Independent journalist Ken Klippenstein challenged conflicting narratives circulating about Tyler Robinson by obtaining online chats and speaking with a childhood friend of the 22-year-old man accused of assassinating far-right activist Charlie Kirk.
as someone what has been online since '96…don’t these kids realize we were all joking? evidently not. They take it seriously when “back in my day” we would have ridiculed them for it. I mean I’m old enough to see the rise and fall of 4chan, it’s dead now but at it’s peak it was dumb troll comics and edgelord antics. Then all of sudden zoomers decided that our shitposts were things to model their lives around.
It’s like when I was a kid and we had convinced my friends little brother that if he held a battery on his tongue for long enough he could get mutant powers. like no dude, you’re not getting power and confidence, you just look like an idiot with a battery on his tongue.
i want to push back a little bit on this because while i believe some of us were joking there were tons who weren’t and are ultimately responsible for the chronically online zoomers we see today. young gen xers and older millennials built the culture of the late 90s and early 00s internet that became the blueprint for the mid 10s to now. we had some of the worst racism and bullying imaginable on 4chan and it spread to the real world on occasion in horrifyingly cruel ways, like taunting parents of recently deceased kids and shit. we weren’t all joksters, the cruelty started early and spread rapidly. we allowed the internet to be eroded by the destruction of anonymity and infiltration of corporate and political interests.
as someone what has been online since '96…don’t these kids realize we were all joking? evidently not. They take it seriously when “back in my day” we would have ridiculed them for it. I mean I’m old enough to see the rise and fall of 4chan, it’s dead now but at it’s peak it was dumb troll comics and edgelord antics. Then all of sudden zoomers decided that our shitposts were things to model their lives around.
It’s like when I was a kid and we had convinced my friends little brother that if he held a battery on his tongue for long enough he could get mutant powers. like no dude, you’re not getting power and confidence, you just look like an idiot with a battery on his tongue.
i want to push back a little bit on this because while i believe some of us were joking there were tons who weren’t and are ultimately responsible for the chronically online zoomers we see today. young gen xers and older millennials built the culture of the late 90s and early 00s internet that became the blueprint for the mid 10s to now. we had some of the worst racism and bullying imaginable on 4chan and it spread to the real world on occasion in horrifyingly cruel ways, like taunting parents of recently deceased kids and shit. we weren’t all joksters, the cruelty started early and spread rapidly. we allowed the internet to be eroded by the destruction of anonymity and infiltration of corporate and political interests.