Following the killing of right-wing influencer Charlie Kirk, confusion has mounted in regards to the motives of the alleged shooter, 22-year-old Utah resident Tyler Robinson. Regardless of uncorroborated claims by Utah Gov. Spencer Cox that Robinson was steeped in “leftist ideology,” Robinson’s private politics aren’t but clear and will by no means be. Pundits and different commentators have struggled to suit him into the acquainted mould of a politically motivated killer.
A part of the confusion is the memes. Based on a police affidavit, the shooter inscribed bullet casings with references to furry and gaming memes in addition to phrases similar to “hey fascist! CATCH!” Primarily based on these phrases, many web sleuths have tried to tag Robinson as far proper or far left. But if Robinson is the perpetrator, it’s nonetheless unclear whether or not he was motivated by politics in any respect.
Following the killing of right-wing influencer Charlie Kirk, confusion has mounted in regards to the motives of the alleged shooter, 22-year-old Utah resident Tyler Robinson. Regardless of uncorroborated claims by Utah Gov. Spencer Cox that Robinson was steeped in “leftist ideology,” Robinson’s private politics aren’t but clear and will by no means be. Pundits and different commentators have struggled to suit him into the acquainted mould of a politically motivated killer.
A part of the confusion is the memes. Based on a police affidavit, the shooter inscribed bullet casings with references to furry and gaming memes in addition to phrases similar to “hey fascist! CATCH!” Primarily based on these phrases, many web sleuths have tried to tag Robinson as far proper or far left. But if Robinson is the perpetrator, it’s nonetheless unclear whether or not he was motivated by politics in any respect.
As particulars about his on-line life emerge, so does the chance that Robinson carried out a violent, real-life “shitpost”—an deliberately meaningless act. The capturing got here simply weeks after the Minneapolis Annunciation Catholic College shooter, who additionally inscribed their weapons with messages, carried out an identical crime for the sake of violence and little else.
Whereas that shooter filmed movies in regards to the crime, Robinson has been opaque and reportedly uncooperative with police. What makes it so tough to inform the shooter’s intent in Kirk’s killing is that each extremists and regular web customers typically use the identical linguistic markers: byzantine in-group language, impenetrable memes, and heavy irony. All of this makes their messages obscure and, crucially, tough for outsiders to observe.
At a look, the bullet casing memes don’t appear to have a unifying theme, although all are obscure. The one from the fired bullet, “Notices Buldge OWO what’s this?” originates from furry subculture, although the origins could not even matter: In-jokes incessantly journey out of their areas and into different web communities, a phenomenon referred to as context collapse.
The shooter additionally paired the phrase “hey fascist! CATCH!” with “↑ → ↓↓↓”—a sequence of up and down arrows referencing the online game Helldivers 2. The arrows signify the keyboard shortcut for a transfer within the sport that drops an infinite bomb on the goal space. Utilizing it as a meme implies nuking one’s opponent—in a setting the place the protagonists themselves are serving a fascist regime however one which makes use of the language of liberty.
Then there’s “O Bella ciao, Bella ciao, Bella ciao, Ciao, ciao!” a line from an anti-fascist Italian tune. Apparent conclusions that the shooter is anti-fascist can’t be drawn from these references, nevertheless, as a result of the lyrics have additionally been integrated paradoxically into the “groyper” motion—followers of white supremacist Nick Fuentes, who incessantly clashed with Kirk, whom they seen as too average.
In different phrases, although the shooter could have referenced anti-fascist themes, it may have been accomplished paradoxically. Different alleged proof Robinson could have leaned proper: He was photographed in 2018 doing the “slav squat” as Pepe the Frog, a infamous far-right image. So why isn’t that compelling sufficient proof of a far-right motive? As a result of Pepe bought reappropriated and he’s typically nonetheless used as nothing greater than a enjoyable meme.
All of this additional complicates the alleged shooter’s message—if he even had one. A number of media shops have tried to definitively determine Robinson’s politics, solely to problem retractions. But few of those hallmarks are inherently political. Robinson may definitely nonetheless be a far-right extremist, a leftist gun-loving furry, or one thing in between. In reality, if something might be gleaned from the memes in any respect, it’s the sense that the shooter may have been motivated by one thing way more nebulous than politics: a pressure of chaotic nihilism that permeates many on-line subcultures.
In different phrases, this might be extremism not for a trigger however “for the lulz,” an outdated web phrase which means for sheer leisure worth.
The trajectory that took us right here arguably started round 2019. That 12 months, three completely different mass shootings occurred whose perpetrators all introduced the shootings on the far-right message board 8chan simply earlier than they occurred. In essentially the most high-profile of those, on two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, the shooter uploaded a manifesto mixing far-right ideology with a litany of web memes, suggesting that the time had come to show on-line discuss into offline actions.
Whereas 8chan was shut down consequently, extra extremist communities have since sprung up instead. Nameless public boards similar to 8chan’s successor 8kun, area of interest far-right hub Soyjak Get together, and extremist corners of 4chan nonetheless exist, however now so do non-public chat servers. These group chats are primarily housed on the gaming-centric platform Discord and messaging apps similar to Telegram and Sign. Many of those communities kind a unfastened cross-platform community referred to as “The Comm” that peddles excessive ideology (and severe prison exercise) whereas overlapping with regular web areas similar to gamer Discords.
Communities similar to these gamify violence by rewarding escalating expressions of it; even simply laughing alongside paradoxically can grow to be encouragement to take the “joke” to the subsequent degree. Extremists typically rely on this use of humor to obfuscate their severe intent: to “[p]retend to joke about it till the punchline /actually/ lands.”
The humor makes extremism extra palatable and likewise makes it straightforward to mobilize, flowing upstream till the language and linguistics of the far proper have grow to be part of mainstream tradition. Should you’ve ever referred to “chads” and “beckys,” known as somebody a “cuck” or a “normie,” mentioned “globalism,” joked about being “-pilled,” and even mentioned you “bought clowned,” you’ve adopted the language of far-right and adjoining web communities, probably with out even realizing it.
There’s a flip aspect to all of this. Couching noxious concepts in memes makes it simpler to dismiss them. However publicity to violence additionally desensitizes one to it. Couple that with a cultural sentiment that the web has grow to be extra chaotic, and also you inevitably discover web communities that weaponize that chaos. In a latest examine, researchers recognized far-right “resignationist eschatology” on 4chan “the place people be taught to deal with a world devoid of company, order, and which means.”
Usually these concepts overlap with accelerationism, a worldview that goals to destabilize international society by means of violence and destruction and has been adopted by white supremacists. Even with out having a political focus, a “normie” neighborhood can harbor violent concepts. Researchers who studied 18 years of interactions in a single nonpolitical on-line neighborhood not too long ago printed findings that the neighborhood weaponized violence for causes together with “sadistic leisure.” That neighborhood? An digital dance music discussion board.
The implications for offline violence are bleak. The Kirk capturing was simply considered one of a string of latest high-profile shootings within the final 15 months the place the perpetrators blended violence and mayhem with memes and arcane references to deep corners of the web, with out seeming to have a bigger referent. Two of the shooters—at colleges in Madison, Wisconsin, and Nashville, respectively—interacted in the identical on-line areas, and whereas they each appear to have had ties to The Comm, their main motive appears to have been becoming a member of different faculty shooters earlier than them in acts of violence.
That’s pretty acquainted territory for varsity shooters; it’s far much less widespread as a motive in circumstances similar to Kirk’s killing. But it seems as if Robinson handled the alleged act as simply one other cease in his day. If he did do the capturing, afterward he logged again on and resumed his common posting schedule, joking with mates on Discord about his similarity to Kirk’s then-unknown alleged killer and about Luigi Mangione, one other accused shooter whose ideology has been tough to pin down.
If certainly it seems that Kirk’s shooter was uninfluenced by any bigger ideology, it may point out a troubling new route—each for violence in america and for an web tradition few perceive, whose darker impulses nobody appears to know the best way to curb.
