Dude, I had never even HEARD of this guy’s name prior to his death. What is going on here!? Why are people freaking out. Am I that out of touch?
Even my liberal wife was aware of who this guy was. Was anyone else like me?
I know who Ben Shapiro is. But Charlie Kirk!? This entire time both the left and the right either hates or adored this guy? What are you all surfing on your cell phones!?
I was well aware of him but I hadn’t heard anything about him in a long time. The right-lib/subtle fascist niche seems to have really died off over the last few years, in favor of more overtly fascist commentators mainly
I also did not know of him at all. I did know who Ben Shapiro is. This week has been an educational one: I have learned about Nick Fuentes and ‘groypers’, Candace Owens, and that the change my mind meme guy is called Steven Crowder (I first thought it was this guy when I saw the video of Kirk).
The US political commentator that I do watch some times is Hasan, but not too often. The US lore goes too deep and moves too quickly, hard to keep up.
Yeah, I believe I watched a video or snippet of his or Steven Crowder and stopped. You can tell that they edit all the good arguments out and only publicize online the ones where they get destroyed in.
Also has that ingenious tactic of speaking loud, proud, and stopping the other person so that the other person can’t even get their point across.
The only defense against stuff like this is not engaging at all. These people set up a stand on sidewalks and school campuses hoping to get some good content, and these people just line up for him
I watch leftists who occasionally covered him. He was extremely popular on TikTok with children to college-age people. He was also close to Trump, and I think Trump sent him to Greenland a while back with the VP on that “diplomacy” trip.
I knew about him vaguely just from staying in the loop with politics casually since 2016 or so. But I haven’t heard of him in a long time.
i literally knew him for the shrunken face faux gotcha memes from long ago. figured he must have been some far right us pundit. then he got shot in the neck.
Being a non-American, zero clue. Seems he was more useful to the regime dead rather than alive.
Ditto. I only know about Charlie Kirk from the memes, and these memes don’t paint him positively so I got the idea that he’s a right wing nutjob, which is not wrong seeing as what he spouted when he was alive.
I had no clue who he was until he was shot. They always target the nobodies.
my nana knows everything about the guy apparently she’s a right winger.
Meh there was nothing important about him and no reason for anyone to care. On the other hand, there was another school shooting in Evergreen, Colorado, at nearly the same time, and THAT is what everyone should be focusing on. Of course the cantaloupe in charge still hasn’t said a word about THAT because he couldn’t make that tragedy about himself.
I knew there were memes of him with a distorted face, but I still don’t know why. Apparently his views on some topics are fairly racist, sexist, homophobic, in general I think…
but I guess he did support free speech which apparently the people who really loved him do not.
I probably agree with the dude on one or two issues but I’m pretty sure he was just another grifter for the republicans. No one deserves to die on the internet like that I guess, he did say some people had to die for second amendment freedoms though I have no clue
The distorted face memes were mocking the size of his face compared to the size of his head by exaggerating the difference. People didn’t like him because of the things he said. Also he would abbreviated Turning Point USA to TPUSA, so people would call it Toilet Paper USA.
Before the assassination, I just knew him as the tiny face chud with Turning Point USA who spewed insipid talking points to “own” the left.
If you’ve seen him before, it was probably in a meme like this.
He used to be one of those guys that breadtube dunked on a lot, but he wasn’t as big as Shapiro or Crowder. People used to edit his face small, and make fun of him. He had a few million youtuber subscribers, but a few million less than the other big names on conservative youtube. For context, the largest communist channel on youtube is Second Thought with 1.8 million subscribers, he had more than double that.
Like 98% of people had no idea (guessing), which I think is why a big % are not sure how to mourn or laugh. They do recognize the Change My Mind meme and sometimes Toilet Paper USA though.
Lemmy would likely have a different % than typical though. And even then, you always will see a comment like “don’t use that meme, he’s an asshole” and a bunch of TILs.
If you weren’t fairly online and/or in fringe left-wing or right-wing spaces, you probably wouldn’t have heard about him because he wasn’t really that important. Most of my coworkers (and this is in the US) had never heard of him before his neck just did that.
I would wager 90% of Americans had never heard of Charlie Kirk before his death. It’s just this fucking regime is SO FUCKING ONLINE!
Just called it the other day, it’s a reality TV show. That’s why they acquire all the media outlets, the viewer rates are insane.
