On the surface, the assassination of Charlie Kirk looks like a political killing: Kirk was a prominent ultra-right influencer who frequently called white privilege a “myth” or a “racist lie,” and claimed that some gun deaths are “worth it” - somewhat ironic considering the violent nature of his death. Of course, Trump and MAGA were quick to blame the left for the killing. Some of the first messages that made it into the public about the shooting claimed that the bullets were inscribed with “transgender and antifascist ideology".

But things don’t appear to be so simple. By now, a dark and weird background story has started to unfold, one in which the irony of Kirks gun statement is by far not the weirdest turn. We don’t know a lot about the killing yet, or the alleged shooter, who has been taken into custody. But: The truth seems to be way more complicated than any left/right logics.

Complete confusion: “Notices bulge OwO whats this?”

The bullet that ended Kirk’s life had “Notices bulge OwO whats this?” engraved on it. Unknown to the wider public, this refers to a sexually charged meme from furry internet subculture. There, it is primarily used as a joke. If you’re not familiar with online spaces - like most of the op-ed pieces are - it appears as meaningless nonsense. But for the chronically online, it is loaded with absurdity and sarcasm. It’s meant to be confusing and cringe, not political.

It didn’t stop there. Other bullets involved in the killing were inscribed with various meme-related references, ranging from the anti-fascist anthem “Bella Ciao”, - which has been re-contextualized and de-politicized in internet culture, being used in numerous TikTok videos and music streams - to the satirical game Helldivers 2. All these references show: The murder was an act rooted in internet culture; a grotesque culmination of meme logic, ironic detachment, toxic masculinity, and the weaponization of sarcasm. The killing was a layered meme drop, like a shitpost made of blood. This wasn’t a lone gunman acting in a vacuum. This was a product of a terminally online world, one in which violence is aestheticized, and memes are jokes that hide battle tactics and ideologies.

The shooter wasn’t merely trying to kill a person. He was trying to kill a symbol in a way that would explode online, triggering confusion and culture war discourse. In that sense, the killing was a success: Was it a leftist attack? A false flag? Was it trans-related? Was it a joke? The ambiguity is the message. In the online world that birthed this assassination, contradictions are features. The shooter dropped symbols that were leftist, rightist, queer-coded, fascist-coded, and nihilistic all at once. There’s no coherent ideology to be found here. It’s all about vibes, performance, and misdirection. This is how the culture of irony-laden extremism operates. It thrives in ambiguity, in memes, that are carriers of coded meaning, that hide their message in layers of sarcasm, always deniable. Haha, just kidding. And that’s exactly how it spreads. This is the world of “irony poisoning,” where the lines between genuine belief and performance erode. We don’t have a manifesto in this killing (yet? Who knows). We have memes. The bullets were both literal and metaphorical, killing someone and flooding the discourse with chaos.

Violence as the ultimate punchline

Underpinning all of this is a toxic masculinity that thrives in meme culture. In online spaces dominated by young, isolated men, irony becomes a shield. This is how they express anger, hatred, confusion, or despair without admitting to vulnerability. Everything is a joke, because sincerity is weakness. And violence? That’s the ultimate punchline. Maybe the shooter didn’t just want to kill Kirk. Maybe he wanted to humiliate him. To emasculate him in the most public, irreversible way possible. That’s what the furry-related quote on the killing bullet might be about - it’s a layered insult wrapped in a meme, taking trolling to the next level. We’ve reached a point where real-world violence is being engineered for maximum online impact. This kind of hybrid attack, part-political statement, part-performance art, part-shitpost, fits seamlessly with the logic of the digital spaces in which the meme-culture thrives.

That’s why traditional frameworks fail to make sense of these acts. It wasn’t about a single ideology. Even if in the course of the investigations some ideological underpinning is found, even if it turns out that the killer was a firm anti-fascist, this is not the point. The point is an expression of disillusioned online nihilism. Violent, deeply alienated. The shooter was 22 years old. According to what is known about his online history, he is well versed in meme cultures. He most likely grew up with ragebait, Twitch culture, 4chan nihilism, and YouTube grifters.

Charlie Kirk’s killer acted out of a black hole of meaning, the same one swallowing so many young men online. Instead of trying to figure out which flavor of the political spectrum is responsible for the shooting, we need to understand the language of the memes as tools of ideology. We need to understand how the underbelly of the internet weaponizes the disillusionment of young men. This killing is the end result of a digital ecosystem that rewards provocation and dehumanizes vulnerability. Until we take that seriously, not just the memes, but the alienation underneath them, we’ll be stuck reacting to the symptoms while ignoring the source.

And the feed will keep refreshing.