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The Guardian - US
The Guardian - US
World
Noah Kirsch

‘His legacy is cringe’: how Charlie Kirk became a meme among the young – even his supporters

Doodles of a red nose, halo and angel wings are superimposed on top of a photo of Charlie Kirk speaking
‘The jokes about Charlie Kirk are symbolic of what have been pretty seismic shifts happening within the online culture,’ said Eviane Leidig, director of research and outreach at the Center for the Study of Organized Hate. Composite: The Guardian/Getty Images

Ten months since his assassination, Charlie Kirk’s name and likeness are still proliferating online. Just not the way the far-right activist would have wanted.

Audio of the gunshot that killed him has become a TikTok meme, as have ironic reposts of the apparent AI-slop song We Are Charlie Kirk, which was originally created as a posthumous tribute. He was the butt of a crude joke during the Netflix roast of the Hollywood star Kevin Hart in May. The next month, a viral tweet encouraged people to take “a shot” in his honor on Juneteenth. And a trend known as “Kirkification” has emerged, in which internet pranksters superimpose his face on to unlikely images, such as the Mona Lisa, a woman in a bikini, or Jeffrey Epstein.

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