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'His legacy is cringe': how Charlie Kirk became a meme among the young – even his supporters
It is gratifying, though unsurprising, that Kirk's death did not kick off a wave of revenge killings and mass violence, as fedposters fervently predicted. Regardless of what the Guardian's experts say, it was reasonable to deploy cancel culture against the most gleeful celebrators of Kirk's death. Killing people you disagree with in a democracy is bad, and celebrating it shouldn't be accepted. But the right clearly pushed their chips in too far trying to martyrize the guy and now his legacy is incomprehensible memes that have nothing to do with his life or message. Turning Point was always aimed at zoomers, and their verdict is in. There are probably a bunch of them who don't realize Kirk was a real person. And the less said about Erika the better.
As a side note, there are a whole bunch of retarded conspiracy theories around his death, because we can't accept that a guy could just be shot by a lone nut despite multiple videos. Even JD Vance isn't immune.
Charlie Kirk was a meme prior to his death, though, surely? Those edits with the TPUSA slogan, and the tiny-faced Kirk? After Kirk's death I remember a wave of articles explaining that, contrary to what many on the left thought, he was not just a meme, but rather a significant and influential political organiser. As the immediate aftermath of his death fades, I am unsurprised that he is a meme again.
KYM has a page on TPUSA going back at least to 2017, thank you Internet Archive, and it includes pictures of Charlie Kirk used for meme purposes. Part of it, I suspect, is just that Kirk had a kind of silly-looking face, and when he tries to look serious, it always comes off slightly askew. I've since seen videos and he was a lot more natural-looking and sounding in person, but the goofy pictures of him made him easy prey for meming, and that hasn't changed.
Those memes had a message though. They were anti-Turning Point. They existed in the first place because Kirk was an influential political organizer. There is no message behind "put Kirk's face on everything and create new slang (lowkirkenuinely)", it's just irony poisoning.
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Not only random shitposters, but even the most serious esoteric Catholic fascist conspiracy theorist who at the time correctly disavowed all conspiracy theories and called it what it was, act of self radicalized lone wolf, predicted this event to be the turning point, end of debate.
Well, 10 months after, even this did not happened, no copycats so far on any side.
There just aren't so many people willing to sacrifice their lives who are so functional they can track single even moderately protected target (instead of random indiscriminate massacre).
It all turned out to be one big nothingburger. Is current situation still far from revolutionary conditions, or modern culture of circus and spectacle just lacks the seriousness necessary to create martyrs?
I'ma let you finish, but E. Michael Jones is the greatest esoteric Catholic fascist conspiracy theorist OF ALL TIME.
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Eh, I'm more than happy to make fun of anything - 9/11, rape, my own crippling need for validation from strangers (especially women).
But frankly I'm still pissed that he got killed and that the bloodthirsty circlejerk online and IRL went largely unpunished. The double-standard for violence between the right and left is untenable. I was, perhaps, even more furious with this than Trump's first assassination attempt, and I considered Kirk a bit of an edgelord previous to his murder.
I doubt you mean the first one.
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There's been a minor news story recently after a teacher got well over a million bucks in settlement money, and there's a strong argument she shouldn't have gotten fired originally... and then you think about everyone who got fired and didn't get anywhere near the compensation or an order of magnitude under that, didn't get their jobs back, and didn't get the fawning political coverage, for something far less charged than saying the target of a political assassination (and his family!) deserved it.
But what really gets me is the dog that doesn't bark. Nicholas Decker's "When Must We Kill Them" (answer: when he wanted the substack revenue) wasn't accompanied by an involuntary commitment and a warrant; PopeHat's complaining about a Bluesky ban rather than the solitary confinement and involuntary medication after he called for people to kill Musk. Trace is back from his internship and has a lot to say, and can't quite get his dander up about the forum he built because TheMotte didn't respect the humanity of spree criminals and arsonists can't reflect on the humanity of a guy who talked. There's no serious investigation of all those Tesla arsons, nor are we getting lawsuits by people fired for supporting the Tesla arsons. Damore isn't independently wealthy; he got judges informing people the law required his speech be infringed. William Kelly probably got his job back, and if he got anything else it was a rounding error, for 25 USD in Rittenhouse donations.
We know what happens when people do things that progressive leadership oppose. It's not a surprise when it didn't happen here.
Welcome to the difference between public sector jobs and private sector jobs. https://www.fire.org/research-learn/what-free-speech-rights-do-government-employees-have
Because their speech is protected from the government under the 1st amendment. They did not make a True Threat. https://firstamendment.mtsu.edu/article/true-threats/ https://www.fire.org/research-learn/how-and-why-true-threats-are-unprotected-speech
Their speech would not be protected from private actors, such as a future (private sector) employer or their friends or whoever else.
In case you missed the reference
That stops a conviction (maybe). It does less than nothing against a warrant. Moderators here have been Very Concerned about warrants for speech that would easily avoid Brandenberg.
They came to an agreement about it https://www.13newsnow.com/article/news/local/mycity/norfolk/norfolk-resolves-issue-police-officer-william-kelly-fired-donating-to-rittenhouse-fund/291-045c4a2f-444d-4d1f-9d13-0bb9619b4b90
Clearly whatever the result is, Hogge is fine with it and did not wish to pursue further. I imagine it's probably something like a reinstatement (or promotion?) with a significant pay raise, but who knows. Still, if he wasn't happy with the result he could sue and would likely win so it must be considered good enough for him.
In the US, it absolutely does.
It does a lot against warrants. Blatantly anti first amendment abuse like that is very rare in modern day America, and typically from lower level government officials in smaller towns and cities when they do happen.
The moderators can decide whatever caution level they please, it doesn't mean this properly reflects US law. Also of course, not everyone here is an American and they would have to obey the laws of their own respective country.
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Lol. The satire is how you know it's working.
Humour is a coping mechanism. The medievals had an entire holiday dedicated to making fun of the church(it's evolved into mardi gras). Even the schizoid Candace Owens acid trips about Egypt and a french hit squad wouldn't be happening if there wasn't a recognition of the cultus of Charlie Kirk. His faction won and that's why people make fun of it. The Byzantine emperors developed a tradition of accepting mockery of themselves to show they were too important to be bothered. That's what we're seeing.
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Zoomer humor might have done it eventually anyway, but the right wing reaction to his death was definitely a major catalyst. The ridiculous over the top cringeposting (such as people going like "this means war!") was not serious behavior. It was the behavior of people more obsessed with signaling how Cool and Brave they were to their audiences and like-minded peers. Throw in the conspiracy theories claiming that some trans witch coven, or Israel, or whatever other nonsense besides the literal guy who is on camera in the area who used his own family's gun and admitted to it to people in his life shortly afterwards, and how was it not going to become a joke?
If you act like a fool, people treat you like one. The reaction was ridiculously over the top, and that engineered its own mockery. They tried to force a martyr but that doesn't work easily when you're in a personal responsibility country and the lone wolf culprit is quickly caught and brought to justice. You can't form a meaningful protest or statement against anything, the killer was arrested the second he was found! There's no ongoing injustice to sustain anger against, unless of course you make shit up.
The only reason George Floyd worked even a little is because police are a government organization so blaming it on "policing" as a whole is reasonable in the minds of ordinary idiot citizens who don't actually understand how government works and that police departments in the US are highly compartmentalized from each other. And even that response was so large because COVID, people were bored and wanted something to do. You can't do a COVID era campaign in a non COVID time.
And as history has shown us, this was cringe. Incredibly cringe. His death is a meme because even his fans and allies (looking especially at those like Tucker Carlson claiming Israel killed him at the funeral, Candace Owens, and even as you pointed out Vance himself) couldn't help themselves from being cringe. That's why we got incredible jokes like this.
Just to add finally, this was pretty much unpreventable. The right wing media atmosphere now is tuned to making outrage slop, and pivoting on a dime to being serious is just not happening. Internet pundits can't take his death seriously, because the slop machine is on full throttle.
If the BLM riots didn't discredit George Floyd, then it's farcical to say that the circus of Kirk's death discredits him. Right-wing George Floyd 'I can't breathe' memes are scrubbed off the internet, while Kirkist mockery stays online because of leftist bloodthirstiness.
Tu quoque?
Even George Droyd has been banned off most major platforms, including X. It's less about bloodthirstiness and more about who controls the censorship apparatus. Some left-wing employee at YouTube or Meta is the one deciding which accounts get pulled for "harmful content" and which are allowed to continue existing as permitted political expression.
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"Discredit" is the wrong word entirely. Kirk has not been discredited by being turned into a meme, people still widely think it was wrong to kill him (as you can see by the fact his alleged killer is on trial and likely to be sentenced).
BLM was a largely serious reaction by people who mostly took themselves seriously. The Kirk aftermath was silly and hyperbolic by people who didn't even believe in their own words. People like LOTT or Steve Bannon saying "this is war" are not serious. They did not and have not picked up arms or done serious protests (of what exactly anyway? Robinson was caught). They claim war, and yet do nothing. They do not mean what they say.
This goes up to the highest levels even. When we have JD Vance searching for conspiracies to believe in, and guests at Kirk's own funeral making it into a joke, how is anyone else supposed to treat it seriously?
Wildly? Half of the left wing said it was a good thing, and that he deserves it. (The other says its a bad thing, but also deplores what he said, thus negating the virtue of the first.) Virtuous centrists are a rounding error.
Maybe you are sincere. But there are certainly players that are not, and I am tired of listening to the snide and back-biting commentary of the partisans of the other side. You take it seriously because a man is dead because he was killed for speech, a right that he had every freedom to exercise. Nothing can diminish that, although you've certainly tried.
Comments celebrating his death were actually quite uncommon. They were so rare that the "Charlie's Murderers" site that was being passed around had to cast a web so wide for a decently sized list that it includes people saying things like I hope there isn't more violence in response, dark humor jokes, and comments literally saying it was awful he got shot. That's how far the digging had to go, it includes people who literally said it was bad the shooting happened but that they don't personally like Kirk and think it's hypocritical to care about him but not dead children. Outside of the generic internet edgelords who say edgy things about everything, there wasn't really much actual pro violence talk, and we can't take the edgy shitposters seriously given that they're edgy shitposters.
Of course if you choose to cast a ridiculously wide net of nonsense, you get a lot of fish. But most of them were not what was actually looked for. If you actually look at what political leaders were saying, anti violence was the general rhetoric from the left.
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What's the last update you heard in the news about Goode or Pretti? Or is the slop diagnosis something that's only goes on direction, or only means something one direction?
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The Right does not know how to do martyrdom culture. It’s sad because Kirk could have been a great conservative martyr. But we just don’t know how, apparently. We lost the technology. The, the spirit of a martyr should be carried through reverent rituals and heart-moving music. They tried to carry it with pyrotechnic displays, a colorful widow in too much makeup, really silly events, etc. Just terrible. Tasteless and senseless. You needed a song like Horst Wessel Lied that could be sung in a mass gathering under reddish hued lighting. You needed dedicated photographers to only present the experiences in the most powerful frame. You needed to associate his death with weeping women. George Floyd was effectively martyrized because the Public consumed his image intermediated by emotional actors (TV anchors), saddened women replaying his death, and cool people telling you to join them in a march. But the Left immediately de-martyred him through a face-swapping meme and the intentionally humorous “we are Charlie Kirk” anthem. Just plain social engineering that the right can’t compete with.
Okay, I know what you mean there, but that was the
it's just that the other side proceeded to vice-signal it away by reveling in it and vilifying her, what you're calling "de-martyring" him.
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Your "verdict" link is broken because you forgot to include the "https://" part at the beginning.
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