I think there is valid reason to critique the communication. The killer was invested in a subculture that was both angry and relatively shallow, devoid of the deep complexity and meaning that anchors people in a community.
The memes support the idea that this kid comes out of the same culture that invented swatting (using the police) to not just harass but murder their enemies. It’s not a great leap that one of that crowd would just skip the middleman and do the job himself.
It’s like people quoting Shakespeare lines to each other. Actually, it’s not “like” that; those are memes. The word “meme” is just a relatively recent term (coined in 1976) for a phenomenon that has existed for as long as language has. If someone quoted Shakespeare while murdering people, you don’t blame the Bard.
The internet is responsible for memes being spread faster and wider than they could have before, but memes themselves are ancient.
This is valid. The usage of memes itself isn’t important, but knowing where the memes come from and acknowledging the culture that embraces these particular memes might give a hint as to where some of the dangerous ideas may have originated.
We already knew he was a white male from the surveillance footage (and really, did anyone assume anything else?) We now know he was raised Mormon in a conservative family, but young people do not necessarily retain their family’s religion or political views.
And one of the crazy theories I dismissed yesterday is being reported in the media today. I spoke too soon…
Oh hell yes, they did. We are still getting gossip about how it’s somehow related to the trans community. I’m sure there are lots of people in immigrant communities who are relieved it’s not one of “them”. I’m certainly relieved that he doesn’t seem to have any ties to American Judaism.
This is not my experience with shit posters at all. Memes are a language, and shit posting is word play. The shitposters i know are very thoughtful and intelligent. That’s a biased sample, i like to hang out with people who are thoughtful and intelligent. But these same people, if they were my age and didn’t speak “meme” and if they hung out here would be making dumb puns in threads. It’s the same kind of thing.
I didn’t think we know that. I think it’s safe to assume the killer was angry (something led him to kill, after all) but i don’t think we can infer much from the language he speaks.
I’m sure this is the case sometimes, but I wonder how often it really happens? I’ve probably gotten more liberal as I’ve gotten older, and definitely haven’t gotten more conservative. My parents definitely got more liberal as they got older. I’m sure there are cases where the opposite has happened. I’m not trying to be argumentative, just wondering.
Below is a NYT gift link that shows what the suspect did after the killing. Basically, chatting with his online friends on who the killer might be. Pretty chill and joking around comments.
The link claims that his username on several sites is known? Where are all the chat logs? We should know everything about this guy by now…
Without naming the other sites, I’d guess, like Discord, there is a public or private part to them. I assume these were private chats. Someone in the chat released the chat logs to the NYT. The article mention Discord is not releasing anything. So the NYT will do its thing but I imagine it takes time to verify it to a high enough standard assuming anyone wants to get involved. Like, I imagine a lot of the time was used convincing the person to trust the NYT to protect their identity.
If you mean police getting it, they could and would, but not sure how much they’d share since they are building a criminal case.
Late: I imagine there is a lot floating around the internet claiming this is the suspect’s account and what he said. Could be right, but I’m not interested in that.
It really does provide a fascinating insight into this apparent meme culture. To some extent, it almost seems like he committed an assassination for the shock value and infamy.
On FB I said that flying Charlie Kirk’s corpse to Arizona on Air Force Two was a waste of taxpayers’ money. My Trump cultist frienemy countered with, ‘The tax payer’s actually paid for Michelle Obama’s transitioning surgery (it’s true but Michael kept his 
so it may have been slightly cheaper, who knows).’
[Wrong thread.]
My only public chats are on this site. Discord may be giving private chat logs to the police, but why would they be generally available?
My hope would have been that some internet sleuths might have figured out his Discord name and searched larger groups which sometimes have thousands of members to see if he was a part of them.
Well, I’m a member of a few large discords, but my posts there would be extremely boring. Certainly nothing political. I suppose you’d learn that I’m an actuary, collect puzzles, and play Minecraft. I suppose we’ll learn similar info about this guy. (We already know that he was enrolled in a trade school as an electrical apprentice.)
But he’s too young for it to be likely he talked politics on Facebook, or Xitter, or other big public forums.
But he’s not too young to be posting on a Discord for a political streamer or YouTuber, or on a non political server with a #Politics channel.
Of course, if Discord deleted his account, all that will be gone now.
Not very often; it’s a myth. According to studies done on the subject people seldom get more conservative or liberal as they age; society just moves past them. The liberal youth of fifty years ago is the conservative old man of today, without changing their own positions much if at all.
I didn’t see any speculation that the shooter was an immigrant or Jewish, only that they were trans. But sure, no one wants to be blamed by millions of MAGA supporters for murdering their guy.
I suppose I ought to be hoping the killer is a Groyper and not a leftist, for the sake of the reaction on the right. But I think the damage has already been done. There’s a whole lot of right-wingers on social media wailing that liberals want them all dead. How can a country survive its people hating and fearing each other to this degree?
Also, the Governor of Utah has confirmed that gossip.
I saw a long Tweet yesterday speculating that spree and school shootings are now so common that disturbed weirdos seeking notoriety might switch to assassinating high profile targets instead, in order to get more publicity.
Reporting today indicates the suspected shooter was not conservative. According to Utah Governor he had been “radicalized’ online and was now holding leftist ideology. And it appears his roommate was his romantic partner and is transitioning from male to female. Here is the story in the NYT. (gift link)