Dancing IDF Soldier TikToks

About

IDF Dancing Soldier TikToks, also known as Israeli Defense Forces Thirst Traps, refers to various social media content posted by the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) or soldiers serving in it which depicts physically attractive soldiers dancing to TikTok songs, usually women. After appearing in the early 2020s and garnering attention online, many social media users began calling the content "thirst trap propaganda," criticizing both the Israeli military and fans of the content for supporting violence and perceivably using attractive people and social media for propaganda purposes.

Origin

Israel's armed forces, like the armed forces of many other countries including the United States, maintain a robust social media presence. The IDF famously posted throughout the 2008 Gaza War and pioneered strategies to share content online and use it to reach younger generations.^[1] Content involving aesthetically appealing and attractive soldiers has long been a part of this strategy.

The IDF's official TikTok account posted its earliest known dancing video within this phenomenon on April 17th, 2021, earning over 23,000 likes over the course of two and a half years (seen below).^[2]

Spread

During the 2023 Israel-Gaza conflict, members of the Israeli military posted further videos featuring attractive soldiers dancing on social media platforms. In October 2023, a series of TikToks featuring Israeli soldier and influencer Noa Ambor started to circulate on TikTok and other sites. For example, the TikTok (seen below, left) originally posted on May 31st, 2023, earned over 1.4 million views and 95,000 likes in six months.^[3] The TikTok also notably featured soldier and influencer @Karinabelman.

Another TikTok (shown below, right) originally posted by Ambor on May 15th, 2023, earned over 1.9 million views and almost 94,000 likes in six months.^[4] The Hebrew roughly translates to "POV: me and my friends are the most attractive in the IDF."

In the TikTok comments to Ambor's video, posters called the dancing a "psyop" aimed to distract from human rights abuses in Palestine (examples seen below).

Some compared the dancing TikToks to Dancing Nurse TikToks that went viral during the COVID-19 pandemic. For example, X user @WallStreetSilver made this comparison directly on October 15th, 2023, earning over 2,300 likes in less than a day (shown below).^[5]

Various Examples

Related Memes

U.S. Army E-Girl / Lunchbaglujan

Lunchbaglujan, commonly referred to as the U.S. Army E-girl, is an e-girl and a US army specialist who gained popularity on TikTok, 4chan and Twitter in late September 2022. Lunchbaglujan has described herself as a "psychological operations specialist" for the U.S. Army, which led to memes about Lujan herself possibly being a post-ironic psyop meant to recruit more people into the army.

External References