LEILA FADEL, HOST:
Tyler Robinson, the man accused of murdering conservative activist and President Trump supporter Charlie Kirk, etched phrases on shell casings found at the scene, according to authorities. The engravings referenced online memes and video games. One unfired bullet had the chorus of an Italian anti-fascist resistance song on it, a song used in a 2021 video game. The suspect's online life has renewed questions about whether being chronically online in these gaming communities can foster antisocial and even violent behavior in the real world. This is a space that Cynthia Miller-Idriss studies closely. She directs the Polarization & Extremism Research & Innovation Lab at American University. And she says the online worlds where gamers meet to play together and chat can be breeding grounds for extremism.
CYNTHIA MILLER-IDRISS: One, I think, there's the in-game chat feature, which part of the problem there is that they're total incubators of misogyny, of racism, of homophobia. It becomes what are just places to congregate and to plan, but also to get kind of detached, in some cases, from reality, I think, when you are so immersed in a world sometimes that is, like, irony-laden, meme-driven, conversations that are so insider-infused. And so we saw that with Charlie Kirk's assassination with the engravings on the bullets and also in the Minnesota school shooting, Annunciation.
FADEL: Yeah.
MILLER-IDRISS: Where you start to see these references that are primarily intended, I would argue, for an online community, not for the general public.
FADEL: You know, Cynthia, I was thinking about this when I was reading what was on the bullets. I thought, I don't speak this language.
MILLER-IDRISS: Exactly.
FADEL: I don't know what any of this means.
MILLER-IDRISS: Yes, exactly. Well, not only do most of the public not know what it means, but in the case of Charlie Kirk's assassination, that shooter said to his roommate in a text afterward, if I got Fox News to basically say this meme out loud, like, I'm going to die laughing, right? The whole idea that, like, mainstream normie adults are repeating these words out loud as if they mean something is part of the fun for them.
FADEL: So you describe spaces that are rife with misogyny and homophobia. But we've seen shooters that kind of run the gamut. I mean, is there a particular ideology that is behind any of this radicalization online? Is it right-wing? Is it left-wing?
MILLER-IDRISS: Yeah.
FADEL: And obviously, the politicians are all fighting about who's at fault here.
MILLER-IDRISS: Yeah, right.
FADEL: But I'm trying to understand. Is this driven at all by an ideology, or is this just violence for violence sake?
MILLER-IDRISS: It's all of the above, and that's part of...
FADEL: OK.
MILLER-IDRISS: ...What I think is so hard for people to understand is that we have seen instances, rising instances, of left-wing violence. I think there are five incidents this year of left-wing extremist violence or terrorism. We've had still, over the last 10 years, the vast majority of ideologically based violence - this is what we would call far-right white supremacist or anti-government, unlawful militias. And that's where the vast majority of the lethality has been as well.
But we're having this real surge in a combination of what's called nihilistic violent extremism, which is just violence driven by kind of crime gore fans, mass shooter fandom websites. And so you'll see, kind of like the Highland Park shooting, which was a parade in 2022 - and the Annunciation shooter had 11 years of obsession with mass shootings and gore and then a period of time where they were documenting their plans online. So there was, like, a window of time where we could have potentially recognized an off-ramp where somebody should've known and been able to intervene in this kid who was obsessed with gore.
FADEL: So how does a society, law enforcement deal...
MILLER-IDRISS: Yeah.
FADEL: ...With what's happening?
MILLER-IDRISS: Yeah, that's the million-dollar question, right?
FADEL: Yeah.
MILLER-IDRISS: I mean, I think there's sort of two answers to that. One is, I think what we're seeing in part is the consequences of treating the prevention of violence as if it is a security problem rather than, or in addition to, an educational one. We as a country, unlike many of our allies, have always treated terrorism and mass violence as a security problem with the hopes that we can just build better fences. You know, all of those - if you see something, say something being our primary kind of campaign around that. We've been talking in my research lab about a campaign called, you know, hear someone, help someone. Like, what if you had a different way of thinking about it - right? - which is, listen to what you're hearing.
I mean, the vast majority of mass shooters leak their intentions at some point to someone close to them, including school shooters. And so if we were better equipped to recognize some of those warning signs, and if we had better systems for where to report - like school counselors who knew what they were doing and had the capacity, or mental health counselors who were trained - you know, what happens now is you end up having a parent or a grandparent often call the FBI and report this. And there's nothing illegal happening so they can't do anything.
FADEL: So there are not services where you're calling someone and saying, my son is saying things that scare me. I'm worried he's going to do something.
MILLER-IDRISS: Exactly. There are two NGOs in the whole country that do this. One is called Parents for Peace, and the other is called Life After Hate. And they are set up by the parents of kids who committed horrific crimes and/or former extremists themselves - right? - who basically have taken it upon themselves to create these resources. And they are overwhelmed.
FADEL: So if you're a parent or you're with a partner or anybody in your life...
MILLER-IDRISS: Yeah.
FADEL: ...That is in these spaces, that you're worried about these risks, what would you say to them...
MILLER-IDRISS: Yeah.
FADEL: ...When it comes to talking...
MILLER-IDRISS: Yeah.
FADEL: ...To your kids, to your partners, to anybody about what's happening? What do they need to be aware of? What should they be watching for?
MILLER-IDRISS: There's a lot of good guidance out there that basically says the most important thing you can do is try to engage in your kids' lives in conversations around these things with curiosity and not with judgment. So if you hear your kids saying things that seem unexpected or unusual, or you're not recognizing something they say as a meme or a joke or a phrase, we really encourage parents to try to have these conversations, like, with curiosity. Ask them to explain how memes work, for example - grandparents can do this really well - to engage or talk to them about something they've heard online.
So if you ask questions, then that can open up conversations. And the one thing we do know is if you engage with any kind of shame or judgment, what that does is shuts them down right away. And they often go back online and find very willing open arms who tell them, oh, your parents are just kind of triggered snowflakes. They can't take a joke. This is where you belong, like, you know? And so it can foster even more deeper engagement because they find they feel more shamed and isolated in real life than they do online.
(SOUNDBITE OF VEGYN AND MK.GEE SONG, "DEBOLD MK.GEE REMIX V7")
FADEL: Cynthia Miller-Idriss directs the Polarization & Extremism Research & Innovation Lab at American University. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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