…We call it ‘World War Reddit‘ for a reason.
In February the White House said strategic victory in Ukraine would be dependent on who can win the cultural war of social likeability {link}. In March the White House and State Dept recruited a battalion of TikTok influencers so they could dance and sing about Ukraine and Russia for their audiences in social media {link}. In April USAID announced they would coordinate entertainment resources to keep the public interested in Ukraine and Bono was recruited to sing in Kyiv {link}.
Following along with the coordinated scheduling, Nancy Pelosi and House Democrats took turns rotating through Kyiv with Mitch McConnell and Senate Republicans. Boris Johnson from the U.K and Justin from Canada also took their entourages into Kyiv to hold media events and photo ops with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
All of the U.S. propaganda efforts originate from within the strategy teams at the U.S. State Dept. It is the Dept of State who coordinates with U.S. intelligence, Hollywood and big tech social media to frame the overall narrative. Big Tech and social media assist by blocking any platform content that does not fit the narrative created by the State Dept.
In totality, the scale of the effort is one big propaganda operation intended to influence public opinion while congress infuses over $60 billion directly into the military and indirectly into the propaganda effort of the State Dept. However, despite all of that the global crowd can become bored with the constant Ukraine bombardment effort.
To avoid losing global priority the Zelenskyy government has set up a website to take donations, selling Ukraine swag and t-shirts, and help keep the pop culture effort supported. AP has more:
UKRAINE (AP) – […] The Ukrainian government is marrying some digital marketing tools with crowdfunding and other incentives for giving to keep global attention trained on its war efforts against the Russian invasion.
“There is a wave and there is this kind of euphoria, but then it abates,” Mykhailo Fedorov, vice prime minister of Ukraine and minister of digital transformation, told The Associated Press. “We want to keep up this positive energy, the positive vibes.”
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy tasked Fedorov, 31, the youngest member of the nation’s cabinet, with setting up a new fundraising campaign and website to encourage donations for the country’s defense, humanitarian aid and reconstruction.
That resulted in the United24 website and campaign that lets donors send funds via PayPal, cryptocurrency, credit card or direct bank transfer to the state’s accounts.
“It’s very important that people helping Ukraine are not paying money directly all the time, but that they have some fun,” said Yaroslava Gres, who runs a public relations company and is one of the coordinators of the project. (read more)
