The high-powered rifle round that killed Charlie Kirk featured a meme that is widely used in both pro-transgender sex and furry subcultures of the internet — the latest clue about the motives of alleged assassin Tyler Robinson.
“Notices bulge OwO what’s this?” was engraved on the side of the spent casing from Wednesday’s fatal shot, recovered from a wooded area near the Utah Valley University campus where the conservative influencer was speaking at the time.
The phrase comes from an old “copypasta” meme which — for those not chronically online — is a block of text meant to be copied and spread.
It first appeared on Jan. 6, 2013, on DeviantArt according to KnowYourMeme.com.
In June 2015, an image of two men roleplaying a sex scene online using the phrase was uploaded to sites Imgur and Tumblr.
The men appear to be part of the “furry” subculture — which centers on an sexual interest in anthropomorphic animal characters.
The percentage of self-described furries who identify as trans is 25 times higher than in the general US adult population, according to a recent survey by Furscience.
A further 22% of furries identify as either non-binary, genderqueer or genderfluid, the same survey found.
“OwO” is an emoticon of a cute face with the Os as the eyes and the w as a mouth or nose.
It can be used as a way of flirting, or in a sardonic way to troll others.
The spent cartridge was found in a .30-06-caliber bolt-action hunting rifle recovered near the scene at Utah Valley University following Kirk’s murder on Wednesday night.
The rifle, which features a telescopic sight and a German Mauser action that must be manually cycled in between each shot, is similar to those that have been used to hunt deer and other big game in Utah and all over the US for generations.
The rifle had three other rounds in the magazine — each also engraved with extremely niche references to internet memes.
The other messages were: “Oh bella ciao, bella ciao, bella ciao ciao ciao,” referencing a popular Italian anti-fascist song; “Hey fascist! Catch!” along with a reference to the game Helldivers 2; and “If you read this, you are gay LMAO.”
Kirk was kicked by a single shot from the high-powerful round, which was fired from an elevated sniper position about 200 yards away.
Authorities haven’t said whether transgender rights motivated Robinson’s alleged decision to kill Kirk.
However, Robinson’s live-in boyfriend Lance Twiggs is transgender — transitioning from male to female — and has been seen in social media pics wearing fur ears and other furry-adjacent garb.
Additionally, Kirk was answering a question about transgender mass shooters — an issue Kirk had become very vocal about — at the moment he was shot through the neck.
“Notices bulge” is a reference to male sex organs — and it is widely used in both furry and trans circles, according to a scan of recent usage.
In the wake of Wednesday’s tragedy, Utah Gov. Spencer Cox has said Kirk’s alleged killer could face the death penalty and also decried social media as “worse than cancer” in its effect on poisoning the national discourse.
“I can’t emphasize enough the damage that social media and the internet is doing to all of us,” he told NBC News’ “Meet The Press” on Sunday.
“Those dopamine hits. These companies, trillion-dollar market caps, the most powerful companies in the history of the world, have figured out how to hack our brains, get us addicted to outrage, which is the same type of dopamine, the same type of chemical you get from taking fentanyl, get us addicted to outrage and get us to hate each other.”
He went on,” I believe that social media has played a direct role in every single assassination and assassination attempt that we have seen over the last 5-6 years.
“There is no question in my mind that cancer probably isn’t a strong enough word. What we have done, especially to our kids, it took us a decade to realize how evil these algorithms are,” he said.
It comes as Utah’s Gov. revealed that Robinson, who was reportedly living with his trans partner at the time of the shooting, is refusing to cooperate with authorities.
“He [Robinson] has not confessed to authorities. He is not cooperating, but all the people around him are cooperating. And I think that’s very important,” Cox told ABC News’ “This Week” on Sunday.
Gov. Cox also claimed that Robinson was “deeply indoctrinated in leftist ideology.”
“That information comes from the people around him — his family members and friends,” Cox told CNN’s “State of the Union.”
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