The Wikipedia article on Charlie Kirk became the most read article of the year on the online encyclopedia as users searched for details about conservative activists.
Kirk’s entries were viewed around 45 million times, particularly following his tragic shooting during a college debate on September 10.
While Kirk was already recognized in the U.S. as a co-founder of Turning Point USA, his death captured global attention. According to data from the Wikimedia Foundation, over 40% of the traffic on the most-read English Wikipedia articles in 2025 originated from outside the U.S.
In second place is Wikipedia’s annual compilation of notable deaths. Last year’s most popular item was the notable losses list for 2024.
The third spot featured Ed Gein, the infamous American serial killer highlighted in Season 3 of Netflix’s Monster, a true crime anthology series.
Wikipedia celebrated its 25th anniversary on January 15. Thanks to the efforts of 250,000 volunteer writers and editors, it continues to serve as a trustworthy information source. The entries are based on a few fundamental principles: utilize public and reliable sources, and refrain from publishing personal opinions or novel interpretations.
Additionally, two more U.S. public figures made it into the top five. This marks Donald Trump’s eighth appearance on the annual list, alongside Chicago-born Pope Leo XIV.
Entries related to movies and TV shows consistently feature in the Top 20, largely due to the “second screen” phenomenon, where viewers check their phones while watching films or shows.
Both the Sinners and Superman films made the overall top 10, with Netflix’s show Adolescence reaching 17th place for the year, peaking in views shortly after its release due to the viral success of the tetralogy.
Entries for the acclaimed Apple TV series Severance saw viewings nearly triple from the first season in 2022 to the second season this year. Wikimedia also raised concerns about the growing popularity of movie and TV show summaries on the platform.
U.S. politics accounted for a quarter of the top 20, with Zoran Mamdani’s remarkable run for New York mayor landing him in the top 10, right behind Elon Musk. YouTuber MrBeast also made his debut in the top 20.
on the day 22-year-old Tyler Robinson shot and killed right-wing activist Charlie Kirk, prosecutors claim he texted his roommates to confess to the act. While admitting to the murder and seemingly indicating he intended to reclaim his firearm, he shifted the conversation to his motivation for inscribing messages on the ammunition.
“Remember how I was carving the bullets. The messages are almost a big meme,” Robinson texted.
Robinson’s shooting of Kirk underscores the intersection of political violence and a growing nihilisticonline environment that fosters misinformation and extremism. This convergence raises significant questions about the impact of internet culture on the nature and understanding of extremist actions.
Robinson was heavily engaged with online platforms and seemed to enjoy video gaming. A friend described him as “Online at the end,” noting his activity on Discord, a messaging service popular among the gaming community.
The bullets he allegedly fired boreniche internet references and phrases, such as “What is this?”, alluding to sexual memes within online furry communities, “If you read this, you’re gay LMAO,” and “Hey fascist! Catch!” referencing the game Far Cry 6.
In conversations with his roommate, with whom he had a romantic relationship, Robinson appeared to contemplate how his ironic messages would be interpreted.
He even mentioned “UWU’s awareness” in Fox News [sic] highlighting the absurdity of certain responses,” Robinson texted.
Robinson exemplifies not only a product of online culture, but also aligns with a contemporary trend where attackers feel compelled to leave behind a message. The increase in manifestos and single-sentence declarations online, be it a full manifesto or a brief phrase, has been notable in recent years.
The manifesto left by the neo-Nazis who murdered 51 people in Christchurch, New Zealand in 2019 included extreme white nationalist ideologies and “shitposting” style ironic references related to video games and podcasters.The shooter who opened fire in a supermarket in El Paso, Texas the same year announced his attack on the 8chan message board while creating memes that encouraged others to “achieve high scores” with body counts.
The mass shooting in predominantly Black areas of Buffalo, New York in 2022 and the Poway synagogue shooting in California in 2019, both echoed with the language used in fringe online forums. A 2022 survey by multiple newsrooms found thousands of messages from international neo-Nazi networks, showcasing exchanges filled with memes and gaming slang as they plotted violence.
Moreover, attackers frequently engage with each other in far-right circles, celebrating individuals as “saints” on memorial days or mimicking elements from previous attacks. As noted by others, Robinson’s inscriptions on bullet cases closely resemble the meme messages left on ammunition and firearms by a young shooter from a Minneapolis Catholic School attack, echoing the patterns left by United Healthcare CEO shooter Luigi Mangione on bullets, which was visible on a popular alt-fashion brand’s shirt.
Robinson’s messages do not provide a clear motive for Kirk’s murder. Prosecutors claim Robinson indicated he shot Kirk because he believed conservative activists were perpetuating hatred. His mother reportedly stated that her son had “become more political, more inclined towards the left, and supportive of gay and trans rights.”
However, the path to Robinson’s radicalization remains unclear. There is a vast gulf between opposing Kirk’s ideologies and enacting targeted violence. Experts increasingly contend that the motivations behind such actions, especially among young individuals, are shaped more by the fragmented and chaotic online landscape of modern politics rather than fitting neatly into traditional political categories. Neglecting the radical nature of these individuals in favor of simplified narratives can obscure the factors driving them towards extremist violence.
Radicalization of being online
Rather than striving to decipher the exact meanings behind the sarcastic trolling messages left by attackers, researchers studying extremism argue that understanding how online media contributes to widespread radicalization is more valuable. In fact, many suggest that the current era of political violence is markedly different from past occurrences due to the influential role of social media and online communities in radicalizing and isolating users.
While technological factors represent only part of the rise in political violence—alongside mental health concerns, political polarization, and easy access to firearms in the U.S.—extremist researchers increasingly focus on how social media platforms and online environments evolve to foster radicalization.
In a 2023 paper by George Washington University’s Project on Extremism, Jacob Wear, explained the emergence of what he termed the “third generation of online radicals” in the late 2010s. Characteristics of this generation include how memetic culture facilitates radicalization and normalizes attacks, as well as a shift away from ideology and group affiliations towards individual acts of violence. Wear argues that online culture surrounding violence and extremism blurs the conventional boundaries of terrorism, spurring content designed to showcase acts of violence.
“Global grievances are expressed with great intensity in localized contexts, yet the primary audience often remains online,” writes Wear.
The expansion of social media and the erosion of traditional gatekeeping have muddled strategies to combat escalating online radicalization, especially given shifts in social media platforms. Responsibility for hosting violent and extreme content has become a contentious issue. What was once a standard policy among media organizations and platforms to refrain from disseminating a perpetrator’s manifesto has evolved into a public health debate among researchers, deteriorating as social media platforms replaced amateur detectives who amplified the digital footprints of individuals for perilous discoveries. Furthermore, as messages and memes from attackers spread more effortlessly, riffs about violence produce more posts, transforming them into consumable content. This represents a particularly grim aspect of an industry that has thrived by algorithmically promoting politically divisive and extremist content.
Consequently, online culture has become intertwined with extremism and political violence, increasingly blurring lines as previously extremist internet culture permeates everyday online experiences. The use of sarcastic humor associated with violence and extremism isn’t new to the digital landscape—a 1944 essay debated how factions entertained themselves with euphemisms of hate, yet has now become a prominent feature of online interaction. Ideologies and memes that were once confined to obscure message boards and extremist sites now serve as the common language of the Internet, disseminated across mainstream social media platforms.
Kirk is also a product of this online milieu, widely recognized for his confrontational, debate-style clips that have gone viral, stirring reactions from various political audiences.
The footage of Kirk’s murder has since propagated through the same online ecosystem that once rendered him omnipresent, now autoplaying on X without caution for viewers. The aftermath of his death has blended into the same content machine, with video essays analyzing the murder and AI-generated tributes portraying his legacy online. One aspiring influencer who attended the event where Kirk was fatally shot attempted to exploit the chaos for content, posting videos promoting his social media channels amid the turmoil.
“Make sure to subscribe!” the TikToker, who later deleted the video, exclaimed while flashing peace signs as attendees screamed and fled.
hGreetings from Ello and TechScape! Dara Kerr is here to fill in for Blake Montgomery, who is currently on vacation. In the meantime, I’m diving into the memes, games, and internet culture that surround Charlie Kirk’s recent filming.
The bullet that claimed the life of a conservative activist bore the inscription, “What will this inflate?” This quickly caught the attention of the online community. It’s a phrase often used in internet culture to poke fun at participants in online role-play communities, particularly within the fur fandom, where individuals dress up as anthropomorphic animal characters.
“The phrase is embraced by the fur community not just to tease them for being cringy, but also to claim ownership over memes,” he writes. Know your memes, a site that chronicles viral trends. “Ultimately, this phrase functions as a meme and is regarded as one of the most annoying things to say to someone else.”
Other bullet casings seized by law enforcement in Utah featured inscriptions that referenced online games and niche memes, igniting a wave of speculation on social media regarding the potential motives behind the murder. One casing read: “O Bella Ciao, Bella Ciao,” while another stated, “If you read this, you’re gay, Lmao.” The former connects to an Italian anti-fascist folk song, while the latter is described by web culture writer Ryan Broderick as “just a boilerplate edgy joke.” Last week’s newsletter carried the title, “Charlie Kirk was killed by a meme.”
The final bullet casing disclosed by law enforcement read, “Heyfascist! Catch!” followed by a series of arrow symbols. This sequence appears to allude to commands in the video game Helldivers 2 that are used to deploy 500kg bombs.
Suspect Tyler James Robinson, a 22-year-old from a small Utah town near the Arizona border, has been charged with Kirk’s murder at a campus event at Utah Valley University in Orem. Kirk was hit by a single bullet fired from a “powerful bolt-action rifle” from a distant rooftop.
Both the suspect and the 31-year-old victim, Charlie Kirk, were well-versed in online culture. Kirk was associated with Turning Point USA, a conservative youth organization, known for engaging in discussions about extremist views on race, immigration, gender identity, and gun rights. His rise to fame was primarily fueled by his strong online presence.
As my colleague Alaina Demopoulos wrote:
Kirk, a pivotal figure in Donald Trump’s rise, galvanized college conservatives who transitioned to a different ecosystem than mainstream media. Throughout the decade between Kirk’s emergence as a teenage activist and the shooting, he played a crucial role in the growth of MAGA politics alongside changes in the media landscape.
Founded in 2012, Turning Point USA aimed to redirect Obama-era youth outreach toward conservative values. Even adversaries of his views couldn’t disregard his significant presence in the political arena. For a young American viewer, Kirk represented a savvy figure across platforms like YouTube, Twitter, Tiktok, and live events—akin to a millennial and Gen Z version of Rush Limbaugh, the influential right-wing radio host of the 1990s.
You can read the full story here.
Photo: Peter Dasilva/Reuters
Recently, Meta faced allegations from two independent whistleblowers. One group of former and current employees claims that Meta’s virtual reality devices and apps are harming children. Another whistleblower, Attaullah Baig, who previously served as a security officer for Meta and WhatsApp, accuses the company of overlooking significant security and privacy issues within a messaging app, according to The New York Times.
In response to these VR device allegations, Meta spokesperson Dani Lever stated that the company has approved 180 studies related to VR since 2022. “Some of these examples are stitched together to fit a particular narrative and misrepresent the truth,” she asserted. Meta also emphasized having implemented features in its VR products to limit unwanted interactions and provide parental supervision tools.
One of the first whistleblowers, Sophie Chang, brought her findings to the Guardian in 2021. She documented how Facebook facilitated political manipulation across over 25 countries. Later that same year, Frances Haugen shared with the Wall Street Journal documentation examining various allegations made by Zhang, revealing Facebook’s awareness of the harm its social media apps posed to teenagers.
In 2023, Arturo Bejard also provided evidence to the Wall Street Journal, providing further proof that Meta recognized how Facebook and Instagram algorithms directed content to teenagers that amplified bullying, substance abuse, eating disorders, and self-harm.
This year alone, eight additional whistleblowers have stepped forward. Baig, alongside a group of six former employees, came forward last week.
U.S. lawmakers are taking these allegations seriously. Politicians such as Missouri Republican Sen. Josh Hawley and Connecticut Democrat Richard Blumenthal have expressed urgency in regulating Meta and other social media platforms.
“The revelations from these disclosures exhibit such significant risks to safety that it’s troubling. It shows that Meta is intentionally distorting the truth about abuse on the platform. ‘See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil’ is more than just a business philosophy—it’s a troubling narrative,” stated Blumenthal, who also mentioned that he and other senators are eager to advocate for “long-overdue reforms.”
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