A kirkification of the Mona Lisa made using a face swap tool[1]

Kirkification /kɜːrkɪfɪˈkeɪʃən/ ⓘ, also known as kirkslop, is an internet meme involving the American political activist Charlie Kirk which circulated after his assassination. "Kirkified" memes typically involve Kirk's face deepfaked onto images or videos, often of celebrities, fictional characters, or memes.

Background

Main article: Assassination of Charlie Kirk

Charlie Kirk was an American right-wing political activist and founder of the conservative youth organization Turning Point USA.[2] Throughout his career, he was generally popular among the American right-wing, though his more controversial positions were criticized by many scholars, commentators, and detractors on both the left and the far-right. On September 10, 2025, during a TPUSA event at Utah Valley University in Orem, Utah, Kirk was assassinated.[3]

Origin and spread

Following Kirk's death, many faced professional or private consequences for insensitive comments about Kirk or his death. The New Yorker characterized these reprisals as a "puritanical crackdown on free speech", and noted that online derision of Kirk "morphed into one of the most widespread memes in recent memory" as a form of opposition to such reprisals.[4] The New Yorker further connected the meme to Kirk's desire for online attention during his life, saying, "He was a master of saturating the internet with himself".[4]

Kirkified memes appeared as early as September 23, 2025, and continued into October 2025.[5] The meme originated on platforms such as TikTok, X, Instagram, and Reddit, where users "kirkified" images and videos by deepfaking Kirk's face onto celebrities, fictional characters, memes, and reaction images.[6][7] The term itself combines Kirk's surname with the suffix ‑ification.[8] The phrase gained popularity through TikTok comment sections and meme communities before spreading more broadly across social media.[5]

Some months into the trend, Kirk's name was added to fragments of other words to create nonsense words such as lowkirkenuinely and lowkirkentologicalowstate (combinations of low-key, genuinely, ontological, and flow state).[4][7] Such words are used as inside jokes with no specific meaning.[4][9]

Reception and legacy

Journalist Kieran Press-Reynolds, writing for GQ, said "These largely anonymous people have flayed the late influencer into an entire genre of edits called 'Kirkslop'" and said, "the evil humor of the Kirk memes seems like a reaction or backlash to the way some conservatives have attempted to elevate Kirk into a kind of folk hero in the wake of his murder", further describing it as "cruelty for the sake of clicks and engagement" and a "hate-bait nuclear arms race".[6]

The Guardian stated that the trend of online satirization "threatens to upend the legacy he had carefully cultivated during his lifetime".[10] The jokes about Kirk were said to symbolize the shifts in online culture.[10]

See also

References

  1. ^ King, Jada (March 18, 2026). "Opinion: Kirkification: Gen Z and online sardonic culture". The Connecticut Mirror.
  2. ^ Healy, Jack (July 6, 2026). "Who Was Charlie Kirk?". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved September 26, 2026.
  3. ^ "Conservative influencer Charlie Kirk dead after shooting". RTE News. September 10, 2025.
  4. ^ a b c d Brickner-Wood, Brady (April 29, 2026). "The Kirkification of Our Troubled Times". The New Yorker.
  5. ^ a b McHugh, Calder (January 17, 2026). "Charlie Kirk Memes Are Taking Over the Internet". Politico.
  6. ^ a b Press-Reynolds, Kieran. "The Shocking Online Afterlife of Charlie Kirk". gq.com. GQ. Retrieved November 26, 2025.
  7. ^ a b Das Biswas, Shuvrajit (September 10, 2026). "What is 'Kirkification'? Charlie Kirk fans slam face-swap AI trend as they mourn assassination one year on". The Hindustan Times.
  8. ^ Klee, Miles (December 21, 2025). "Charlie Kirk's Afterlife as AI Slop Is No Accident". Rolling Stone. Retrieved September 26, 2026.
  9. ^ Park, Gene (September 10, 2026). "The inexhaustible memeification of Charlie Kirk". The Washington Post. ISSN 0190-8286. Retrieved September 24, 2026.
  10. ^ a b "'His legacy is cringe': how Charlie Kirk became a meme among the young – even his supporters". The Guardian. July 9, 2026. Retrieved September 27, 2026.
  • Wiktionary logo The dictionary definition of kirkification at Wiktionary
  • Wikimedia Commons logo Media related to Kirkification at Wikimedia Commons