The Kirk Transform
The Fourier analysis is a mathematical method to analyze functions in terms of frequencies. The idea is that a function can be seen as the sum of a collection of periodic functions (sinus and cosine). A famous tool is the Fourier transform: basically it allows you to move the perspective from a temporal point of view to from a frequency point of view and vice versa. For instance a visualization of a piano note in terms of frequencies gives something like that :
You can “see” the intensity of the different frequencies making the sound. It means that instead of looking at the sound from a temporal point of view (number and intensities of each waves), you can observe how the sound is build from different frequencies that interact together. This why a C on a piano doesn’t sound the same as a C on a guitar: the diagram of the frequencies is different while the note is the same.
The idea that I want to explore in this essay is loosely inspired by this mathematical analysis. It is about understanding the evolution of the conflicting narratives, on social media, that followed the assassination of Charlie Kirk and and how they evolved across time, meaning how the harmonics of the narratives worked.
Frequencies
The assassination of Charlie Kirk last 10th of September, had huge repercussions on social media (and much further but it is not the angle of this essay). It acted as note played on an instrument. Following the assassination we have witnessed several waves of reactions on social media that appear like different frequencies. I am focusing on the left point of view here. A similar analysis might be done from the right point of view but they were much more diverse and similar at the same time. It is paradoxical but there was a unanimity on the right about the fact C. Kirk was a good man, and people expressed their horror to the situation. The diversity came after on what the commentators choose to stress : the reaction of the left (as here), the overall media atmosphere, speculations on the motives of the killer, etc.
I don’t know whether it is linked to my profile on social media but I have observed a much greater synchronization process at work on posts coming from the left side of the aisle. From a temporal point of view, the left tried to shape the narrative at multiple points, and it unfolded more or less as follows:
Victory laps: stupid people did stupid things to gather attention on specialized social media like TikTok celebrating the death of Kirk via various egregious dances and what not. Indeed, the media atmosphere was that he was a Nazi etc. It was not really thought, rather like the revelation of the unconscious. It has to be noted that several instances of this happened in the legacy media.
Gun control: the first attempt to shape the narrative was the usual, ready to use, argument about second amendment. There were a lot of messages about “ban assault weapons” and so on. Until the weapon used for the assassination was found. As it turned out it was a bolt action hunting rifle…
Kirk deserved it: then the swarm used another angle. As Kirk literally made a living by debating, and since he was a master in rhetoric, it was very easy. Indeed, Kirk often used techniques like reductio at absurdum or made complex arguments in which several conflicting/contradicting point of views were examined. Therefore it is easy to cut citations to make him say almost anything you want. The most famous, and egregious, example is the “he advocated for homosexuals to be stoned to death” propagated by no less than S. King who apologized later and deleted his comment. Of course it was part of a larger discussion where Kirk wanted to demonstrate how the cherry picking of Bible citations could lead to stupidities. A remarkable aspect of this “frequency” was that a bullet point lists of egregious declarations by Kirk was used as a template by numerous commentators. I am sure that not all of them were robots.
The Killer is not from the left: as the debunking about citations started to grow and showed that many posts were at best mal-informed, the tentative of the control of the narrative took a new turn. This one, while the killer was still at large and during the first hours of his captivity was around the idea that it was not a left activists but a random Maga crazy adolescent : family, the fact that he is white and whatnot were used to sustain this tentative.
The Killer was a groyper: as it appeared that the killer was not your run of the mill Maga activist (there were allegations that he donated to D. Trump that was quickly debunked) a new narrative control unfolded. Based on ancient videos of Fuentes in which he was criticizing Kirk for being too moderate a new current formed with the idea that the killer was in fact from the far far right (I have to add an extra far because Kirk was already deemed as far right but visibly the killer was even much further).
Silence: the news that the killer was, amongst other things, in a romantic relationship with his transgender roommate made the last point difficult to be supported (but as we are going to see later it somehow continued). There was a brief period of silence. The swarm had been disoriented for few hours.
Free speech absolutists, again: then next (and last up to the time of writing) narrative turn was about the wave of people having been fired from their jobs following 1. Then suddenly the ones who de-platformed a sitting president from social media, used the state apparatus to impose social media censorship, and removed Parler from the app stores and from web hosting services (by Amazon), reminded themselves that the first amendment was there for something...
Harmonics
As in a complex sound those frequencies are actually melting together on social media. It is the background noise of your TL. The zeitgeist. A major factor of this superposition of frequencies is that the algo is mixing posts and, relatively to how the Algo has been tuned, older messages may appear after new messages. As each wave lasted a dozen of hours, maybe up to a day but not much more, it means that you have messages from different frequencies at the same time in your TL. This where the harmonics come from. How the frequencies interplay with one another ? Sometimes they add up, sometimes they cancel one another (e.g. 6). On social media you had those harmonics that developed:
Superposition of 2 and 3 : as Kirk was a second amendment supporter, then he got what he deserved by being shot in front of his wife and kids. How ironic etc.
Superposition of 3 and 5 : the extreme right activists are so crazy and dangerous that they kill one another. Not our problem.
Superposition of 1 and 3 and 7 : how come some people have been fired ? Wouldn’t you rejoice if Hitler was killed ? Can’t we simply express our opinion over the warm body of Kirk that he was a piece of shit ?
Superposition of 6 and other : On very active accounts you can observe how a period of silence breaks the flow of publication, usually following an important of piece of news. Time to readjust to the rhythm? It reminds this chart losses of German submarines during WWII. You can see months during which the losses were very small. By chance (?), those valleys happened just when Germans changed things in Enigma their coding system that was broken by the Allies who needed some time to adjust…
The Apocalypse
The assassination of Charlie Kirk acted as an apocalypse on social media. It revealed the unsaid part of the last 4 decades. Say since the era of global communication started. In the 80s everyone, more or less, got access to TV and you know the story from there to today where everyone is on the internet everywhere, all the time. The initial period was centralized: an elite was in charge of the content and of the narratives. It is clear in this particular event that the legacy media was running after internet and that it was the social media that was shaping the narratives. How the narratives are formed on social media is its own thing that we are barely discovering. There is this interplay of preconceptions (first frequencies before any hard fact is known) with the transformation of the narratives across time: new information comes in but the harmonics play a role and they all mix into the “vibe”. Unlike what happened in the editorial rooms, behind closed doors, is now happening in public. Surprisingly, or not, it doesn’t appear that it helps to cool things down. There were exceptions, but most of the reactions were just reinforcement of preconceptions on multiple level. I have the subjective impression that the left was lacking any consistency running from one narrative to another while the right was more focused on first mourning the loss, then going for it in the aftermaths of this horrific assassination. The end of times ? Maybe, but surely the end of an era.
