Lost and All Alone

Behind the memes and the politics lies something heartbreakingly simple: a generation of young men who feel like they’ll never have a future.

I recently came across a TikTok (I don’t know the creator’s name, but the insight deserves credit) that unpacked the surreal details of Charlie Kirk’s assassination. The shell casings weren’t random — they were engraved with memes: a 2013 furry joke, a Helldivers 2 command line, the anti-fascist anthem Bella Ciao, and a crude “you’re gay” punchline.

For those who don’t follow U.S. conservative politics, Kirk founded Turning Point USA, a youth-oriented right-wing organization that has long tried to mainstream ultra-conservative values on college campuses.

Meme Culture, Loneliness, and the Result of Weaponized Despair

At first glance, it’s incomprehensible. But the TikTok creator pointed out: this was a shitpost. A killing turned into an inside joke, cloaked in layers of irony, signalling allegiance to the online culture this young man grew up in. For him, and for countless others, shitposting wasn’t just humour, it became a worldview. A way to say: “Nothing matters. I’ll turn my loneliness into a weapon.”

That stuck with me. Because it shines a light on how Kirk, Fuentes, and the current GOP have learned to play to this audience: immature, sexually frustrated, and lonely young men. Instead of offering them ways to grow into loving, connected adults, they tell them that patriarchy, misogyny, and ultra-conservatism are the only things that can guarantee a future in a world that’s leaving them behind.

And Reddit is part of this story. As the TikTok creator said, “These are all Reddit kids.” They might have first seen these memes on 4chan or Discord, but Reddit carried them into the mainstream, normalizing irony-soaked nihilism as just another way of joking online. What started in obscure corners of the internet bled into the everyday spaces where millions scroll, laugh, and shape their worldview.

But there’s another layer here: the rivalry between Groypers and Turning Point USA followers. The Groypers, Nick Fuentes’ faction, are not just a fringe; they’ve made it their mission to radicalize mainstream conservative spaces. Back in 2019, the so-called Groyper War saw Fuentes’ followers troll Kirk at his own TPUSA events, pushing him to make explicit what he only implied. Kirk represented the polished, campus-friendly version of far-right politics; the Groypers wanted to rip the mask off and embrace white nationalism and Christian nationalism openly.

Seen through this lens, Kirk’s assassination smells like the unintended consequence of that turf war. A decade of online nihilism, reinforced by shitposting, overlapped with the Groypers’ demands that the subtext become text. Where Kirk once played gatekeeper to the conservative youth vote, Groypers saw him as an obstacle to their purer, harsher vision. This tension incubated in the same spaces, 4chan threads, Reddit subs, Discord servers, where irony was both a shield and a weapon.

And here’s the thing: once you’ve convinced someone that their loneliness and frustration can only be redeemed through control, suddenly a whole slate of policies starts to “make sense.”

• Anti-trans rhetoric? It reassures them that masculinity still rules.

• Anti-abortion and “pro-life” laws? It promises them control over women’s bodies.

• Deportation and criminalization? It tells them they won’t be the ones replaced.

• Even attacks on abortion providers or LGBTQ+ people can be spun as “defending tradition” — a way to feel powerful in a world where they otherwise feel powerless.

It’s not really a solution; it’s a bait-and-switch. Their despair is weaponized into resentment, their resentment into votes, and their votes into policies that keep them angry and dependent on the very people exploiting them.

The tragedy is that beneath all this is something painfully ordinary: young people who feel like they will never have a voice, a future, or a place to belong. Until we can offer a healthier vision of community, purpose, and connection, young men will keep growing up lost and all alone, and factions like TPUSA and the Groypers will keep feeding on that despair.