to play nice for peace when their whole existence rests on having enemies? "death to America!" being the popular chant at political rallies.

> Iran put all the resources they poured into secret nuclear facilities and missiles

Iran has agreed to open them for inspection several times.

> into economic development, infrastructure, and education

They're embargoed to a point where they can't do this.

> Iran would be in a completely different place today.

Iran's currency is backed by the crown jewels the Shah left behind.

Iran spends about 2% of its GDP on defense, not that much compared to most countries in the world.

https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/MS.MIL.XPND.GD.ZS?locat...

The issue isn’t the amount of spending; they could spend nothing and would still get bombed because they are antagonistic to the US and its allies/vassals.

statistics == lies

"antagonistic"

They are a theocratic regime which is not supported by 80% of its population. Being gay is punishable by death. They employ surveillance from China to ensure hijabs are worn by women at all times. They ban access to the internet. Chants of "Death to America" are their government's routine greeting for 50 years. They place military equipment in schools and hospitals deliberately, viewing US compassion as a weakness. They recruit child soldiers and have them publicly stationed at military targets.

There is definitely "antagonism," but to act as if the Iranian people would not bomb their own government if they could... it's a bit much.

Why does the US count Saudi Arabia as an ally but Iran as an enemy?

Do you know anyone who lives in Iran?

Here’s what an upper class Tehran neighborhood looks like: https://youtu.be/G2pJwUkXhBM

A popular bazaar: https://youtu.be/ly54F22dqJc

All of which is confirming my point. The Iranians are a beautiful people and a beautiful culture that is still run by maniacs.

The original person's implication that the "antagonism" towards the IRGC is novel to America is simply false.

> All of which is confirming my point. No. It refutes your point "They employ surveillance from China to ensure hijabs are worn by women at all times." In addition I would contest other aspects of your statement as well, but that isn't my main point.

> The original person's implication that the "antagonism" towards the IRGC is novel to America is simply false.

You seem to not have understood what my point. What is most determinative of a countries fate in the Middle East isn't domestic policy, but obedience to the United States. Iran's problems are due to the fact that it is an enemy of the United States and hence sanctioned heavily, leading to severe economic problems. There are many other nations headed by regimes that are some combination of socially regressive, highly unpopular, and politically repressive that are counted as US allies and don't face the same set of difficulties (e.g. Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain).

condemning the US != condoning the Iranian regime. This is not rocket appliance, you guys; saying it's wrong to murder cat burglars while they eat dinner with their kids is not an endorsement of burglary (especially when the murder is about collecting life insurance rather than stopping burglary)

Previously:

The team behind a pro-Iran, Lego-themed viral-video campaign

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47661065

Most likely motivational media for their new child recruits: https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2026/04/iran-recruitm...

Non-paywalled link: https://archive.is/Rocgc

The worst part is that, in their most famous video linked above, they are not even telling blatant lies for once. The author was practically handed material for that video on a silver platter. That is quite disturbing.

I know, I know, this is not the platform. But however I dislike the war (which sounds across-the-board unpopular except with Republican senators) having love for a regime that massacres protestors by the thousands is cruel and perverse.

> (which sounds across-the-board unpopular except with Republican senators)

Having love for a regime that massacres school children by the hundreds sounds cruel and perverse, and 40% [0] of the US still approves of that regime. Guess 40% of the US is just as cruel and perverse as this person, in other words it's barely worth mentioning given how common it is.

[0] https://www.aol.com/articles/donald-trumps-current-approval-...

If you are American, we are also ruled by a regime that kills thousands of innocents in the name of whatever our president feels like

US prisoners per capita: 715

Iran prisoners per capita: 226

Particularly interesting to me is how prisoners in Iran have the right to vote while prisoners in the US can have their vote taken away.

Annual executions per capita, 2024 and 2025, excluding the Iranian protests:

USA: 1 in 12 million; 1 in 8.6 million

Iran: 1 in 97,000; 1 in 62,000

Good point but I don't understand how you're calculating those numbers. For example there were 1,639 people executed in 2025 for a population of 93.1 million

I was not trying to compare and contrast, that leads to whataboutism. Separate issues.

I don't think most people have love for the Iranian government. We hate war and bullies

I 'love' this sort of posh framing. Is there a war you like for a change? Thousands of civilians are dying on whims of an old mentally sick man, with nobody having balls to stop him anyhow. He can claim he is setting up a genocide of entire nation to whole world and... nothing? I know, one of the less bloody senseless wars US waged, ending up defeated again, but still. Everybody's US taxes are helping financing this.

Nothing substantial achieved, at least not positive for US. Israel is toying with you like with a donkey and carrot on stick. Is that not insulting to your own pride and self-worth? You lost all partners globally, everybody hates dealing with US and rolls their eyes on another daily set of whims of your oligarchs.

China is damn happy, russia is very happy so there is certainly that. And Iran, they will keep doing their thing, regardless of what you do and cia has to accept there isnt much they can change about that. Iran would be stupid to not throw everything into getting nuclear bomb for themselves. russians would be stupid to not help them there at this point.

I agree, it should not have happened and feel just as powerless. Concentration of power is an evil, on all sides.

Criticizing the US's actions against Iran is in no way condoning the things that the regime has done to it's own citizens. Especially since those actions are contributing directly to the Iranian people's hardship.

I'm not saying that you, personally, are being deliberately obtuse and unnuanced about this (and I'm not even saying that there aren't people who are sympathizing with the Iranian regime) but there are absolutely people being deliberately obtuse and unnuanced about it.

I mention it only because the media company producing the videos is pretty pro-regime. So it's not US vs regime but US vs well-being of the Iranians.

Why is this flagged?

Probably because it’s attracting tons of low-quality comments:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47736254

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47736315

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47736046

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47736038

That's probably not why actually. The usage of AI for propaganda in this way is objectively HN-related. But it's making the paedophile/Epstein regime of America look bad so the MAGA base are flagging it.

The article sounds like the author is visibly upset why these videos are being shared, which are mere “propaganda” to them. “Slop”, “factually inaccurate”, “Iran, the most repressive country for press freedom.”

“We spoke” is doing a more than necessary work here. Maybe just ask a few things and wrote what we had decided to write. My problem isn’t with those claims, which are true, but setting a narrative where a single country is exploiting social media for propaganda while clearly ignoring the crimes of much worse actors here.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com