Welcome to the Weekly Scroll, your guide to the most interesting things that happened online this week. In this post we’re breaking down the cryptic, meme-ridden messages left by Charlie Kirk’s shooter, the social media-led revolution that overthrow a government in Nepal, the backlash to BlueSky, Roblox, AI copyright cases, and one extremely cool purse. Join as a paid subscriber - support the blog and get access to every post!
Meme Murderers
Friday morning in Utah, police took into custody Tyler Robinson, a 22-year-old student alleged to be Charlie Kirk’s assassin. Almost immediately the internet began doing what it does best: rushing to find details about the case they can use to score points against their political enemies. Different groups, left and right, waited to see if the shooter would fit any of the ideological or identity markers that allow them to attack their opponents.
The blame game that inevitably happens after these events is horrifically depressing in a variety of ways. First, because we’re not even very good at it - so much information is muddled or just flat wrong when it’s first released. The Wall Street Journal released a report that the shooter’s bullet casings were engraved with ‘transgender and anti-fascist ideology’, but that report turned out not to be fully true - it appears that someone misidentified the manufacturer’s mark ‘TRN’ as a reference to trans people. Second, because it’s awful that this happens so often that each ideological camp has a fully fleshed out playbook for how to respond to best blame the other side. Third, because of what it says about how broken our politics are. We can’t even unify for a minute before the loudest and worst people on the internet are informing you who’s really to blame for the tragedy. Was the shooter trans? Antifa? A straight white male incel? A Trump supporter? A communist? Spin the wheel of misery and find out!
As of right now, the shooter’s full motivations are still unknown. Robinson, like most high-profile shooters in America, was a young man. He came from a white, conservative, Mormon family in Utah, but reportedly disliked Kirk intensely. The Guardian reported that a friend called him “leftist”, but then retracted the report. By far the most interesting information we have so far is what was engraved on four bullet casings:
Keep reading with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to Infinite Scroll to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.