When AI image generation models (Midjourney, DALL-E, Stable Diffusion) were released, professionals who track information flow online viewed it as a threat to digital multimedia’s role as forensic verification of public record. Images, video, and audio have always been seen as a reliable data point to establish what happened, when, and where. The concern was that AI-generated media would erode this standard by producing hyper-realistic fake images, video, and audio, effectively destroying multimedia as a reliable record.
In practice, however, very few AI deepfakes have done anything beyond becoming a temporary nuisance. Fake media that becomes viral enough to attract the attention of mainstream news (such as the “swagged-out” pope) is swiftly debunked. To our knowledge, no synthetic AI media has successfully supplanted authentic media in the historical record. AI deepfakes go viral the same way a bad Photoshop would, mostly on social media and on other outlets without any meaningful verification and fact checking process. They go viral not because they legitimately fool anyone, but because they reinforce the right message at the right moment. Or in case of our papal friend, they are just entertaining enough to want to send to someone else.
The damage to the permanent shared public record, in both cases, is minimal. The damage to public perception and conventional wisdom is the subject of ongoing debate.
However, instead of actually fooling people, AI-generated video has found a different use case on social media: storytelling. Think of AI-generated video as an evolution of the traditional meme. A meme tells a story in a single image, but if the context doesn’t already exist in the audience’s mind, it won’t connect. It requires a grain of truth to hook the target. With disinformation, telling a false story that still contains a grain of truth becomes more difficult, as narratives stray further from (anyones) reality.
In other words, if your meme makes no sense at all, it will be ignored. Your image has 1/2 of a second to connect with its audience, which is why you often have the begrudging respect for a successful meme, even if it is stupid.
AI-generated video memes could represent an entirely new medium of storytelling. Video memes can tell a complete story, with characters and a plot that does not require a connection to reality. This enables disinformation campaigns fully divorced from verifiable events, because the video creator controls the entire narrative from beginning to end. Do you want to put Charlie Kirk in a room with Netanyahu and P. Diddy? No problem. With the right production values and stylistic choices, a video can hold attention long enough to install an entirely new mythology aligned with specific strategic goals.
AI-generated video memes have become a tool for deception not by fabricating evidence, but by inventing new narratives wholesale. Video memes may feature real people, places, and things, to establish a connection with the target. That is often where the connection to reality ends. Think of these memes as fan fiction: familiar characters that make you feel comfortable (and therefore more impressionable), placed into entirely an new storyline. The new story with no connection to reality is often a bitter pill, only made digestible by a formula of familiarity.
Nation-state influence operations aside, AI video memeing is valuable for the isolated conspiracy theorist. Conspiracies are traditionally difficult to communicate, so much of the internal logic exists only in the mind of the believer. AI solves this by translating that internal vision into a shareable, well-produced, near-zero-cost medium. A conspiracy theorist’s written manifesto is easily dismissed as unhinged. A similar video will, at minimum, be entertaining enough to capture attention. AI video gives people a way to render the world as they see it, even when no one else does, and broadcast it at scale. This only widens the distance between online discourse and offline reality.
Therefore these aren’t necessarily tools of deception or influence, but rather mass distraction and delusion. Two end goals for modern influence operations by autocratic nation states.
AI video memes may never replace real video as documentary evidence, but it has found a powerful secondary role: as a translation tool for distorted realities. It is worth noting that, contrary to earlier thinking, AI is not the origin of this distortion. It is an enabler and amplifier of distortions that already exist.
Below are some examples observed in the wild:
Rewriting History:
Rina Lu🇷🇺@rinalu_
In Soviet times, there really was a kind of stability that people in the West, who never lived in socialist countries, can’t even imagine. Things like education, healthcare, theater, summer camps, and sanatoriums were a normal part of life. You didn’t have to save up for them,
8:58 PM · Nov 5, 2025 · 350K Views
1.43K Replies · 291 Reposts · 1.26K Likes
An example of rewriting history through a nostalgic lens. Romanticizing the Soviet era is a recurring narrative in contemporary Russia. The account’s state-backed ties are unclear, but would not be surprising if this was uncovered as a state-backed effort.
Diplomatic Storytelling:
Brian Allen@allenanalysis
BREAKING: The Iranian Embassy in The Hague just posted this video. Watch until the end. This is a diplomatic mission of a sovereign nation publishing this on an official channel — during an active military conflict with the United States.
5:15 PM · Mar 12, 2026 · 601K Views
254 Replies · 1.65K Reposts · 5.45K Likes
Iranian state media and affiliated accounts have effectively used memes, both image and video, to frame ongoing conflicts on its terms.
𝕷𝖚𝖈𝖎𝖋𝖊𝖗@LucifersTweetz
Iran nails the orange pig.😂
4:14 AM · Apr 9, 2026 · 348K Views
285 Replies · 4.04K Reposts · 12.7K Likes
This impressively produced hip-hop track was designed to discredit the Trump administration while casting Iran as a freedom fighter against a tyrannical overclass. It is an excellent example of utilizing high production value to tell a specific, politicized story.
Weaponized Nostalgia:
Weaponizing nostalgia is a favorite tactic of autocrats and extremist political moments.
David Sirota@davidsirota
I think it’s extremely awful that we did this to kids and to ourselves — and that there’s now really no sustainable media/journalism business model outside of participating in the attention economy that rewards clickslop & is destroying everyone’s lives.
4:55 PM · Mar 10, 2026 · 24K Views
26 Replies · 136 Reposts · 520 Likes
This video tugs at the emotions without a specific call to action. It simply tells you things were better when you were young, one of the most universally effective messages, but delivers it with the production quality of a short film.
Brian Roemmele@BrianRoemmele
A message from the 1980s: “You know the 80s miss you, right?”
2:57 PM · Aug 21, 2025 · 28M Views
5.03K Replies · 22.2K Reposts · 105K Likes
Brian Roemmele@BrianRoemmele
A message from the 1990s: “The 90s miss you”
Brian Roemmele @BrianRoemmele
A message from the 1980s: “You know the 80s miss you, right?”
10:41 PM · Aug 23, 2025 · 2.68M Views
378 Replies · 1.08K Reposts · 6.98K Likes
Two further examples of using nostalgia as emotional manipulation. The current political moment is deeply reliant on weaponizing nostalgia to move voters: “Make this country great again” being the clearest example. It is unsurprising that other actors are deploying the same technique.
Political Nostalgia via Fear:
Daractenus@Daractenus
Viktor Orbán, the kleptocrat praised by Marco Rubio just days ago, is now posting AI videos depicting Hungarian children watching their fathers shot by German soldiers, under the campaign slogan 'This is just a nightmare for now, but Brussels is preparing to make it a reality.'
11:35 AM · Feb 19, 2026 · 168K Views
277 Replies · 575 Reposts · 1.81K Likes
A cynical example that not only rewrites history but constructs a distorted image of the present in service of a clear political goal: re-electing a nationalist incumbent.
Manya Koetse@manyapan
Recently, there has been an increase in AI videos on Chinese social media imagining encounters where China’s wartime fighters meet modern-day soldiers, who then deliver the message to them that China won, setting their spirit "free" through the power of the new China.
3:41 PM · Aug 17, 2025 · 65K Views
28 Replies · 68 Reposts · 354 Likes
The PRC similarly draws on nationalist nostalgia to justify ongoing militarization and the suppression of dissent.
AI Influencers:
Justine Moore@venturetwins
It takes a lot to shock me online. But I’m genuinely floored by how many dudes are following influencers that are clearly AI.
8:15 PM · Mar 4, 2026 · 5.61M Views
915 Replies · 820 Reposts · 26.3K Likes
If our reality is shaped by what we see through a screen, does it matter whether those images are real? Fully AI-generated influencers have arrived and are being deployed to shape political perception. The logic is straightforward: the further an administration’s rhetoric drifts from reality, the more it requires support that is equally untethered from it. There is no real young, attractive woman who regularly visits the White House to meet with Trump and talk about how record gas prices are actually low, so they made one.
Alternate Reality, Political:
𝙈𝙧𝙕𝙚𝙙💫@spinitbackzed
This the first thing i see after opening Insta
9:20 AM · Feb 18, 2026 · 5.75M Views
717 Replies · 5.89K Reposts · 88.9K Likes
This video drifts into the 4chan nihilism. In begins with a worldview of some kind, but flips the narrative to embrace a “lol nothing matters” mindset, which as stated above is a popular narrative to flood social media with, both inorganically and organically. If nothing matters, then elections don’t matter. It’s no surprise autocrats love this particular brand of cynicism, alongside unemployed 20-somethings.
This video pairs the death of a public figure, an event that carried genuine emotional weight for many, with a fabricated account of who he was, what he stood for, and what he opposed, all rendered through AI storytelling.
Obama never faced Charlie Kirk in a Roman Colosseum. But for some, this video captures something they believe to be essentially true. That Charlie “stood up” against what Obama represents. This meme is effective because it contains the grain of truth needed to hook the target, then it takes us on a ride.
Political consultants have argued that Donald Trump was memed into the White House. A question worth asking: what kind of politics will be downstream from this new form of AI video storytelling? Especially when, to most people, the story makes no sense.
Half the country believing a reality the other cannot even understand is nothing new. This technology has the ability to accelerate this trend, with unknown consequences.
Reality Distortion, Politics:
Invisidon@QuantumAlteredX
The liberals are improving at memes. At least whoever did this is.
2:22 AM · Jan 4, 2026 · 3.85M Views
784 Replies · 2.35K Reposts · 26K Likes
While most of the examples observed come from right-wing movements, the left has adapted this technology as well. This video depicts various right-wing figures in a cartoonishly sinister light, painting them all with the same eerie, dystopian brush.
AI-generated video memes create an entire narrative, constructed from beginning to end, without any grounding in shared reality. This is of course not new, image memes have been doing this for years, targeting audiences already struggling to connect with the world around them. Video memes could accelerate this trend, creating entirely new and bespoke worlds, making shared, meaningful communication more difficult.
The allegory of the cave has entered the digital age. AI-generated video memes ensures that the piercing light of reality may never reach the millions who continue descending into their own dark rabbit holes.