It’s one thing to post an edgy meme. It’s another to go after a grieving widow whose husband was brutally murdered just weeks ago. That’s exactly what left-wing podcaster Kyle Kulinski did this Halloween, and the internet came for him—hard.
Kulinski, host of the Secular Talk podcast and a prominent voice on YouTube with over two million subscribers, shared a meme targeting Erika Kirk, the widow of conservative activist Charlie Kirk, who was assassinated during an event in September. The meme, styled like a Spirit Halloween costume package, featured a crying Erika with smeared makeup, mocking her mourning with cruel labels like “fake grieving widow grifter” and listing costume contents like “fake teardrops” and “skin-tight black leather mourning pants.”
Even in today’s hyper-partisan, meme-fueled culture wars, this one hit a nerve. Replies to Kulinski’s post flooded in, most of them not laughing. One of the most viral responses came from conservative commentator Blaire White, who wrote: “No one is requiring you to mourn Charlie Kirk. They’re asking you not to be a satanic piece of sh*t who celebrates brutal murder. The bar couldn’t be lower, and it’s still too high for millions of you. Sick.”
Another user flipped the meme back at Kulinski, crafting their own Spirit Halloween edit featuring the podcaster labeled as a “garbage human.”
Now, let’s be clear—meme culture doesn’t discriminate. These costume-style memes have been used across the political spectrum to mock public figures. But the backlash here wasn’t just about taste.
It was about timing. Erika Kirk had barely stepped into her late husband’s shoes at Turning Point USA, and suddenly her mourning was being dissected for likes and retweets.
And Kulinski didn’t stop at one meme. The next day, he took a shot at House Speaker Mike Johnson, branding him a “deeply closeted self-loathing homosexual” in another version of the costume meme.
Two days later, when the firestorm was still raging, he posted yet another meme—this time a Scooby Doo-style reveal showing a MAGA-hatted villain being unmasked as a “snowflake,” calling out what he sees as hypocrisy from conservatives who champion free speech until the joke’s on them.
But here’s the thing: freedom of speech doesn’t mean freedom from consequences. And while Kulinski owns his platform and won’t be fired over this, he’s certainly learning that punching down—especially on a woman who just lost her husband in a horrific public assassination—doesn’t earn you applause, even from your own side.
There’s a lot of noise in today’s online culture. But sometimes the message that cuts through is the simplest one: you don’t have to like someone to leave them alone while they’re grieving.
