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Color revolution. Not all protestors are paid but the organizers are trained by the US embassy, and they tell them to use those kinds of pop culture symbols. They probably didn't tell them outright to film a video doing the salute from the hunger games specifically.

They don't necessarily even have to pay the organizers, though they probably get paid to some extent, especially when the colrev starts to wane and people go home. In that case you want to have your NGO on the ground still keeping up the agitprop, and when it's their job to do that, they'll do it no questions asked. They don't get paid directly from the state department wiring millions into their account, rather their own NGO gets paid from funds and shell companies, and then they dispose of that money as they wish locally.