Two decades ago, the job title “content creator” didn’t exist. Today, a thriving economy fortifies these social media personalities as they anchor YouTube shows and post to legions of fans on Instagram or X.
Charlie Kirk was one of them — a conservative activist and Trump adviser who, after seven years of running a nonprofit, began playing in the same podcasting sandbox as people like Ben Shapiro on the right and the Meiselas brothers on the left.
Mr. Kirk’s assassination on Wednesday has left that high-drama ecosystem reeling.
Over the last four days, prominent creators on both sides of the political spectrum say they have been reckoning with a new level of fear. Many are considering ratcheting up their security, if they haven’t already. Others are recalibrating how to safely interact with audiences in person — or whether to keep making content in public at all.
“My security chief called me when this happened,” Glenn Beck of The Blaze told Megyn Kelly on her YouTube broadcast on Wednesday, adding that he had previously pressed Mr. Kirk on his level of protection. “Too many people in our position do not take security seriously.”
Social media during the Trump era has been defined by roiling debate between these digital celebrities, their fans and their detractors. Though many online personalities have received threats of violence, and have chosen largely to brush them off, that no longer seems like an option.
“I’ve worked with high-profile conservative media figures for a decade and a half, and the volume and regularity of vile death threats they receive would shock people,” said Alyssa Cordova, a former vice president at The Daily Wire, the content company co-founded by Mr. Shapiro.
“Charlie got threats all the time,” Steve Bannon, the former White House chief strategist and host of the daily video podcast “WarRoom,” said in an interview with The New York Times.
And yet Mr. Kirk was committed to the on-the-ground “populist thing” that people now expect of political heroes, Mr. Bannon said.
“You have to touch the audience,” he said. “You drive the message off the energy of the crowds.”
Events have become a pillar of new media stardom, and anxiety following Mr. Kirk’s assassination could have a tangible impact on creators’ livelihoods. For top podcasters, tours are booming, opening up new revenue streams and reinforcing their uniquely casual and direct relationship with fans.
Yet in this new world, creators may rethink making themselves so accessible. “It will change the way people interact with audiences,” Mr. Bannon said of Mr. Kirk’s assassination.
Going forward, experts anticipate that venues and their insurers will be more restrictive with political speakers, or reluctant to host them at all. On Thursday, Glen Kucera, who runs enhanced protection services for the security firm Allied Universal, said that more than 30 universities had reached out to discuss campus safety in the wake of Mr. Kirk’s shooting.
On the left, many feared retaliatory attacks after Mr. Kirk was shot, watching as predictions of a “civil war” lit up social media. “The reverberations of people seeking out vengeance in the aftermath of this violent, abhorrent incident is going to be genuinely worrisome,” Hasan Piker said on his Wednesday livestream.
Yet few creators or venues were willing to discuss specific plans to increase their security with The Times, wary that disclosing too much information could jeopardize them. (“We shouldn’t talk about this on air,” Mr. Beck told Ms. Kelly during their conversation on safety measures.)
Caleb Gilbert, the president of White Glove Protection Group, a company that works with Fortune 500 companies and high-net-worth individuals, called it “a massive wake-up call” for the industry. He said he had gotten about two hours of sleep on Wednesday night: “Every single person that we protect is now re-evaluating whether or not they are safe.”
The shooting of the UnitedHealthcare chief executive Brian Thompson last year forced a similar reckoning among chief executives, the security experts said.
Dean Withers, a progressive streamer with 4.4 million followers on TikTok, said in an interview on Friday that, for the first time, he was seeking out a security consultant and asking himself questions like: “Is it really a smart idea for me to show up at universities? Is it a smart idea for me to do these public events?”
“What if this were to happen to me from somebody on the right that disagrees with me?” Mr. Withers continued. “I don’t think I ever truly considered the possibility.”
Mr. Withers previously appeared as a “woke teen” debating MAGA supporters in massively popular videos produced by Jubilee Media. He was scheduled to debate Mr. Kirk for Jubilee for a second time next week, he said. He also planned to hold an event at Colorado State University on Sept. 18 in protest of Mr. Kirk’s simultaneous appearance there.
“I just feel anxious,” he continued. “Every single creator that I’ve spoken to is scared because of this.”
In recent days, Mr. Withers has also fielded some criticism from his own audience — those disposed to loathe Mr. Kirk and even celebrate his demise — for shedding tears when news broke of the shooting.
“A lot of that backlash surprised me,” Mr. Withers said. “Seeing somebody that I’ve personally interacted with in real life become a limp, lifeless body with blood gushing out of their neck had pretty crazy psychological impacts on me.”
Liz Plank, another progressive creator, became tearful during an interview on Thursday while discussing some of the humor and indifference she’d seen on social media surrounding Mr. Kirk’s death.
“The way that some people on the left are reacting to this without any shock or horror, honestly, it’s in many parts the most horrifying part of this,” she said. Though they disagreed — Ms. Plank said she found Mr. Kirk’s rhetoric “damaging” and “violent” — the assassination had left her “distressed” and “frazzled.”
“This felt like a shooting in my workplace,” she said. “That’s someone I work with.”
Ms. Plank, the host of the podcast “Boy Problems,” is known for showing up to right-wing events, such as MAGA rallies or the Conservative Political Action Conference, and for conducting cheerfully provocative man-on-the-street interviews. She interviewed Mr. Kirk multiple times, and he invited her to Turning Point USA’s leadership conference for young women. (Though she was later kicked out, she said.)
Speaking to The Times after Mr. Kirk’s death, she questioned her future: “Do I want to do this kind of work?”
Ms. Plank had been talking to a media company about partnering on more man-on-the-street political content this year, but she is now reconsidering those plans, she said. Her approach no longer feels safe. Ms. Plank could access some security services when she worked for Vox Media years ago, but not as an independent entity.
“If a lot of us are scared to report, scared to go to certain places that are politically important and relevant, that’s the beginning of the end of democracy,” Ms Plank said. “We’re just going to be more isolated. We’re going to talk to each other even less.”
Other creators have been more defiant about continuing their work. Allie Beth Stuckey, a Christian conservative podcaster who was close to Mr. Kirk, considered canceling a planned speech at a Nevada anti-abortion fund-raising gala on Friday night but decided to proceed after a former school friend offered his security company’s services.
“I predict you’ll see more conservatives on speaking tours, not less,” said Ms. Cordova, a publicist whose clients include Ms. Stuckey. “Cowering in fear is un-American.”
Mr. Bannon claimed he was already spending “a fortune” on his own security, traveling with military-trained operatives to protect him.
On his X account, Mr. Shapiro passionately denied rumors he was canceling a college tour after one appearance was postponed.
“We’re going to pick up that bloodstained microphone where Charlie left it,” Mr. Shapiro said in a video. “We will never stop debating and discussing.”
Mr. Withers shared that view, despite his fresh safety concerns and the ongoing shock of the attack on Mr. Kirk. “I truly don’t know what is reasonable, unreasonable, logical or illogical,” he said. “But what I do know is I don’t think I can let fear dictate my life.”
Jessica Testa covers nontraditional and emerging media for The Times.
Joseph Bernstein is a Times reporter who writes feature stories for the Styles section.
Callie Holtermann reports on style and pop culture for The Times.
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