Minutes after news that right-wing influencer Charlie Kirk had been shot at a planned campus event at Utah Valley University, the wheels of social media engagement farming and clout chasing had already begun to grind to life.
Kirk, despite being in his 30s, was a mainstay on college campuses around the country, where student groups regularly invited him to hold “debate me”-style events. The classic format — vertical split-screen of Kirk on the bottom, a student speaker on the top — racked up millions of views as the right-wing influencer sparred with college kids challenging him on issues like immigration, abortion, and race in the US. The event on Wednesday started like any other: Kirk’s account posted hype-up clips, and students made lighthearted jokes about Kirk’s arrival that now are eerily prophetic. (“The thing that scared me the most about college came true today LMAO,” one video showing the event setup, now deleted, was captioned.)
After the shooting was confirmed but before Kirk’s condition was unknown, I searched on TikTok for his name; the social media content slop machine was already in motion. TikTok was littered with random people holding a mic and doing their best impression of a news anchor voice, reading off headlines and sometimes spreading inaccuracies. Some people filmed themselves “reacting” to the news, presumably feigning shock at the slaying. In one of the more surreal pieces of content, a TikTok user with just under 150,000 followers who was present at the event in Utah pulled out his phone and started to record a selfie video of the mayhem after Kirk was shot. “It’s your boy Elder TikTok,” he says as students run for cover around him. “Shots fired! Shots fired!” At the end, he throws up a peace sign, urging viewers to subscribe to his page. (The TikToker eventually deleted the video and offered an apology.)
But perhaps the most shocking form of content creation came not from obscure individuals angling for their 15 minutes, but from those occupying the highest offices in the country. The first report that Kirk had died came from a local news reporter on X, who cited speaker of the Utah House of Representatives Mike Schultz. Shortly after, Donald Trump weighed in — not in a statement from the White House, but on Truth Social. “The Great, and even Legendary, Charlie Kirk, is dead,” Trump’s account posted. One by one, confirmations trickled in: from right-wing news shows, Laura Loomer, and eventually from Kirk’s spokesperson.
High-profile crimes and breaking news inevitably lead to misinformation in the immediate aftermath — but what is striking about the information ecosystem after Kirk’s killing is who is sowing the confusion. Minutes before an official press conference to provide updates, FBI Director Kash Patel took a victory lap on X: “The subject for the horrific shooting today that took the life of Charlie Kirk is now in custody. Thank you to the local and state authorities in Utah for your partnership with @fbi,” he wrote in part. Minutes later, officials in Utah seemed to contradict Patel, saying that the search for a suspect was still underway. When a reporter asked about Patel’s post, officials said they had a “person of interest” in custody who was being interviewed. Shortly after, Patel backtracked, saying the “subject in custody” was released after being “interrogated.”
Patel and FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino love to post: In a lawsuit filed this week, fired FBI officials say they were directed by Patel and Bongino to share more “FBI wins” online. One fired FBI official was worried that “the emphasis Bongino placed on creating content for his social media pages could risk outweighing more deliberate analyses of investigations,” according to the lawsuit. For the men in charge of a federal intelligence agency, working on one of the most high-profile crimes of the year, it appears that posting premature, inaccurate information for clout on X takes precedence over thoroughness. Bongino’s official government X account reposted Patel’s initial claim, but not the follow-up clarification.
By the end of the night, with the shooter apparently on the loose and more questions than answers, the White House had spun up a glossy video featuring Trump, blaming Kirk’s killing on the “radical Left” and vowing to also go after “the organizations that fund [political violence] and support it.” As of Thursday morning, officials said they were tracking the suspect — believed to be a college-age-looking man — but didn’t offer much more.
Amid sloppy and confusing official statements, the online content machine has kept on whirring in the background. Graphic, disturbing video of the shooting autoplays in feeds, conspiracy theories gain traction, and ordinary people weigh in as if they have a unique insight. And why wouldn’t they? We’re in an era where just about anything is monetizable, no matter how hateful, violent, or false it is. The surprise is not that we whip out our phones when a national political figure is shot in front of 3,000 people. What feels newly depraved is who is fanning the flames, who’s polluting the well of information — and what content they are dreaming up for the next time this happens.
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