Plaguenomics: The Social Recession We Can’t Escape

Tyler Robinson was twenty-two when he pulled the trigger. His adolescence had unfolded in lockdown, his friendships mediated through screens, his worldview shaped by algorithmic feeds that rewarded outrage over understanding. On September 10, 2025, at Utah Valley University in Orem, he ended the life of right-wing activist Charlie Kirk with a single shot.

Within minutes of Kirk’s death, the information ecosystem exploded. Twitter threads fantasised about the shooter’s politics. Cable news panels speculated about his motivations. Foreign state media amplified contradictory narratives designed to fracture American society further. The blame machine whirred to life, transforming tragedy into content, grief into weaponized performance.

I keep coming back to that moment. Because it seems to capture something horrifying, and hard to face, and crucial about where we are now, five years after the pandemic began rewiring Western civilization.

Robinson wasn’t a member of some underground cell or disciplined political movement. He was a product of our new normal: isolated, angry, lost, algorithmically radicalized, trained to understand human conflict as performance for an invisible audience. If you raise kids to fear contact and worship the feed, don’t be shocked when the feed writes the script for their most…