Memes and AI

On February 18th 2025, the official White House X account released a “ASMR deportation” video that placed migrants as spectacle for entertainment and mockery. This video is one of many posts made by official White House social media accounts that has attempted to reframe the violence perpetrated against immigrants to be something humorous. With reference to this video, the Trump administration has utilized new media including trends, memes and AI imagery in order to downplay human rights violations committed against marginalized populations. By integrating political ideology into meme culture, benefits to the Republican party are twofold. Firstly, you impose relatability amongst your audience, a key component to gaining voters. Second, you reach a wider, and more importantly, younger demographic. Within this essay, I will draw upon multiple social media posts made by the Trump administration to demonstrate how new media is used to perpetuate violence against marginalized groups and attempt to diminish/justify the severity of these actions through “humor”. 

ASMR or autonomous sensory meridian response, is described as a pleasurable “tingly sensation” in response to particular sounds or touch (Jan Lim). Since ASMR in the context of the paper refers to social media, these sensations are in response to auditory stimuli. The forty-one second clip posted on the White House social media accounts, shows migrants in shackles and cuffs, being transported onto a flight awaiting deportation out of the United States (The White House). The audio emphasizes the sounds of these shackles and cuffs as they jangle into themselves, fulfilling the ASMR genre. Within 24 hours, the post had garnered more than 68 million views and to date has accumulated 95.2k likes (Jan Lim). While the video was met with a ton of backlash, there were a fair amount of people who supported the tweet and even found it amusing with one user reposting with the caption “Put it on loop at bedtime #bestsleepever #thirtymilliontogo” and another stating that the post was “soothing” (Kavorka47; Christopher). This display of apathy is mirrored by members of the Trump administration with Elon Musk, former Senior Advisor to Trump, reposting the video with the caption “Haha wow” followed by an emoji of a troll and a gold medal (Elon Musk). In addition, Kristi Noem, Secretary of Homeland Security is quoted saying “we will hunt you down” when speaking about illegal immigration in the defense of “American families” (The White House). The Trump administration's promise of deportations aiding in the removal of “illegal criminals” is nullified by the fact that 41% of those detained by ICE in the beginning of February, had no prior criminal record or pending charges (Strickler). This conflation of “immigrant” with “criminal” was established in the 1990s and radicalized after the attack on the World Trade Center in 2001 (Maguire, 21). Since then, there has been a major crackdown on the US-Mexico border, with crossings becoming an assumed “threat” to homeland security and therefore justifying protection through violence (Maguire, 25). 

By contributing to trending media such as ASMR content, the Trump administration effectively grabs the attention of millions. In doing this, they reach a wider, and most notably, younger demographic. In 2020 individuals aged 19-29 made up 55% of voters, with most leaning left (Baio). It's no surprise then that the Republican party would try and find a way to sway those same voters right. Trump, not unlike prior politicians and leaders, has previously tried to reach a wider demographic through claiming relatability. This past October, amidst the 2024 election, Trump dressed up as a McDonald’s employee in hopes of connecting to the low/middle class voters. While this attempt to relate was an ultimate miss, its comical undertone was enough to garner a ton of social media attention, placing Trump as a trending meme. Likely seeing the benefit in becoming a trend, the Trump administration decided to lean into the humor that seemed to follow him throughout his term. On Valentines Day, a few days before posting the ASMR deportation video, the White House social media accounts posted a Valentines Day card with the limerick “Roses are red, violets are blue, come here illegally and we'll deport you” (The White House). This post, similar to the ASMR video, attempts to desensitize the public to the dehumanization of migrants and pass it off as a “joke”. However, using marginalized populations as the punchline of a joke, or spectacle for entertainment, has long preceded Trump's Presidency. American Western television was notorious for depicting Indigenous peoples as “barbaric” and “uncivilized” (hooks, 186). These reenactments of genocidal attacks were reframed as entertainment for the masses, perpetuating violence against Indigenous peoples and catering to a colonial narrative (hooks 186). However, it's important to mention that the United States isn't the only country guilty of this. Canada, like its neighbour, has used Indigenous people as a spectacle for entertainment and their culture as a commodity under tourism (Dubinsky, 222-236). Tourism had been used as a tool to objectify and dehumanize marginalized populations under the guise of “entertainment”. Similarly, the Trump administration uses social media platforms as a way to spread hate and violence towards migrants coming into the United States under this same premise.

In a third post by the White House X account, the target was a specific individual: a migrant who had reportedly been trafficking fentanyl into the United States and was subsequently deported. With the use of OpenAI the White House X account used this migrant as the subject for “Ghiblification”, a trend where a chosen image is rendered in the popular Studio Ghibli illustration style. In the AI image, the migrant is depicted sobbing with comically large tears streaming down her cheeks (The White House). The illustration was generated based on real images taken of the migrant being detained (The White House). Due to her alleged offences, the post was justified by some, with one user saying “I'm not mad about the meme but I am surprised that it hasn't been deleted with some form of apology claiming unprofessionalism. (Tbh it feels freeing that it can be done open like that.)” (Luminerba). This level of desensitization to human suffering is the very response that posts like this hope to achieve. By simplifying a complex topic, in this case illegal immigration and drug trafficking, into a singular illustration you remove all nuance and reduce the subject to a spectacle. Notably, the image features an ICE officer placing cuffs on the migrant’s wrists with an American flag behind him. This inclusion of officer and flag in contrast to the migrant’s presence, tells the story of who is ‘victim’ and ‘saviour’ (Benton, 187–203). In the case of this image, the victim is neither the officer nor the migrant. Instead, its implication is that the victim is the whole of America. The American people are at risk of illegal immigrants, and the savior is the American government, representative of a white ICE officer. The racial contrast within the illustration comments on whose lives are risked, and who they are at the risk of (Benton, 187-203). 

In 2025, social media platforms such as TikTok, Instagram and Twitter, are some of the best ways for politicians to reach a wider demographic. However, in the wrong hands, these platforms can be a tool to spread misinformation and hate, perpetrating violence against marginalized peoples. Since catching on to the benefits of going viral and contributing to meme culture, the Trump administration has used their platform to do exactly this. In following trending new media, posts that dehumanize migrants have been justified under the guise of “humour”. By doing so, Trump normalizes and desensitizes the public to the inherent cruelty of his immigration policies, rendering them increasingly acceptable and unremarkable.