I had a falling out with a friend over my indifference towards Charlie Kirk’s death. Was she dramatic or AITA ?

[joseline]

As you may have heard, Charlie Kirk who is a political activist in the US got shot recently in public.

now I don’t wish death on people. I am not excited that he died like many unhinged people on the internet used to be but I am not sad at all. It’s not because of his inflammatory racist, cold hearted, bigoted rhetorics that I am not sad about his death but it’s simply because I could care less about celebrities. I never grieved about celebrities deaths and I will never.

but I had a falling out with a friend because she brought it up and I just shrugged. That made her angry and she called me cold blooded and brought up the fact that he was a father.

i responded ok and ? And she stormed out of my apartment.

The main reason why I don’t care is not because I hate Kirk. It’s because I generally don’t care about what goes on in the US. I do not care about that country and its people. I’ve never been there. I do not care to ever visit. Even less now since I’ve travelled to various other countries in Europe and south east Asia as well as the Caribbean.

Kirk is American who was living in America and I am British and I live in London UK. Nothing to do with us and our country.

Was I an asshole or is my friend dramatic ?

Not just any old London, but London, UK. Which is what I always refer to it as of course.

Why is there so much policing of reactions to this mans death.

It was shocking, of course it was, it was right in our faces, although thankfully I managed to avoid the video by turning off my computer.

I was shaken when it happened, incredibly sorry for the family that were there. I would have felt the same about it happening to anyone famous.

But now I have moved on, the over reaction in America is ridiculous. Why can't people move on these days, instead of using everything as a reason to hate on other people.

Performative indifference to what was blatantly a shocking act is just as bad and quite chilling.

It's crazy that if Tyler Robinson had killed students rather than Charlie Kirk I doubt anybody would be talking about it on here.

The whole thing has become a distraction. What else is happening that leadership does not want the public to focus on?

It should be perfectly possible to feel some sadness at a horrible violent murder, and to think Charlie Kirk was a pernicious, loathsome voice who like many wanted maximum political influence without standing for election. He was about as Christian as my hatband.

Having lost my husband in a shocking and violent way I am also really distressed to see his widow making equally horrible speeches at this stage. I know that bereaved women can be powerful - cf Emmett Till’s mother - but it shows I’m afraid that she is going to use that power and be used for it as negatively as possible.

61 and I'd heard of him and seen bits I admired his calm polite debating manner even if I didn't always agree with him. The world needed more Charlie Kirks.

Did she give a shit about Hind who was shot with 300 bullet?

It's too bad that stories about barely known in UK ppl happen.

I'm really intrigued about why an American (or an American-programmed bot) would come onto MN and lie about their nationality in a post with such inconsequential content. And then fail to engage.

If it is somehow politically motivated, who benefits and how?

The only 'benefit' I can see is that ramping up our engagement with trashy quasi-political content just helps to brew more and more polarised free-floating political anger and destabilises our ability to engage thoughtfully in fact-grounded discussion. In that sense it is a kind of disinformation, even though it doesn't actually propagate falsehoods.

I think people are fairly quickly to shout bot but most the time I doubt it. There are plenty of other explanations for these posts that are more likely including attention seeking or mental illness

Absolutely this. It's sad that a man was murdered but I have never heard of him and def don't know him so why should I be in tears? Children who suffers do get to me every time though even if I don't know them.

I knew nothing of Charlie Kirk until the other day and it's sad whenever someone is shot, of course. Here are some stats I just found.
'In 2022, up to 100 daily fatalities and hundreds of daily injuries were attributable to gun violence in the United States.[4] In 2018, the most recent year for which data are available, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's (CDC) National Center for Health Statistics reported 38,390 deaths by firearm, of which 24,432 were suicides.[5][6] '
I'm not sure I have enough tears to go round. 😞

My DP told me yesterday that Ricky Hatton had died.
I know who he is, had no real ‘interest’ as it were, as in didn’t follow him or anything.

I think I said something like Oh how sad. Do you know how? He said No, and that was it.

I think if I had just looked at him and shrugged he would have thought it a bit odd tbh.

If he said he had a wife and kids and I replied with And? he probably would say that was quite callous.

If I mentioned in passing to a friend that so and so died, and they replied And? I wouldn’t storm out or anything, but I would think it was a weird reaction tbh

Shutting the door after the horse has bolted in the UK

I couldn’t care less. I didn’t wish him dead, but he’s no loss to anyone but his own family. He was certainly not someone worthy of collective mourning but the fascistic bigoted nutters have their martyr…
he’s no MLK that’s for sure.

I couldn’t care less. I almost couldn’t click on this thread because I couldn’t care less. He was a monster. Anyone other than his family and friends grieving him needs their heads checked. It’s a distraction.

I’m busy grieving for thousands of Palestinian children.

When one of my american friends suddenly posted on our Discord "Oh my god they shot charlie kirk" my response was "Who?" He was an american - makes no odds to me

and while I dont agree with most of his opinions and this he was preaching alot of hateful rhetoric - very few people deserve to die like that.