Digital art and AI-generated images of protesters killed in Iran have flooded social media, turning victims of recent unrest into national icons.

Digital art and AI-generated images of protesters killed in Iran have flooded social media, turning victims of recent unrest into national icons. The images have helped create a shared narrative for a public mourning thousands of deaths during the crackdown on Jan. 8 and Jan. 9. These digital tributes often place fallen protesters in settings reminiscent of the Shahnameh, Iran’s national epic, lending the dead a sense of timeless honor. The killings revived memories of 1988, when the Islamic Republic erased thousands of political prisoners in silence. The regime's tactics of intimidation and information blackout have evolved, but the scale of the violence and the public's grief have made it impossible to contain. The protest movement has moved beyond statistics, ensuring that stories of resistance continue to circulate. The legacy of the fallen is not buried; it lives in every young Iranian who stands firm before gunfire.