Most people find politics very boring and obnoxious.

To some degree this can be by design, to keep people from engaging.

IDK I don't think this is a big deal. Or rather it's exactly the same size deal as all of the other shootings. Which just keep coming.

@wonkothesane

Was he in the army? This is nonsense.

I knew about him because my 14yr old Australian child told me about him.

My impression is because Kirk was relatively young (31), he was more of a known entity to younger people.

e.g. my child follows progressive commentators on TikTok and Kirk's views were discussed there.

#uspol

@JamesWidman @wonkothesane

I don't think this will stay in the news all that long. Unless they find the shooter and they are some kind of person the right wing can villainize.

That is possible but given the pattern of these types of shootings I think it's a little unlikely. But we shall see.

Worth noting that while my parents also didn't know his name.. my teenager and her friends absolutely did.

His target audience was younger.

@ethanOS @jbrownesq

Tim Pool must not be feeling so good right now.

His fans have been going off the deep end too about that stuff.

Me too. Didn't know who he was.

Feel sorry for his wife & kids but from what I've read, good riddance. 🤷‍♂️

To me that was the scary part.

He had an organization larger than the young republicans indoctrinating students destine for places of power more important than trades or labor in terms of politics.

And no normal person has really heard about him.

He was part of a pipeline warning kids that "the crazy liberals will cut off your genitals and make you pray to Stalin!" And then he offered them a "safe space" from a boogey man who didn't exist.

Like so much of this regimes network, he was just another nobody with a suspiciously funded org making sure educated people got the right indoctrination before going off to be political staffers or lawyers or whatever.

He is amongst the modern embodiment of the banality of evil.

@Mungencakes

What a career. So many memorable moments. Wow.

my partner literally showed me the video of the shooting, and called him "some nazi guy".

later while watching youtube went "who the fuck is this charlie kirk guy" completely unaware of who it was. (hes a construction worker who is wonderfully unplugged)

he had no clue, but had seen the video in context of "nazi got got"

> He's never DONE anything notable.

Yet he was very much notable for the literal evil that he propagated, disseminated, and encouraged.

If being normal means being unaware of such existential threats, then I'm proud that I put in the work to NOT be normal.

@JosephMeyer That’s sad for you, Joseph.

I thought most people in the US had some understanding who Charlie Kirk is. Definitely in the Phoenix AZ area that TurningPoint had so many rallies for Trump and Trump attended here.

He was also in news quite a bit like headlines even from APNews to Salon to NPR and also online places like Twitter, C, TruthSocial, RawStory, Reddit etc.

@jianmin @Nagaram

He's made some noises about releasing the files but the general perception is that he was not sincere.

Especially outside the US.

I was taken aback yesterday when I got the breaking news notification that *Trump* had announced Charlie Kirk's death. I was like "who?".

Some of the things he is being quoted as saying ring a bell, but I've never associated them with his name. He wasn't high profile like Joe Rogan, Richard Spencer or Milo Y.

@CptSuperlative Captain, your question will be answered in Wired.com in a breaking news article today about the Charlie Kirk killing.

wired.com/story/far-right-reac…

When one’s participation in politics is just Parasocial Relationships replacing both community and political thought processes, it really makes sense why so many people are galvanizing around one primarily online guy with a podcast.

It’s like putting flags half mast for a talk show radio host passing.

Utterly bizarre behavior until you realize that for a large portion of the Right, Politics to them is just Parasocial Relationships with online celebrities. Then it makes sense why the figure head would stand out more than one’s actual elected representatives

honestly i would’ve been one of those people had I not been listening to Tim Alberta’s book, The Kingdom, the Power, and the Glory (which is damn good btw) this week

In fact, I paused the reading in the middle of the chapter that featured Kirk to run an errand this afternoon, only to turn on the radio in my pickup and hear the news that he’d been shot

I don’t know what word describes that phenomenon, but that was definitely too much of it today

@BonehouseWasps @JamesWidman @wonkothesane

Yeah. I keep forgetting that people treat this like folklore not something that is really happening. It's all a story with villains and heroes. It's a team sport with sides.

Maybe that is why the fact that Trump was shot by right wing members of his movement just can't stick in people's heads. It's not as good of a story.

I try to keep track of all the English-speaking cultural "influencers" on the far right, both sides of the pond. I'm part of an anti-racist group who do that, and there are various private spaces where we share info.

That makes me atypical. I doubt anyone in this English town had a clue who Kirk was before, and most probably still have no idea today. News of his death will have been lost in the white noise of all the other reports of shootings in America.

Even those who know who he is can wonder why his death is so newsworthy.

People are shot and killed every day in this country, hundreds actually, hundreds every day. It's the leading cause of death among children!

All of these are tragic and avoidable. But only the smallest fraction of a percent of them get as much attention as Kirk's.

What makes him special? Why are we talking more about him than the children who are shot and killed every single day?

I have to say I'd never heard of him before seeing reports of him being shot

Then when I read more about him I lost any interest

Unlike the kids in the school shooting that happened on the same day, three of whom were in critical condition from the vanishingly few reports I found, anyone know how they're doing ?

Yeah, but not everyone follows the hashtag. I tend to follow accounts because I'm up for conversation.

So there is value in that.

Thanks