There may be no ‘reason’ for the violence

Opinion

When a shooting occurs, there’s a rush to determine every detail possible — with the most pressing question often being, “Why?”

It can be difficult to pin down, and, unfortunately, the motive can sometimes prove to be insensible.

In the wake of the assassination of conservative commentator Charlie Kirk, U.S. President Donald Trump and his supporters leapt at the chance to denounce the violence as far-left extremism. As details about the suspect, 22-year-old Tyler Robinson, emerge, the battle to establish his ideological leaning goes on.

Historically, statistics have borne out that many of these shootings are carried out largely by disaffected white men who have adopted extremist right-wing views. But now there might well be a different, non-political cause of this violence, which is best summed up as internet-addled nihilism.

Bullet casings found after Kirk’s death were engraved slogans which emerged from or are claimed by various internet subcultures. Among these were references to: an Italian antifascist song included on a Spotify playlist enjoyed by an extreme online group; a meme from the furry subculture; and “if you read this, you are gay,” inscribed on one casing.

None of this is indicative of a firm political leaning; it is, however, indicative of someone who has spent too much time on the internet, and who, even as their signature on terrible violence, communicates in its meme-driven lingo.

If the messages reveal anything, they reveal to the wider world a nihilistic subculture which has thrived in the internet’s dark corners as more and more young people grow up extremely online.

The children who were given tablets during toddlerhood are adults now. In the real world, they face gruesome economic prospects, crumbling institutional capacity to solve problems, and a deteriorating climate. The generations prior have effectively destroyed consensus reality in an interminable war of information versus disinformation. And like the Dadaists before them, who retreated into esthetic nonsense in the wake of the First World War’s horrors, young people in 2025 have responded to their bleak prospects by creating a baffling subculture of their own.

This is not to paint the entire generation with a nefarious brush; but this subculture’s distinctly insensible flavour has brought with it a dark byproduct.

In the depths of this online subculture are the “blackpilled,” a term originally used for online “incels” but which now has come to describe a broad cohort of online nihilists. And while there are plenty of online influencers seeking to radicalize young people in the service of extremist goals, the rot is now deep enough that spasms of violence may be emerging independent of those efforts. Among a generation whose terminology and signifiers are often stripped of context and meaning, it is not surprising that violence perpetrated by its most disgruntled would follow suit.

The Global Network on Extremism and Technology has noted the connection between this nihilism and extremist behaviour.

“The implications of young people becoming increasingly nihilistic are damning. Because nihilists view personal, social, and political issues as inescapable, they regard norms, traditions, values, and actions as obstacles to a productive society,” reads a December 2022 piece.

And later on: “The pernicious forces of nihilism caused by the internet may in fact be creating both the desire for extremist content and the creators of the content themselves. Nihilism can also lead to violence without the adoption of clear extremist ideologies that come directly from online influencers.”

Robinson is before the courts and has not been proven guility. But whoever inscribed those messages on the bullet casings, their engravings show that they did not kill a man in broad daylight in the name of a political goal — they did it as a joke, as much as for any other reason.

As horrifying as politically motivated violence is, it’s worse yet to think that we face more violence to come, which is perpetrated for no real reason at all.