Bill Maher explores connection between internet memes and recent political violence

“Real Time” host Bill Maher asked an internet culture researcher Friday about memes to understand how people get “inspired to kill.” 

Memes, or “historical documents” with various interpretations, were engraved on the shell casings of late Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk’s suspected assassin, “Real Time” guest Aidan Walker said.

Kirk’s accused killer etched gamer-inspired and antifascist messaging on his casings, including, “Hey, fascist! Catch!” and a reference to a World War II anthem.

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“But [memes] take on new meanings, I mean this is part of why people get inspired to kill,” Maher said. “Because they get insulted by them, right? They get hurt by them. They have a meaning that a lot of us older people are not getting, correct?” 

The discussion came in the wake of Wednesday’s deadly shooting at a Dallas I.C.E. facility, where one detainee was killed, and two others were wounded before the shooter took his own life. The gunman reportedly left behind a bullet casing inscribed with the phrase “anti-ICE.” 

He was almost “murdering ironically,” Maher considered. 

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“I mean, that’s a place society has never been,” Maher continued. “Yes, young men are bad and fumbling to get women to agree to what they want to do. But it was never like this. We never had the term incel [involuntarily celibate].” 

A lot of memes can also be ironic, Walker explained.

“In a way it’s a little bit like dog whistle…they’re so layered in, you know, I don’t really mean this, but you can put this sort of anti-social or hateful idea behind that,” he described.

The 26-year-old researcher attributed problematic anti-social behavior to not just an affordability crisis but a “crisis of meaning.” 

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“You have a lot of especially young people who don’t see a future for themselves, who feel lonely, who feel alienated,” he discussed. “And they congregate in these online spaces sort of outside of the mainstream where they feel like that online world is more important than their real world.”

Walker went on to share “the way out” that he says gives him hope.

“It’s giving people those social bonds… giving everybody the shot at dignity and the shot at being seen in our culture,” he said. 

While Republicans like Vice President JD Vance blame “left-wing political radicalization” for recent violence, Maher didn’t mince words in his closing monologue for those arguing the Left is “more approving” of it:

“You keep saying the Left is more approving of political violence – well who do you think that’s going to be aimed at?” Maher asked. “I know it feels exhilarating to make the liberals cry their liberal tears after they made you feel disrespected and looked down on flown over and called the nutty ones. But come on, I thought you were the tough guys. Get over it.”