"The logical endpoint of 21st-century America: An influencer shot to death at a school in front of a crowd of smartphones."
posted on in: Notable Articles, politics, social media, culture and political violence.
~170 words, about a 1 min read.
Charlie Kirk spent his life trying to create excuses to incite violence against others, now--as Ryan Broderick so elegantly notes in this piece--he has become that excuse. Kirk doesn't deserve your respect or sympathy but I agree that it seems likely he'll be holding the whole nation's attention for a while.
If 9/11 was the pinnacle of political violence for the TV age, Kirk’s death should be seen as an inverted mirror image, a perfect spectacle for the social media era. A darkly fitting end for the premier digital propagandist of the Trump administration. The same algorithms he relied on to create narratives for the MAGA movement now turning his death into a dizzying torrent of content. Shitposts, memes, conspiracy theories, and delirious right-wing lust for civil war have spun together online over the last 24 hours more intensely than we’ve ever seen before. The logical endpoint of 21st-century America: An influencer shot to death at a school in front of a crowd of smartphones.
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— Via Ryan Broderick, The logical endpoint of 21st-century America