On Wednesday, September 10, conservative leader Charlie Kirk was assassinated on the campus of Utah Valley University. Here at Princeton, students took to the popular anonymous posting app Fizz to share their thoughts on the tragedy. Reactions were mixed: while some students offered prayers and condolences to Kirk and his family, others seemed to gloat over his death.
In the most upvoted post, a student said, “The best way to summarize this is that violence is never the answer but it’s extremely difficult to feel empathy for people who don’t feel empathy for others.” In another popular response, another poster quoted Charlie Kirk’s recent comments on the Second Amendment, saying, “I’ll never condone violence, but uh.” Another post seemed to mock conservative students’ concerns over Kirk’s murder, saying, “all the conservatives coming out of their shell today.”
Another posted a picture of a skeptical-looking Futurama character, writing, “Me watching all my friends who have never once posted about mass shootings, police brutality etc., suddenly caring and posting Charlie Kirk on their stories.” In response, another student wrote that “there are way more people here who agreed with Charlie’s sentiments than you realize.” In a third reply in the thread, a poster wrote that “Charlie Kirk’s supporters don’t care about gun violence or mass casualties in general, they only care when the victims are ideologues they support.”
In a post critiquing the country as a whole, one person expressed surprise at the support for Kirk, writing that “people saying that political violence is ‘never the answer’ or ‘has no place in america’ are funny because slavery is violence, jim crow is violence, america was founded on political violence.”
Yet other students used the tragedy to offer jokes at Kirk’s expense. In one post, a student wrote that “[c]ampus sickness got my throat feeling like Charlie Kirk,” and in an attempt at crude sexual humor, another wrote, “I’m in her throat like she’s Charlie Kirk.”
Some students, though, offered words of healing. “Even as a liberal,” one wrote, “the political violence is deplorable no matter who it comes from. This polarization and violence will be the downfall of our country if we don’t stop it.”
Other posts offered prayers. “Charlie Kirk is one of my least favorite people on this planet and he’s an ass,” one student wrote, “but even I feel like crying after watching the video,” and saying, “Violence is never justified, pray for him.” In a similar response, one student wrote, “God bless Charlie Kirk. May we all pray for him.”
Image Credit: “Charlie Kirk speaking with attendees at the 2025 Student Action Summit at the Tampa Convention Center in Tampa, Florida” — Wikimedia Commons
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