When I go out and about, there is no talk of Charlie Kirk

[Kaleva]

I think most people don’t know who he is or have ever heard of him. I didn’t know who he was and I’m here most everyday but I’m also part of the very large majority of adults who don’t watch cable news.

[PSPS]

1. Most of these "influencers" are unknown outside the TikTok/social media world.

[NJCher]

2. Not a topic here, either

But I heard it’s big down at the shore.

[pfitz59]

3. I was at n event with thousands

Not a peep about Kirk. I think his fan base is restricted to the evangelicals.

[womanofthehills]

14. He has Turning Point chapters in 3000 schools

Colleges and high schools and since his death, Turning Points said they have requests for over 20,000 more chapters in schools. Dems need to come up with a youth plan.

Following is Galvin Newsom interviewing Kirk & telling Kirk his niece went to Kirk’s event and Galvins’s 13 yr old son asked to skip school to meet Kirk. Kirk explains how they managed to get 10% of kids on their side in 4 months.

[Silent Type]

4. Occasionally over past few years I've seen references to Charlie Kirk, thought it was Captain Kirk and scrolled by.

The video the other day changed that. His popularity has soared with death, which is really sad.

[RockRaven]

5. It speaks to how insular the RW political class and ultrawealthy are.

And by insular, I really mean "up their own ass." They immediately leaped to JFK and MLK comparisons, but most Americans had never heard of him.

Before he got shot, what percent of Americans could correctly (even if incompletely) answered the question: "who is Charlie Kirk?" Ten? Five? Two? One?

[JI7]

6. It's not just the right wing. It's our side also

but the right wing has been able to extend influence outside of the directly and clearly political through social media influences.

We have that also with the entertainment industry but actors, musicians and other artists and celebs have been less influential with social media's rise.

[Skittles]

9. if there's a silver lining

I hope more people catch on to what exactly conservatives worship.

[0rganism]

7. Mr. Kirk's legacy is being rewritten in real time, he's undergoing something akin to apotheosis or beatification

The grand karmic/poetic reality of Mr. Kirk, having advocated for school shootings as the social price we pay for keeping our beloved second amendment unsullied by regulation, dying in a school shooting even as another school shooting is going on in another state, killed by a young Caucasian man who maybe did it for the memes, even now is being overwritten by a far different take.

Through the considerable efforts and extreme abject cowardice of mass media, he's becoming the patron saint of free speech and a liberator of the "white race", whatever that is. He's been taken from us as a martyr to the Great Cause by a corrupted youth of decent upbringing, radicalized by Marxists and other careless ideologues of the "far left", whatever that is. In his honor, there will be a state funeral, grand memorials, marble statues, painted tributes of heroic realism, all implicitly racist, all very much accepted and lauded by corporate media.

Apparently, he's the "martyr" they've been waiting for.

[Rhiannon12866]

8. I didn't know who he was, either.

His face looked vaguely familiar, may have seen a report on him on some news show - but it may be that he's dominated the news for the past few days. I feel terrible for his family, but from what we hear, he brought the animosity on himself.

[Skittles]

10. all I knew is he was a rightwing nutcase

but they are a dime a dozen now

[live love laugh]

11. The mall yesterday had the flag over Macys at half staff...

[DFW]

12. I had no idea who he was

Where I live, no one at all outside of the AfD knew the name, either.

[JustABozoOnThisBus]

24. I had no idea either, but I'm old, and not on Tik Tok or Twitter.

I am pretty much unfamiliar with any "internet influencers" (if that's a job title)

But, then, I had no idea who Taylor Swift was before there was a big screw-up on Ticketmaster.

[LeftInTX]

13. He's a "media thing".. Although there was vigil in San Antonio today and one at UTSA tomorrow

I'm sure most of the students at UTSA have never heard of him. I think the vigil will be more like a recruiting event.

The vigil today was at Cowboy's Dance Hall, where they have "Trump Trains", so it was more of a "preaching to the choir" event. Apparently there are other TPUSA chapters at other universities in San Antonio...ugh....I think they are having vigils too, but I didn't bother to catch the details.

[Iris]

15. Unfortunately, I knew who he was because I work in higher ed

That's how he got started - Turning Point and the professor "watch" list.

There were chapters on campuses all over the country - usually with 1-5 members.

I honestly didn't realize he had gotten so much traction until very recently

[mopinko]

16. the troll farms r working overtime.

they’ve been working so hard, they’ve slowed down du several times lately.
our enemies hammer every wedge, and this is a big 1.

[dlk]

17. Poisoning young minds has long term, negative consequences

This can entirely change our country, and not in a good way. This is their goal. We underestimate the determination and organization of those who would turn our country away from democracy and toward fascism.

The Civil War never truly ended.

[Tree Lady]

18. I didn't know who he was until

After he died, even watched the episode of South Park about podcasts and didn't realize it was about him, just thought they were making fun of a right wing podcaster.

[roamer65]

19. Because things like food prices, health care costs and jobs matter much more than a flying monkey right blowhard.

Something else matters too.

THE EPSTEIN FILES.

[MichMan]

31. People concerned about food prices, health care and jobs don't care about Epstein either

[roamer65]

34. I had to sneak it in as a reminder.

[Emile]

20. Way over the top coverage for someone nobody knows.

Weird

[Kaleva]

21. Less then 10% of the adult population watches cable bews

And that includes Fox

[indusurb]

23. Go out to a high school, colle geor even a middle school

Talk to the young men there. They know who Charlie Kirk is, they were his target audience. There was/is much handwringing over young males voting MAGA. Charlie Kirk is one of the big reasons why

[Johonny]

25. No one all weekend mentioned it

Or at work today. Literally a huge deal only in insane RW media land. But a lot of people live outside that sphere. As hard is it to believe.

[Lovie777]

26. There is a lot of talk about that orange person in the WH negativity................

as well as how bad the GQP and US SC are.

[Hellbound Hellhound]

27. 11 million currently viewing JD Vance on the Charlie Kirk Show with 30m views total.

That's just live, off peak hours, on one platform. Kirk himself only had like, 2m subs. Similarly, 4500 new "Turning Point USA" chapters have opened up on college campuses everywhere since his death.

You may not have known him, and even my right wing parents may never have known him up until his death, but if he didn't have an audience, he does NOW.

It remains to be seen what his death changes if anything.

Kirk wasn't an "Adult" influencer, he was an "Up and coming" influencer; He influenced young adults, aged 14-26. So while you may not know who he is, the youth certainly does, and in five days he's quintupled his viewership on purely his initial channel. His secondary channel is up ten mil. Those minor right-wingers responding to him have gone from 20k views to a million views each. In the meantime, left wing news anchors are getting fired, people who use social media to condemn Kirk are getting fired even as private citizens... Kirk wasn't "Cable News", he was a youtube and podcasting personality. I mean shit, we've got people in fucking IRELAND pulling Stephen Kings books, because Stephen King mentioned (Admittedly falsely and apologized afterwards) that " Charlie Kirk wanted to stone gay people". Australians held vigil for him. New Zealanders marched for him. The London rally was inundated with Charlie Kirk signs. Chinese voiced support for him. Say what you will, but he mattered to right wingers not just here, but across the world, and in many different countries, people are getting censored and or fired or similar for saying essentially "He deserved it". There's a website devoted to getting anyone who speaks about it axed.

It's no small thing. He's a martyr, and his death has galvanized the right wing through and through.

NOTE: I say this as one who observes social media impartially. I don't use Bluesky, I don't use mainstream media, I don't log in to ANY of them to see what the "Neutral" response is. TikTok is fully right wing. Reddit is banning anti-Kirk messages and people completely. 4chan is right wing already but it's even more now. Youtube, anti-Kirk gets demonitized if not banned outright.

"Most people don't know who he is" may be true, but the people who DO know are infecting the people who DON'T know. For instance, if you didn't know who he was, now you do. And no one's gonna talk about him, especially around people outspoken in their political views, because they have opinions on one side or another and don't know who to trust.

The man's a martyr now. I mean shit, you say "I've been here most every day" and Kirk has been a presence for a goddamned DECADE. That's not him being ineffectual or having no reach, it's DU being out of touch with social media.

Thankfully the violence seems pretty tame for now. I've only seen a few people get the shit beaten out of them, tossed in fountains, kicked and arrested. But it's fairly tame all things considered, so that's at least some small blessing.

[MrWowWow]

28. charlie kirk was a Hitler Youth Group Trainer

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[Torchlight]

29. I guess our anecdotes differ

Seems his passing is filling up the empty air at the two convenience stores and the office I habit. I've been broadcast-only news since '98 and have zero idea what's going on at cable other than the implications made about

[Traildogbob]

30. I live in redville hell

Home to GQP’s finest, Cawthorn and Meadows. Businesses are posting on their signs at their stores and restaurants, God bless Charlie and lots of the other God ‘s newest Child BS, evil Dems etc. I never spend at many of them with Back the Blue crap, a true MSGA symptom, but now I clearly see all I will never spend a dime at.
Don’t think God Blessed him too much. What about God’s will and he protected his boy trump but let Charlie take one for the team.
I hate the fucking GQP soooooo damn much. This blaming Dems for their evil needs curb stomped.
Saw a post this AM here, with video of a fucking beheading in Texas and he kicked the head down the driveway. Guess they gonna blame that on Woke Dems, where are the Guard and Military in that real shit hole, Abbottville?

[MakeThemCry]

32. I drive Lyft as my secondary income

And I had a passenger that brought up Charlie Kirk in conversation w/o prompting.

I typically play Jazz music as background music and Saturday night I picked up an affluent, most likely a millionaire, from a club near his home and dropped him home.

Before we got to his house he brought up Charlie Kirk in the conversation, and he was sympathetic to him.

An older white male, probably in his mid to late 50s.

He did give me helluva good tip though.

I had another passenger the day before, a young Black woman, who started blaring what she was listening to on her phone, something about Charlie Kirk, and she said "this guy is a scumbag." I agreed w/her and dropped her off.

My wife knows of someone where she works, a hospital, who got canned for talking bad about Charlie Kirk on their personal social media.

So yeah, people are aware of this situation and are talking about it.

[Deminpenn]

33. The vast majority of Americans pay

little to no attention to politics. They are too busy living their daily lives, worrying about their family members, finances, food, medical bills, insurance, work and all the other things that crop up unexpectedly.

Plenty of Americans can't even name their own state and federal elected representatives.

[Kaleva]

35. I did a search and found that there was a vigil for Kirk

Last Wednesday in a town close to a two hour drive away. The news report said that approx. 70 people attended.