'Activating a revolution' Influencer attracted new conservative generation

After clinching the title of top conservative podcast in America (and second overall news podcast, according to Apple's ranking) in March, Charlie Kirk said: "We're not just talking.

- Alaina Demopoulos

We're activating a revolution." In the hours after his killing on the first stop of a buzzy college campus tour, the rightwing activist's words echoed through young conservative circles.

Social media eulogies rolled in, with users reposting clips of Kirk, 31, with his wife and children.

Parents wrote of learning about his death through their teenagers. The conservative radio host Jesse Kelly wrote on X that his 17-year-old son was upset. "Told me he plays Charlie in the background on his computer when he's on it." Another X user wrote about speaking to teenagers at a church youth group: "Everyone I talked to is so distraught and heartbroken." A key figure in Donald Trump's success, Kirk galvanised collegeaged conservatives who moved in a different ecosystem from traditional media. The decade between Kirk's beginnings as a teen activist and the shooting saw the rise of Trump and Maga politics alongside the demise of the conventional media landscape.