True or false: In the aftermath of conservative activist Charlie Kirk’s death, the rock & roll world has gathered in grief, with leading figures including Bruce Springsteen, Bob Dylan, and members of Led Zeppelin and the Rolling Stones eulogizing him, dedicating songs to him, and even breaking down onstage upon hearing the news of his murder.
False, of course — none of those things happened. But if one were to scroll through Facebook without thinking too hard, one could be fooled into thinking it was true.
On any number of social media sites, you may encounter an AI-generated image of a forlorn Springsteen placing flowers at a makeshift Kirk memorial, or a fake post about how Robert Plant interrupted his show in Nashville to dedicate a performance of “God Bless America” to Kirk. In a supposed moment onstage in New York, Mick Jagger is said to have announced “This one’s for you, Charlie” — sorry, Watts, not you — and sang “Angie” in Kirk’s memory. (Wait — “Angie”?) Informed in the middle of his own gig that Kirk was dead, Bob Dylan, according to another meme, intoned, “This one’s for him” and launched into a version of “Blowin’ in the Wind.” There’s even an oddly synthetic-looking photo of a distraught Dylan to prove it!
Speaking of Dylan, in another fake meme, he’s even part of a bizarre supergroup — Dylan, Tom Jones, Dolly Parton, and Reba McEntire all singing together during an imaginary tribute to the assassinated activist. In another gathering, Springsteen, Jon Bon Jovi, and pop crooner Michael Bublé are seen harmonizing together in Kirk’s memory. Perhaps even more troublingly, Springsteen also stars in a post that claims he made a provocative statement after Kirk’s death: “If you want people to have kind words when you pass, you should say kind words when you’re alive.” In fact, he never said anything like that; those words were posted by Dwayne Johnson’s daughter, wrestler Ava Raine, and drew significant backlash.
The ghoulish trend is an outgrowth of an outpouring of AI-generated rock memes that have been popping up on a slew of social media sites in the last few months. As Rolling Stone reported last month, many of the fraudulent “photos” and stories play off the fact that classic rockers are aging or falling ill. If one were to believe the fake art, everyone from Mick Jagger to Steven Tyler has visited Phil Collins in the hospital; Springsteen gave a haircut to bed-ridden comedian and actor Dick Van Dyke; and every rock star over the age of 70 helped bury Ozzy Osbourne. None of it is true. As social-media marketing executive Justin Grome told RS, “These types of posts definitely tap into nostalgia, and people want to believe these types of things.”
Back here in the real world, Coldplay’s Chris Martin did reference the death while trying to spread peaceful vibes onstage at a London show this week: “Let’s raise our hands like this and send love, anywhere you want to send it in the world. You can send this to your brother or your sister, you can send it to the families of people who have been going through terrible stuff, you can send it to Charlie Kirk’s family.” That one actually happened, which you can tell because there’s lots of video and eyewitness evidence, and also because it has a certain ring of truth that escapes the rest of these odd AI fantasies.
Connecting Kirk to musicians known for their progressive or liberal-minded tendencies is a particularly strange twist. As of today, none of the numerous musicians depicted in these memes has commented publicly on Kirk’s death, and representatives declined to comment to RS. (A rep for one artist says that camp has repeatedly attempted to have the images taken down, but new ones or variations on the original keep popping back up.) Based on their comments, many who’ve seen the memes realize they’re fake: “Mick doesn’t like Trump or Republicans,” wrote one commenter. But not everyone does. “I’m loving Bob Dylan again,” someone posted underneath a Dylan-Kirk image. “He’s the man.”
But in another post accompanying the same fake Dylan meme, one commentator put it best: “Remember when fan fiction was limited to forums and diaries? I miss those days.”
