Call of Duty is the latest game deployed to celebrate the Trump Administration's violent tactics
The official White House X account recently posted a video intercutting footage from recent strikes in Iran—wherein a reported 175+ people were killed, including children—with clips from Call of Duty Modern Warfare 3. Spotted by Journalist Drew Harwell, the video includes a "killstreak" animation, awarded for players attaining a certain number of kills in-game.
Harwell followed up with a YouTube short, showing the response his X post garnered from White House communications director Steven Cheung, who quote-tweeted Harwell's original post and said "W's in the chat, boys!" Harwell explains the official's reply, saying it's "basically Twitch speak for 'let's celebrate.'"
As Harwell notes, this is a situation where hundreds of people were killed, but the post and the response to it appear to treat the situation "like a big joke."
This isn't the first time Call of Duty became the face of the administration-ordered violence. In January, a federal agent was caught on camera excitedly saying "It's like Call of Duty" while squaring off with anti-ICE protestors in Minneapolis.
The "meme presidency" will continue to use games to advertise and celebrate its actionsThis is far from the first time official channels associated with the White House have used video game animations or iconography to promote the administration's policies and ideologies. Last fall, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) used images and phrases from the Pokemon and Halo franchises in posts about its deportation efforts.
Independent journalist Alyssa Mercante shared a response from DHS not long after the Halo memes last October, which stated "We will reach people where they are with content they can relate to and understand, whether that be Halo, Pokémon, Lord of the Rings, or any other medium," reads the response, going on to say the agency is "laser focused" on pushing messaging about "criminal illegal aliens."
In other words, we can expect this style of messaging to continue.
Game Developer has reached out to Microsoft for comment and will update the story with its response.
