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USA TODAY: Gen Z Leaving ‘Odd’ Posts About Charlie Kirk Using 'Humor' to Cope With Harsh Reality

Brett T.
Brett T.  |  5:00 PM on September 12, 2026

Thursday was the first anniversary of the assassination of Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk. As we reported, Libs of TikTok posted signs and message boards from universities across the country showing college students asking each other how they were going to celebrate the "Kirkaversary," "Kirkmas," "Eid Al-Kirk," "Kirkentines Day," etc. Who was going to be throwing the biggest bender? Kids went to class in TPUSA "Freedom" T-shirts with fake blood on them.

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This editor could publish posts on disgusting memes all day long. Young white liberal women seemed to be the most vicious. He's a group of high school girls who shot a TikTok video at their school.

Again, we could go on forever. As we mentioned earlier, we weren't expecting much on Friday from people who weren't even born on 9/11, but they've certainly latched onto Kirk's assassination. But why? Rachel Hale of USA TODAY explained that Gen Zers were posting "odd" videos to use "humor" to "distance themselves from the emotional weight of reality."

"… no shame."

Hale wrote:

On its face, these posts may appear bizarre, tasteless and tone-deaf. But experts who study media and digital culture explain that as Gen Zers make sense of political violence, polarization and constant exposure to bad news, these posts are actually a good example of how many young people today use humor to distance themselves from the emotional weight of reality. 

The Kirk content is a striking example of that, as his image and death have been absorbed into the same internet culture that turns celebrities, songs and TV shows into memes.

“Coping mechanism would be the most straightforward way of putting it,” says Joel Penney, an associate professor at Montclair State University who studies media and political communication. “There's all this anxiety around horrible things happening in our world… memes seem to be a way of making it easier to handle those kinds of issues by turning them into a joke.

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Brett T.
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Is this guy serious? A "coping mechanism"? They're openly celebrating. Hale continues, talking to another "expert" in academia:

Gen Z, the cohort born between 1997 and 2012, is struggling with decreasing social infrastructures and disillusioned with the state of their finances, a growing political divide and a job market overshadowed by AI. They’ve grown up watching wars, natural disasters and a pandemic unfold from their screens. 

For some, absurdist humor has become a way to cope with that uncertainty, and to turn their anxiety into a shared experience. 

Audrey Halversen, a political communication researcher and Ph.D. candidate at the University of Michigan, says that unlike other forms of political expression, like protesting or getting involved in local politics, memes can serve as a low-barrier gateway, even for people who are otherwise politically disengaged.

“These memes can give young people a small sense of agency in a political system they otherwise see as being largely out of their control,” Halversen says, adding that they allow young people to channel “their feelings of anxiety, anger and disillusionment.”

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The post continues:

… Sinister does not even begin to describe the vile, growing and dangerous malignancy that we are witnessing.

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These are not "odd" posts, and they're not posting them "to cope with uncertainty." Someone they disagreed with politically got shot in the throat, and even a year later they're still thrilled.

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