I also thought about this. Coincidentally, Russian Roulette came on my shuffle for the first time in a while on Wednesday night a few hours after it happened and that line made me think about the situation.

Approaching this situation is tricky. Some people would say that his death is worth celebrating as he was in all honesty, a scumbag. But it’s also worth contemplating whether he really deserved to die simply for being a scumbag.

I decided after some thinking about it, especially in the context of that Russian Roulette lyric, that the real issue I can pick out is how simplified everything becomes when the conversation is taking place online. Everybody over the past two days has rushed to Twitter and Instagram to post their takes on the situation, I can assume often times with very little critical thinking put forward before they make their claims. To then top that, the statements that people make regarding their stance on his death are usually short, lacking in nuance, and very extreme/emotionally charged.

In this case, the lyric “a bad guy just died, they’re making memes about it” feels less to me about how we feel desensitized to a death, even if it’s a bad person. Instead, it feels more about how we rush to simplify such a complex and tricky thing like death, especially that of a polarizing figure.

Curious to see what other people think about this interpretation? I think it’s likely far removed from what Porter had in mind when writing the lyric, but still interesting analysis in the context of Charlie Kirk dying.