I’m not going to try to write this well. I won’t hold back. And I’m not bothering to link to anything. Just check out what I write for yourselves. And sorry not sorry for mistakes. I’m not editing.
After Charlie Kirk was killed, I was in shock. So soon after Iryna, right before 9/11. I put up a bunch of notes. On a college campus. We’ve had violence on college campuses but no political assassinations.
And I went back on X. That, plus dodgy sites like 4Chan and Kiwifarms are the only places you can get honest news sometimes. Other times they are sources of crap and sewage, but sadly, they are also the first draft and these weirdos manage to scoop mainstream media.
I also checked Candace Owens, Nick Fuentes, Megyn Kelly, and Tucker Carlson. In the process I came across a slew of other engagement farming bottom-feeders too numerous to name.
Candace Owens and Nick Fuentes need no description or qualification. They’re not scum; they’re the anaerobic sludge scum feeds from.
Candace Owens… I can’t even. She immediately switched into grieving member of the family mode. I learned that she started out at TPUSA as the “communications director” and left in 2018 or 2019. I know that Kirk never distanced himself from her formally. As I schooled myself about him, that kind of gave me pause. (Bear with me on this.) I won’t go into their differences; that would be tedious. Suffice it to say that by 2025, they had zero in common. The day before he was murdered, she was calling Israel “demonic.”
And now she’s attached herself to the spectacle as if she’s a grieving widow. It’s scandalous. Apart from the basic clicks-and-engagement grift, she’s whoring for his followers, trying to position herself as his righteous inheritor.
I cannot wait until she is flayed alive in court. Her formal answer is expected any day now. She filed for a motion to dismiss with a word extension on August 26th — she must respond within a few days. Her lawyer is bound by ethics rules not to submit anything to the court that is knowingly false. Which means that everything in her trash bin must be submitted as “opinion”—and that’s not what her shtick is. Not that I think she has a professional reputation to preserve, but she clearly said that she “stakes my professional reputation” on her videos as fact. How is she going to worm out of this? To be continued.
Fuentes. There’s a dilemma in even mentioning someone like him: by doing so you legitimate him. I have to. Kirk’s death has been a good career move for him, as for Owens. He despised Kirk. He called Kirk a “Jew lover” and an “Israel shill,” and claimed that groypers were infiltrating TPUSA and tried to do so himself. He apparently sent followers to disrupt TPUSA gatherings on campus — which is why I wondered whether the murderer was a groyper. Although he seems to be an Israel-hating leftist, I have questions: did he migrate to the left starting out from the Nick Fuentes right?
He’s outdoing Owens by slobbering over Kirk’s death. A total vampire. “Bear with me”… Kirk never mentioned Fuentes. His way of dealing with them was psychological extinguishment, which is how I think he dealt with Owens. So I’ll forgive him on that.
Megyn Kelly. I can’t bring myself to watch her, but according to good old Candace, she had on Tucker Carlson, and what happened? They talked about Netanyahu, about some letter Netanyahu claims he got from Kirk. Is that an appropriate thing to discuss at this moment?
I despise Megyn Kelly.
Perhaps I should have put this first, but I said I wasn’t going to edit.
The moment Charlie was killed, X exploded in anti-Israel conspiracy theories. I thought I was used to that. I thought it didn’t bother me.
It did.
And that people would celebrate his death. I knew that would happen - I told myself, “don’t let this bother you” - it did. It infuriated me.
The “Israel did it” shit was coming in all directions from the groyper sources to the groyper-adjacents. One guy tweeted this: “Someone” told him that Charlie had told him he couldn’t criticize Israel, or they would “kill” him. That doesn’t even rise to the level of hearsay.
It nearly drove me crazy—but I noticed something.
Interestingly, two people refrained from this: Candace Owens and Nick Fuentes.
They didn’t do that.
They immediately switched into “I love Charlie” mode. Their crocodile tears could have filled an ocean.
But they said nothing about Israel. Clever. Let the crazies do that—and scoop up what remains.
Candace re-tweeted a post implicating a Utah businessman (who was forced to issue a statement — I hope he sues her for defamation), and immediately inserted herself into the thick of things, soliciting “tips” and saying stupid shit about the FBI. But she didn’t implicate Israel.
Now she’s back on message, whining about Netanyahu and the Netanyahu letter, which Carlson supposedly read or referred to on Megyn Kelly.
There are some great people on X. One of them is Hans Mahncke. I said I wasn’t going to link but this is too long so here’s a link and some excerpts. Read the whole damn thing.
A lot of people are, predictably and reflexively, blaming social media for Charlie Kirk’s murder. The truth is more complicated. Social media is the best thing that has happened to free speech since the First Amendment. For the first time in human history, it gives everyone a true voice, allowing people to express themselves freely and directly, without gatekeepers.
But what isn’t often discussed is the giant new ecosystem in which what appears to be individual expression is actually paid and orchestrated speech. …
The key point, which is totally ignored online, is that individual speech and corporate or organized speech are treated very differently under the law. Individual speech is personal, spontaneous, and fully protected by the First Amendment. In contrast, corporate speech, carries the weight of resources, reach, and influence, and is subject to a wide range of legal restrictions. …
A few individuals saying horrible things about Charlie Kirk would never have moved the needle in any meaningful way. But organized campaigns, carefully concealed as grassroots activity, can amplify messages far beyond their natural reach, shaping opinions, spreading misinformation, and manipulating public perception on any topic. …”
That’s the real problem.
Bottom feeders like Candace Owens, Nick Fuentes, the tier above them comprising Megyn Kelly and Tucker Carlson would exist without this ecosystem, but the ecosystem Hans describes makes their echo chamber impossible to ignore. Take a dumb kid like Robin Westman and Tyler Robinson, and look what you get.
I am sick, sad, and sore.
It’s not just Charlie’s murder on a college campus, horrible as that was.
Watching this ecosystem of vultures descend—Owens, Fuentes, Kelly, Carlson—each making a grotesque performance of grief, feeding off the spectacle is gutting.
I can’t stand it.
It sickens me that a warm, sweet, light-giving presence like Iryna was removed from this earth by an act of brutality, while filthy, toxic Candace Owens profits from the very system she claims to loathe. Her success is the proof that something is wrong: Her.
What you wrote, Diana. I have nothing to add, and most definitely nothing to subtract. You nailed it down hard.
I understand not everyone is a fan of Megyn Kelly, and I myself was quite annoyed at her (despite being a daily listener of her show) when she briefly did the “Maybr Epstein WAS a Mossad agent” thing. She got back to normal stuff afterwards, though. I wouldn’t have known who Charlie was (other than from selectively edited clips from places like Media Matters when I was still a Democrat) if she hadn’t had him on so many times.
She’s nowhere near the bottom dwellers like Candace and Fuentes.
It’s your opinion and you are entitled to it, but I think it’s harsh. Her live show when Charlie got shot was very well done, given he was someone her own kids knew and admired.