Charlie Kirk’s image has begun to appear in a wide range of Internet memes
Photoshopped and deepfake clips of a recently murdered conservative media influencer have flooded social media, with his face plastered over some of the internet’s most recognizable memes. It’s as if the Web has collectively decided to resurrect it through morbid irony.
According to Know Your Meme, the first major example appeared on The post received over 96,000 likes and dozens of viral quote-tweets.
Mashable Trend Report
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But things really took a turn for the worse in late October. The vague reaction memes were pieced together in a TikTok montage — all with Kirk’s face edited in — captioned, “RIP Kirk, your sacrifice means something.”
That post alone received over 65,000 likes, and several others received the same number.
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It is difficult to find out why this happened. The simplest answer: that’s what the Internet does. Meme culture often thrives on transgression, and nothing spreads faster than a joke that crosses a line — especially when it involves someone like Kirk, whose death has been mythologized in right-wing media for weeks.
People online have mocked and memorialized the assassination of JFK, 9/11, and the murder of George Floyd. On the Internet, Charlie Kirk is just the latest entry in that long, dark tradition.