It’s been almost three months since right-wing commentator Charlie Kirk was assassinated in September. When it happened, the right was quick to tear down anyone who didn’t suddenly forget his prejudiced rhetoric when he was killed, but in the months since, a lot of the fallout of Kirk’s death has been in memes, whether that be in “Kirkifying” images by photoshopping his face on anything you can find, AI mock-ups of gunpla sets of his death, or creating characters that look like him in video games. In the past few weeks, an AI-generated song about Kirk has begun spreading throughout the internet, and you’ve probably heard it in fandom spaces online. 

“We Are Charlie Kirk” is a three-and-a-half-minute, AI-generated slop song by AI “artist” Spalexma. As the name implies, the song is meant to be a tribute to Kirk, and a declaration that his supporters will “carry the flame” of his right-wing views. It is absolutely one of the most ostentatious, dramatic pieces of “music” I’ve ever heard. The song was originally posted just a week after Kirk’s death, but it has gained significant traction on various platforms in the weeks since.

The AI singer is belting with the passion you’d typically hear in an ‘80s power ballad, all about how those still on Earth will pick up the torch now that Kirk is gone. Whether the AI slop was meant as a genuine tribute to Kirk or a musical encapsulation of the right’s self-important made-up war on behalf of Christianity, the song has, like much of the reaction to Kirk’s death, been swept up in the shitpost factory, and the internet has been littered with videos set to the song with more views than the original. Some videos play it straight, simply using its hokey, anthemic instrumentation as a backdrop for dramatic imagery. Others have basically made it a modern-day Rick Roll, a musical rugpull meant to troll anyone who passes by it online.

 

While a lot of “We Are Charlie Kirk’s” appearances are rooted in internet-poisoned irony, a lot of people are using the song to make fun of the right’s cult-like admiration for its political figures, like this video in which someone saw a truck covered in images of Kirk and the American Flag. There’s a comment under this one that says, “They don’t even treat Jesus like this.” 

“We Are Charlie Kirk” is currently Spalexma’s most-popular song on streaming services like Spotify, but even there, its streams are dwarfed by the views videos using it have gotten over the past three months. So it seems like most people aren’t listening to it unironically. The AI “artist” has several other songs that seem to be Christian in nature, so I assume this song was meant to be an earnest tribute to Kirk, but the internet has definitely not taken it that way, and continues to run it into the ground.

 





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