PUBLISHED
August 17, 2025
KARACHI:
In 2025, the frontlines weren’t only on maps. They were in timelines, newsreels and comment sections. Bangkok, Tehran, Karachi saw protests, bomb blasts or drone attacks, evacuations. Right alongside them cropped up reaction memes, viral posts, and GIFs that turned tragedy into theatre. Social media zoomed in on distant conflicts and raised awareness of political rights of various groups. At the same time, by its very nature, social media flattened the context of these crises and transformed them into content. The churn felt distinctly unsettling this year with too many wars unfolding too closely, curated through the anxiety of strangers scrolling from afar.
When Bangkok erupted into protests over the disputed election, the world didn’t discover them through the BBC reportage so much as through viral TikToks filmed from motorbike taxis. One clip showed a protester sprinting down Sukhumvit Road — slingshot in one hand, bubble tea in the other — with the caption: “Multitasking level: Thai.”
Protest culture in Thailand has long employed humour as defiance. Online, that tradition became not just expression but survival: between serious updates about police lockdowns, posts showed riot police seeking shelter under Hello Kitty umbrellas and demonstrators pausing to feed stray cats. A viral tweet captured it best: “If you can’t control the parliament, at least control the vibe.”
Yet humour here was purposeful, it was not a sign of apathy.
Iran’s uprisings left little room for memes. Video footage carried the rattling sound of live fire, women pulling off hijabs in defiance, and smoke that hovered over chanting crowds. On X, diaspora Iranians amplified these scenes with urgent translations and calls for solidarity. However, their feeds also flooded with misinformation. Recycled clips labelled “breaking,” and old footage repurposed as new added to panic and added fuel to the fire.
Tensions inside the commentary sections erupted in their own right. A London-based Iranian journalist posted a contentious thread accusing Western influencers of “trending tragedy for clout.” The responses flooded back, some in agreement, others defensive. In that moment, social media didn’t cushion the event — it gouged it deeper, turning grief into ammunition and moral mudslinging is the first thing to reach for when sentiments are hurt.
As India-Pakistan tensions flared at the border in April-May, the screens lit up. Hasthags like #StandwithTroops and #NoMoreWar were trending within hours. WhatsApp chains delivered blurry desert troop footage — some recent, some recycled. On Instagram, users spliced shots of soldiers with scenes from cricket matches, mocking how the nations treat both virulence and cricket with equal intensity.
A Pakistani meme read: “This area has been added to your cart,” overlaying a disputed map with an absurd click-to-purchase interface. Another quipped: “We’re just one bad Wi-Fi connection away from peace.”
Humour persisted, but what defined the commentary was fear. Twitter Spaces that night crackled with dread and speculation. For many inside Pakistan, social media made a far-off flare-up feel closeted right next door — one you could mute, until you couldn’t.
Still, it wasn’t just citizen memes driving the conversation. The Indian government’s Press Information Bureau posted a standout meme during the tense border stand-off: “Yeh koi tarika hai bheek maangne ka?” (Is this any way to beg for alms?) mocking Pakistan’s economic woes under a satirical headline about a fictional “Chief Begging Officer.” It instantly went viral.
In response to a ceasefire, Pakistani singer Chahat Fateh Ali Khan’s patriotic song “Meray Watan Meray Chaman” became meme fodder. Sarcastically declared more destructive than nuclear bombs, it prompted comments like “I surrender.”
Across these theatres of conflict, humour appeared as a coping mechanism in Thailand, while outrage flared in Iran, and satire took the wheel in Pakistan. The platforms transformed lived disaster into spectacle in a fast and combustible.
Truth and falsehood travel together, faster than fact-checks. And amid the virality, it was easy to forget that each post represented politics and stakes that cannot be seen simply on the phone screen.
Still, without social media, many of these stories would never have landed anywhere but behind paywalls or official press releases. For better or worse, visibility turned into resistance online. However, through the lens of the algorithm, it was always edited through the logic of the scroll.
After the hashtags
By year’s end, the news cycle moved on. Thailand’s protests entered documentary loglines. Iran’s protests fed sanction debates. India–Pakistan tensions cooled under ambiguous ceasefires. Yet in feeds, the residue persists — satirical memes keep resurfacing.
Perhaps that’s the clearest truth of 2025: social media doesn’t stop for anything. Not even the devastation of a war.
