Political assassins often have incoherent politics and Tyler Robinson is no different. The young man who killed Charlie Kirk inscribed the shell casings of his bullets with obscure memes that say less about what he believed and more about where he spent time online. Robinson isn’t alone. Earlier this year the Annunciation Church shooter showed off a rifle inscribed with similar memes pulled from the internet. The Christchurch shooter in 2019 livestreamed their killing and left behind a meme laden manifesto.
So what the hell is going on? On this episode of Angry Planet, Michael Senters—a PhD candidate at Virginia Tech—has some unsatisfying answers. Senters painstakingly walks us through each message on Robinson’s bullets and explains the online spaces from whence they came.
If you don’t know a gropyer from a Helldiver or have never heard “OwO” said aloud, this episode is for you.
It will not make you feel better.
4,000 hours in seven games
A painfully specific explanation of every shell casing meme
“It can’t be Helldivers”
“This kid has probably fried his brain online.”
Hearts of Iron IV’s place in online fascist discourse
Son, what’s a groyper?
There’s no compelling evidence Robinson was a Groyper
The terrible embarrassment of explaining memes out loud
The 10 year old meme on the shell that killed Kirk
Constructing an ideology here is a Sisyphian task
Being online is about irony and performance
How a moment in time becomes a memetic hieroglyph
Assassination as performance
Gamergate as a “critical junction” in the Republican party
How GG spread the irony-poisoned posting style like a virus
Filming a TikTok video at an assassination
Re-evaluating our relationship to the internet
A little bit about working in a bookstore
The charging documents drop at the end of our conversation
What the shell casings in the assassination of Charlie Kirk do – and don't – tell us
Yes, It’s the Guns. It’s Also the Phones.
Read the Charges Against Tyler Robinson
