Dark online subculture emerges behind Charlie Kirk’s assassination

The man accused of assassinating rising conservative star Charlie Kirk was immersed in a toxic online community that may have driven his actions.

Authorities say Tyler Robinson, 22, was indoctrinated by left-wing, online ideology. Many on the left hated Mr. Kirk, a right-wing firebrand.

Those steeped in the online universe, where many young men spend much of their time, say their motivation may be more muddled and connected to dark online culture and memes rather than just political ideology.

They point to taunting messages left by Mr. Robinson on bullet casings and social media postings that are linked to violent gaming and nihilistic discourse. One of the engravings, lyrics to a World War II song, is used by the left-wing movement antifa, but the song is also heard on a popular shooter video game.

Mr. Robinson, who was in a romantic relationship with his transgender roommate, was active in the online video gaming community on several message boards.

Another of the bullet engravings discovered by law enforcement after Mr. Kirk’s death referenced a “furries” subculture in which Mr. Robinson participated on Reddit, another online chat group.

The bullet-casing messages appeared to be aimed at Mr. Robinson’s online community, a world most older adults know nothing about, said Todd E. Eberly, a political science professor at St. Mary’s College in Maryland.

“They’re communicating with and trying to connect with the members of those niche communities,” Mr. Eberly said. “And I think, to the extent that most of us aren’t aware how dark and how deep some of these communities go, we’re missing a huge part of the picture.”

The FBI is delving into Mr. Robinson’s extensive online existence to search for motives and evidence to prove their case.

They plan to interview “scores” of people with whom Mr. Robinson communicated in various chat groups on the online platform Discord, FBI Director Kash Patel said Monday on Fox News.

Mr. Robinson confessed to the shooting on Discord hours before he was arrested Friday, The Washington Post reported.

He told dozens of friends in one of at least two chat groups that he was the person who fatally Mr. Kirk on Wednesday as he spoke to students on the campus green at Utah Valley University.

“Hey guys, I have bad news for you all,” Mr. Robinson posted on the platform, according to the report. “It was me at UVU yesterday. I’m sorry for all of this.”

Mr. Robinson, authorities say, messaged his boyfriend, who is transitioning to female, on Discord after the shooting. The messages referenced a discarded rifle in the woods, where authorities found it. He made other revelatory statements to his boyfriend on the platform that implicated him in the crime. Among them, a reference to messages engraved into the bullets, wrapping the gun in a towel and changing clothes ahead of the shooting.

Authorities said they found Mr. Robinson’s DNA on the towel, as well as a screwdriver found on the roof of the campus building from which Mr. Kirk was shot.

Not all of Mr. Robinson’s communications about the shooting were online.

The boyfriend, whom authorities have not identified, is cooperating, Mr. Patel said, and told investigators about a note written by Mr. Robinson in which he said he planned to carry out the shooting of Mr. Kirk.

The note was later destroyed.

Mr. Robinson will appear Tuesday in a Utah courtroom. Prosecutors plan to charge him with aggravated murder, a crime that makes him eligible for the death penalty if he is convicted.

Investigators say they are compiling significant evidence implicating him in the shooting. The exact motive is less clear.

Mr. Kirk was known for opposing transgender ideology and often debated members of the transgender community on college campuses. He was shot at the moment he was debating a student about whether transgender people are proportionally committing more mass shootings.

Mr. Robinson’s family said he harbored an intense dislike for Mr. Kirk. They said he accused him of “spreading hate.”

Mr. Robinson was a high school honors student who dropped out of Utah State University after one semester despite receiving a generous academic scholarship. He then enrolled in a technical college and studied to become an electrician.

Mr. Eberly said the picture emerging is one of a once-promising student who became engrossed in “socially isolated and toxic online gaming subculture dominated by an obsession with violence.”

The culture has influenced other young men to commit acts of violence, Mr. Eberly said.

Three recent school shooters, among them a student who shot two fellow students at a suburban Denver high school last week, had spent months viewing and sharing the content produced in an online “gore forum,” he said.

Online cultural memes influence and numb the psyche of those who spend much of their time wrapped in the mix of odd cartoon characters, doom messaging and consumer cultural parody, said Cy Canterel, a media theorist who decodes the online world. She said the online world may provide clues to why Mr. Kirk was shot.

“A position that once looked unthinkable has been normalized inside the group,” she said. “The mix says nothing matters. Everything is a joke. Nihilism is the punch line.”