Murder catalyses those motivated by political expediency. Whenever someone dies, commentators rush to condemn the opposing side, just as iron filings fly to magnets. Coulter’s law, named after the conservative commentator Ann Coulter, states that the longer it takes the media to identify a mass shooter in the United States, the less likely it is to be a white male. To be fair, she’s normally right. This can also be applied to gang violence among the African American community. When young black men are gunned down in Baltimore or knifed in London, the statistics prove this to be the case.

There is still a great deal to learn about Tyler Robinson’s motivations and downward spiral that led him from Mormon conservative to charged suspect in the public execution of Charlie Kirk. Since surrendering to law enforcement, Robinson has been uncooperative with authorities while in custody. Speculation has been rife. It has been suggested that he was driven by a combination of wokeness, communism and transgender ideology. FBI Director Kash Patel supplied a copy of a text message exchange between Robinson and his transgender roommate, implying Robinson had had enough of the ‘hate’ promoted by the influential conservative YouTuber.

There might be some truth to that, but one aspect of his ideology seems clear. The FBI said that one piece of evidence Robinson discarded was his weapon and ammunition engraved with various ironic internet phrases.

The round that tragically ended Charlie Kirk’s life bore an engraving of the words ‘notices bulge OWO, What’s This’, referencing an old internet meme. Another shellcase referenced a command from the video game Hell Divers 2, which involves dropping a bomb on enemies using the sequence up, right, and three down arrows; a meme that became synonymous with ending arguments on certain online platforms. It is esoteric, veiled in irony, such that only those within his circle could decipher its meaning. Nihilism functions as a form of currency, akin to digital capital within the internet forums where he spent most of his life. Robinson was immersed in online culture. The meme etched onto the bullet that struck Kirk’s throat dated back to 2013.

We are witnessing an increase in black-pill killers, primarily young white male misanthropes being indoctrinated into radicalism and violence one meme at a time. A black pill refers to an internet term derived from Neo’s choice in The Matrix, and whether to take the blue pill or the red pill to see the world as it really is. By ‘taking’ the black pill, one realises decline is inevitable: if nothing can be saved, the only creative act is destruction/negation. To be ‘blackpilled’ means to give up. It signifies his acquiescence to hopelessness, embraces fatalism, and believes society is over, and burning it down is the only solution. To accept entropy as identity. It’s part of a nihilist internet subculture that glorifies violence as a form of in-group currency. In the world of internet memes and the black pill, nothing matters. Humour emerges in the world through the spectacle of violence.

People have referred to this as ‘post-political’ and ‘anti-system’. However, it misses the mark. The traditional 20th-century definitions of left and right are no longer relevant in the hyper-individualised, fragmented online world of 4chan internet chatrooms, where edge lords and trolls thrive and evil incubates, with no coherent ideology other than loathing the system, a love of chaos, and a desire for attention. A school shooting isn’t enough to gain notoriety in America: there is one per day, and they barely get news coverage. If you want infamy, you’ll have to go the extra mile. Political assassination still holds a shocking impact. It ensures an indelible legacy within internet folklore by portraying the shooters as cyber-warriors fighting for an imaginary cause. To ensure that a piece of your sick and twisted life makes an impression.

You need not search far to find further examples. The day Robinson was climbing the roof of the Utah building, meme-laden ammunition in hand, a sixteen-year-old boy named Desmond Holly opened fire at a Denver school, seriously injuring two students before killing himself. He praised previous school shooters such as the Columbine killers, who started their blood-soaked campaign in the same county. According to the Denver Post, Holly’s online history is replete with content related to mass shootings and antisemitic conspiracy theories. Holly appears to have been influenced by a mass shooter from Wisconsin, connected to the blackpill ideology, whose purported manifesto was titled ‘War Against Humanity’ and described humans as ‘filth’ and society as a ‘plague’. There was a shooting at the Church of the Annunciation in Minneapolis. Robin Westman, the alleged murderer, kept a journal loaded with internet and cultural references, some of which were so complex that explaining them would require four columns. Westman decorated his guns with hundreds of symbols and phrases, including ‘release the list’ and references to past school shooters. The most revealing: ‘there is no message’.

These gunmen represent an extreme manifestation of a wider problem, driven by a destructive urge rooted in despair, alienation and boredom. There will be yet another moral panic over video games causing real-world violence. This is not true. Japan and South Korea have similarly lucrative video game markets and very little violence. This is predominantly a Western problem. When you combine instant gratification, mental illness and growing distrust of the political system, you get disillusioned, damaged young men who believe they are doomed to failure and have no stake in society.

Although much is written about the dangers of partisanship and polarisation, it is nihilism that is the most destructive force in the world. And it has been turbocharged on the internet. In an effort to find meaning in a meaningless life, what could be more ironic than a nation desperately searching for clues to define a killer with no coherent ideology?

It’s human nature to search for meaning in everything we do. There’s one thing we can all agree on when it comes to Kirk’s murder. It is evil.