Kjellberg almost immediately responded by tweeting, “I feel absolutely sickened having my name uttered by this person. Perhaps no detail is more reflective of that than the fact that one shooter name-dropped the YouTuber PewDiePie during the livestream specifically, “subscribe to PewDiePie,” a reference to a meme about 29-year-old Swedish YouTube superstar PewDiePie, a.k.a. Judging by the manifesto, which is littered with references to internet culture phenomena like Fortnite and Spyro the Dragon 3 and memes like Navy Seal Copypasta, many commentators speculated that those responsible for the shooting were, like many young people on the far right, ultra-literate on social media, or what many would refer to as “Extremely Online.” The fact that at least one of the shootings was livestreamed and uploaded to multiple platforms more rapidly than they could be taken down cements the impression that the massacre was “engineered for maximum virality,” Charlie Warzel, who covers internet culture, wrote in the New York Times. As information on the attacks started to emerge, it became increasingly clear that the shooter or shooters were adherents of far-right extremist ideology, particularly after an 87-page manifesto surfaced articulating Islamophobic and white supremacist views. On Thursday evening, it was reported that at least one shooter opened fire on congregants in two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, killing at least 49 people.

Christchurch shooting livestream video