You’ll never believe this: America has experienced yet another explosion of violence this week–several, actually, but we’re just here to talk about one, the killing of conservative figurehead Charlie Kirk. And, you’ll never believe this, either: video games are part of the conversation.
On Friday, authorities arrested 22-year-old Tyler Robinson of Utah in connection with Kirk’s shooting, following a fumbling manhunt. On Thursday, the Wall Street Journal reported that a bulletin for law enforcement claimed bullet casings found in a gun believed to belong to the shooter contained "transgender and anti-fascist ideology,” though later updated that story to note that “sources urge caution.” It’s unclear what “transgender ideology” might refer to when “trangender ideology” is not a thing, but we do now know what messages the casing contained. In a briefing today, Utah governor Spencer Cox read aloud:
Inscriptions on a fired casing read “notices bulges ‘O w O’ what’s this?” Inscriptions on the three unfired casings read “Hey fascist! Catch! Up arrow symbol, right arrow symbol, and three down arrow symbols.” A second unfired casing read “oh bella ciao, bella ciao, bella ciao ciao ciao.” And a third unfired casing read “if you read this you are gay lmao.”
The first message, as noted by The Verge, is a reference to a joke about furry roleplay; the last is a joke that pretty much speaks for itself; and the third is a well-known anti-fascist song that The New York Times claims was popularized by Netflix series “Money Heist” and Far Cry 6, while The Verge notes that it has appeared in Hearts of Iron IV and a Helldivers 2 mod. That Helldivers connection is salient because of the second casing, with the arrows: while three downward-slanting arrows is a long-standing anti-fascist symbol, the up, right, and three downs combination is the code to drop Helldivers 2’s Eagle 500kg bomb.
This would, of course, not be the first time video games have come up in connection with real-world violence. It wouldn’t even be the first time this week; on Wednesday, RFK said that “there could be connections with video games, with social media” and gun violence. Often in these situations, authorities and the public look to what video games a shooter played; it’s less common for a shooter to actively reference a specific video game, as the 2019 Christchurch shooter seemingly facetiously did with Fortnite and Spyro the Dragon in a manifesto. Helldivers 2 is a wildly popular game, though it’s more a deep cut for the mainstream than Fortnite is, and it’s made even less legible to those unfamiliar in light of its own complex politics.
We’ll surely learn more about Robinson in the coming days, but what we have so far is an incoherent jumble of online references that don’t tell us much beyond the fact that he is a young person who knows about at least one video game and the internet; the Wall Street Journal reports he spent a lot of time online, though Wired notes that “Beyond [a] Discord account identified by [Governor] Cox, Robinson appears to have had virtually no online footprint that could be immediately identified in public or private databases.” The messages on the casings, taken together, largely read as weird, gruesomely-placed shitposts. Without knowing more about his motives, it’s hard to tell how seriously to take the seeming anti-fascist slant, or to draw any conclusions about why furries and Helldivers 2 are part of it all. This obscuring of whatever sincerity might undergird Robinson’s actions is, too, a hallmark of online culture.
In the online circles I travel in, some journalists have pointed out how this moment highlights the need for reporters and desks dedicated to video games and online culture. It’s a call that hits particularly close to home for me, who, along with Nathan, staffed The Washington Post’s gaming desk until it was shut down in 2023. In the time before and since, we’ve seen multiple gaming outlets closed, sold, or gutted, with many that remain being forced to churn out high volume, SEO-friendly copy for numbers-focused owners instead of the journalism and cultural analysis that were once, at least for a brief moment, common. The remaining journalists best suited to meet this moment, to help readers flooded with divisive rhetoric and misinformation, are facing an uphill battle to do that work.
A healthy media ecosystem, one actually interested in helping readers, would see mainstream outlets staffed with writers knowledgeable in online culture. It would see plenty of specialized publications with the resources and owner willingness to do more than write to SEO. But that would also be an ecosystem that didn’t produce the Wall Street Journal’s absurd leap to “transgender ideology,” a phrase that is its own kind of right-wing meme, though one that’s spread far beyond the internet into the mouths of powerful people like the drafters of Project 2025 and President Trump. The Right is eager to blame trans people for the violence overwhelmingly performed by cis people of their own ranks. It’s hard to read the WSJ’s speed to parrot such talking points as anything other than helping spread that message, though one would hope unintentionally. But just as unfamiliar writers can leap to blame video games or Discord, they can leap to blame trans people too.
I can’t say if there are fewer trans reporters than games reporters out there (some, like me, are both), but there certainly aren’t a lot of either anymore, especially at the outlets with the most reach. Independent outlets and the remaining mainstream ones do great work, but they can only do so much, especially when facing off against powerful figures and their fanbases. And both of these lacks highlight the gap between so many of our news outlets and the real world that our readers live in and need to know about, especially in complex situations like today's.
