We've Already Memory-holed Charlie Kirk - Sick Burns 10/3/2025
The Conservative personality and activist was killed about three weeks ago and everyone has already moved on from caring about his death.
What I've Been Watching: Last night I made the mistake of watching the new AppleTV movie The Lost Bus, starring Matthew McConaughey. The film is based on a true story about a bus driver trying to get a busload of kids to safety during the 2018 Camp Fire that was the deadliest fire in California history.
It's a good movie, the fire is scarily realistic and terrifying, but if you, like I do, have school-aged kids who take the bus every day, I do NOT recommend watching this one, especially just before you're supposed to fall asleep. It was so realistic that every terrified kid on the screen was immediately substituted in with my own primary school daughter.
I spent the last half hour of the film openly sobbing. Take this as a warning.
Shower Thoughts: Is it just me or has everyone already moved on from Charlie Kirk? It's been about three weeks since he was killed and it feels like no one is thinking about him anymore. For a guy who conservatives were pitching as being on par with Martin Luther King Jr, this guy's death had a remarkably short tail.
We no longer hear anything about any new revelations from the investigation into the shooter who killed him or his association with a trans roommate/lover. If the feds had truly found a, forgive the pun, smoking gun, connecting the shooter with anybody in the far left, we would have heard about it already.
Trump himself barely registered Kirk's death, despite the two of them being reportedly close. Responding to a reporter's question just days after Kirk's death, Trump said he was doing "very well," before immediately bragging about construction of the White House ballroom.
Even Kirk's funeral in New Orleans wasn't really about Kirk. His family, with the exception of his wife, didn't attend and it turned into a pseudo Trump rally.
Before his body was even cold, the right wing influencer-sphere immediately launched into a phony campaign to capture his audience of millions, each doing a performance of grief and anger designed to connect with his upset fans. But now that the news of the day has moved on, no one outside of Ezra Klein is still talking about this guy.
A graph of Google searches for Kirk's name shows that most people were not familiar with the guy before his death, and have quickly moved on.
All that pomp and circumstance, and for what?
His death was used to chide the left, curtail lefty speech, and give the government a reason to target their list of left-leaning enemies, but literally no one cares about the guy anymore. And that, to me, is actually quite sad. Don't take me wrong, I am opposed to everything Kirk stood for, but I would also be horrified to live a life of such influence as Kirk lived and then get dropped like a sack of potatoes by almost everyone who claimed to love me as soon as my memory stopped being useful.
Everything these days is spectacle. There is nothing the right and center won't tokenize in order to punch the left, including a man's brutal public death.
If you want further analysis of the fall out from Kirk's death, we've had fantastic feedback on this episode of Cancel Me, Daddy with our guest, former NBC News Culture Reporter Kat Tenbarge. Michael Hobbes called it "a banger", while others have said it was the best analysis out of the half dozen podcast episodes they had listened to about this topic.
What Fascinated Me This Week: This week was an odd one for me. Do you ever have so much of one type of food that food in general starts to lose its taste? That's what this week has felt like for me culturally. My YouTube algorithm feels stale and frustrating. My favorite games feel repetitive and boring. It feels like there's nothing new on my streaming platforms.
I'm starving for cultural connection right now. I'd love to see your recommendations for historical political intrigue-style period shows or movies. That's been a comfy category for me recently and I'd love to get some fresh recs in the comments if you will.
What I worked On This Week:
-Earlier this week, I wrote a piece about how conservatives have already rejected all of the reasonable compromises on trans issues and have no desire to find a way to live peacefully with trans people.
Katelyn Burns
-On Wednesday I wrote about the Riyadh Comedy Festival and how Saudi Arabia is trying to sportswash away its atrocities.
Katelyn Burns
Next week I have some exciting plans that I cannot yet reveal, but I have already booked a cool interview with an interesting person and am working on setting up an AMA about the shutdown with another trans journalist that we'll host on here.
Stay tuned!
Final Words: Once again I say "Hang tough!" - common phrase of former US Army Major Dick Winters, former leader of Easy Company, portrayed in the mini series "Band of Brothers"
I'm one of the few trans reporters able to report and commentate full time on trans issues and I can only do this work because of the generosity and support of my readers. This newsletter and my Patreon are my primary source of income so if you appreciate my work, consider becoming a paid subscriber.
