Assassinations Are Shitposts Now
Angry Planet2 Okt 2025

Assassinations Are Shitposts Now

Listen to this episode commercial free at https://angryplanetpod.com


Political assassins often have incoherent politics and Tyler Robinson is no different. The young man who killed Charlie Kirk inscribed the shell casings of his bullets with obscure memes that say less about what he believed and more about where he spent time online. Robinson isn’t alone. Earlier this year the Annunciation Church shooter showed off a rifle inscribed with similar memes pulled from the internet. The Christchurch shooter in 2019 livestreamed their killing and left behind a meme laden manifesto.


So what the hell is going on? On this episode of Angry Planet, Michael Senters—a PhD candidate at Virginia Tech—has some unsatisfying answers. Senters painstakingly walks us through each message on Robinson’s bullets and explains the online spaces from whence they came.

If you don’t know a gropyer from a Helldiver or have never heard “OwO” said aloud, this episode is for you.


It will not make you feel better.


  • 4,000 hours in seven games
  • A painfully specific explanation of every shell casing meme
  • “It can’t be Helldivers”
  • “This kid has probably fried his brain online.”
  • Hearts of Iron IV’s place in online fascist discourse
  • Son, what’s a groyper?
  • There’s no compelling evidence Robinson was a Groyper
  • The terrible embarrassment of explaining memes out loud
  • The 10 year old meme on the shell that killed Kirk
  • Constructing an ideology here is a Sisyphian task
  • Being online is about irony and performance
  • How a moment in time becomes a memetic hieroglyph
  • Assassination as performance
  • Gamergate as a “critical junction” in the Republican party
  • How GG spread the irony-poisoned posting style like a virus
  • Filming a TikTok video at an assassination
  • Re-evaluating our relationship to the internet
  • A little bit about working in a bookstore
  • The charging documents drop at the end of our conversation


What the shell casings in the assassination of Charlie Kirk do – and don't – tell us


Yes, It’s the Guns. It’s Also the Phones.


Read the Charges Against Tyler Robinson


Exclusive: Leaked Messages from Charlie Kirk Assassin


The “Notices Bulge OwO” video


The “Loss” comic

Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/warcollege.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Episoder(493)

Puffins, Zyn, and ‘Polar War’

Puffins, Zyn, and ‘Polar War’

Greenland fever has faded for now but it will return. The world’s polar region, you see, is pretty damn important. As the planet heats and the ice melts, what was once an impassible warren of ice and ...

6 Feb 55min

Online Culture Is the Whole Culture

Online Culture Is the Whole Culture

There was a time, just before the pandemic, when folks would say “Twitter isn’t real life” as a means of dismissing the horrors of social media. This was a cope, a way to ignore the worst political an...

30 Jan 1h 24min

How We Thought the First Year Would Go

How We Thought the First Year Would Go

Listen to this episode commercial free at https://angryplanetpod.comOn January 28, 2025, I sat down with Aram Shabanian to talk about how we thought the first year of the Trump administration would go...

16 Jan 1h 2min

On Spectacles of Cruelty

On Spectacles of Cruelty

On the last Angry Planet of 2025, novelist and Marine Corps veteran Phil Klay returns to reflect on a year of spectacle and cruelty.Between the Pentagon’s boat strikes and the administration’s constan...

9 Jan 52min

Google’s Former CEO Is Dancing in Ukraine

Google’s Former CEO Is Dancing in Ukraine

Earlier this year journalist Ben Makuch caught a glimpse of Eric Schmidt, the former CEO of Google, dancing at a club in Kyiv. It was a surreal moment, a snapshot of a tragic war that the West thinks ...

19 Des 20251h 9min

‘Capitalism Is a Series of Regime Changes’

‘Capitalism Is a Series of Regime Changes’

Another week and another Angry Planet about the horrifying systems that rule our lives.Is there a depressive theme running through the work right now? Possibly. I promise we’ll soon replace it with ra...

12 Des 202548min

The US Government’s AI Grand Bargain

The US Government’s AI Grand Bargain

The White House is portraying the race to adopt AI as an existential crisis. It’s the next Manhattan Project, they say, a technology so important it will require an unprecedented build out of energy i...

6 Des 202554min

Deadwood: The Town that Made the Wild West

Deadwood: The Town that Made the Wild West

Listen to this episode commercial free at https://angryplanetpod.comThis week on Angry Planet we’re taking a break from the horrors of the present to explore horrors of a past distant enough now that ...

21 Nov 202551min

Populært innen Politikk og nyheter

giver-og-gjengen-vg
aftenpodden
aftenpodden-usa
i-retten
stopp-verden
forklart
popradet
nokon-ma-ga
dine-penger-pengeradet
det-store-bildet
fotballpodden-2
rss-gukild-johaug
aftenbla-bla
hanna-de-heldige
rss-ness
bt-dokumentar-2
e24-podden
frokostshowet-pa-p5
rss-dannet-uten-piano
rss-penger-polser-og-politikk