Tag: psyops

Shaming as a COVID Strategy

When it comes to social engineering, there is more than one kind of war. We’ve been witness to the war on drugs, the war on crime, the war on obesity, and most recently, the war on COVID-19.

Psyops strategies are often used in these non-traditional “wars” and some of the strategies applied are the same ones used in real warfare scenarios.

From “divide and conquer” to fearmongering, mass persuasion strategies have been deployed in the campaign to make a viral pandemic with an extremely high survival rate and virtually no threat to healthy children feel like the plague.

The pandemic is real, but quite often there is a huge gap between the picture the regime paints through its persuasion campaigns and actual reality.

One of the foundational strategies that has enabled so many of the other strategies to gain traction is the targeted and widespread use of shaming, both public and private.

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Why Are Israeli Defense Forces Soldiers Posting Thirst Traps on TikTok?

With her long, lush blond hair, almond-shaped blue eyes, and expertly manicured brows, influencer Natalia Fadeev bears a striking resemblance to model Gigi Hadid. On TikTok, where she’s racked up nearly a million followers, she’s mastered the art of the coquettish facial expression, balancing it with angles that show off her rear end. She’s cultivated a brand as an Airsoft shooting game enthusiast, maintaining a separate Instagram account under the handle @gunwaifu sponsored by a tactical gear store, and she regularly posts catgirl videos and kawaii (a Japanese-inspired cutesy aesthetic) cosplay on her TikTok page.

In addition to being well-versed in the art of monetizing her personal brand, Fadeev is a reservist in the Israel Defense Forces, and much of her page is devoted to pro-Israeli military content. Earlier this month, she posted a video of Israeli soldiers playing soccer with Palestinian children; in another, she dances and preens at the camera while the caption, “when they tried to destroy your nation but you ended up having one of the most powerful armies” flashes on-screen. In the context of the most recent turmoil in Gaza, which has left 13 Israelis and over 240 Palestinians dead, many criticized Fadeev’s content for making light of the Israeli military’s actions and attempting to put a sexy face on the conflict.

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