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Culture War Roundup for the week of September 8, 2025

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Tyler Robinson, Kirk shooter, has been caught after a family friend turned him in

The markings on the bullets described by authorities indicate that the suspect, Tyler Robinson, was steeped in online culture and included references to the Antifa , or the anti-fascist, movement. A fired shell casing was inscribed with “notices bulges OwO what’s this?” - a reference to a “copypasta” - a piece of text that is repeated over and over again, often to troll people online.

Authorities say one unfired casing had the words “Hey fascist, catch!” and three down arrows - a common symbol used to represent the anti-fascist movement. A second casing had the lyrics to a song “Bella Ciao” inscribed on it. The song honours WWII-era partisans of the Italian resistance who fought Nazi Germany.

The third unfired casing was inscribed with the words “If you read this, you are gay lmao” - again an apparent reference to online trolling humour.

Parents, keep your kids away from Discord. Will be interesting to see if this guy is a true believer or just ragebaiting.

Political assassinations existed before discord so I’m not sure why discord would get the blame here.

Discord is a stand in (though a solid one) for all the various pozzed environments people let their kids simmer in without even thinking twice about it.

I've seen gloating on twitter that this kid is a right winger (because his parents are right wing), that the kid is antifa (because of statements he made to family about Kirk's "hateful" rhetoric and the messages written on the weapon and bullets), that the kid is just a schizo edgelord (alternate explanation for the messages on the gun). I've seen people speculating that he has SSR-eyes, that he was radicalized by college, etc, etc.

Also apparently he tried to get his roommate to pick up the rifle he ditched, and communicated this via Discord?

Like I said elsewhere, deep in my heart I fear he could be, I donno, a Groyper or something. Not like I have any reason to actually think that, it would just be the worst of all possible worlds, and the depressive part of me thinks that makes it the most likely. The left would get to have it's day of celebration, nakedly cheering and clapping and celebrating a person not substantially different myself being gruesomely murdered in public, and then they'd get to plausibly wash their hands of all responsibility for it.

I mean they're going to gaslight everyone about their rhetoric the last 10 years anyways, and all the gruesome celebrating we just saw. But it's just easier for them if the assassin isn't even one of theirs.

On X they post pictures from him as a kid with lots of guns and his conservative mormon family. The internet fried his brain but I can't say if in the antifa or far-right direction....

Not to cite horseshoe theory but if the guy's beliefs turn out to be a random mishmash of 4 alt-right and 6 anti-fascist dot points (3 of which are inevitably going to be interchangeable) is anybody shocked.

I'm personally going with gut feel that he's a chaser and has a trans girlfriend/maybe some other random sexual deviancy stuff.

Pornhub should submit IP logs of everyone who watches sissy hypno or BNWO porn. Might be a better precursor for mental illness than tweetscraping.

Why are we overthinking this? He wrote multiple explicitly antifascist slogans on the bullets. In every case of someone writing on bullets/guns that I know of, be it Tarrant or Mangione it has been an earnest (if meme-filled) expression of their beliefs.

So that in three years, when Presidential Candidate Vance is debating Presidential Candidate Newsom, and the topic of extremist violence comes up, the CNN moderator can "fact check" Vance when he tries to bring up Charlie Kirk's assassination that actually the motive of the shooter is unknown.

Because we've never seen a mormon kid from Utah turn against the faith. Never.