Experts have described engravings left on ammunition at the scene of the Charlie Kirk shooting as “extremely online” – so what do the words and symbols actually mean?

Authorities said on Friday that the suspect accused of fatally shooting the Conservative activist left behind bullet casings featuring references to fascism, video games and internet memes.

To those who aren’t chronically online, the messages may appear to be total gibberish. But for others, specifically gamers, many of the meanings will have immediately been clear.

Here’s what each of the casings reference – and why experts have cautioned against using them to make assumptions about the suspect’s political leanings.

1. ‘notices, bulges, OWO, what’s this?’

This writing appears to reference a meme about the furry subculture, which centres on an interest in anthropomorphic animal characters.

Within the furry community, OwO is an emoticon of a cute face (with the Os as the eyes and the w as a cute mouth or nose) and used as a way of flirting – but outside the community, it is often used in a mocking way, or as part of trolling.

It’s incredibly common for phrases used by people who are “extremely online” – which essentially means highly engaged in online culture – to have double or multiple meanings.

For this reason, experts have cautioned against trying to interpret messages such as these engravings to determine an attacker’s political leanings or motive.

Jamie Cohen, an assistant professor of media studies who studies memes at Queens College in New York, said: “Oftentimes this extremely online disguise is meant to be doublespeak.”

Speaking to Sky News’ US partner NBC News, he continued: “It’s meant specifically for someone like me to dive into what they would call meme culture and declare them something so that they get more press.

“So it could just be another bait and switch for researchers who are falling into the same trap that they are designing for more viral exposure.”

2. ‘Hey, fascist! Catch ↑ → ↓↓↓’

When asked by Sky News’ US correspondent James Matthews what the messages on the casings meant, Utah governor Spencer Cox said the writing referring to a fascist “speaks for itself”.

The second half of the inscription – the directional arrows – were immediately identified by some gamers.

Helldivers 2 players have pointed out that the arrow sequence is the code used to summon a 500kg bomb in the 2024 game – which itself has been interpreted as a satire of fascism.

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3. ‘Oh bella ciao, bella ciao, bella ciao ciao ciao’

Bella Ciao is a classic Italian song that became a popular anti-fascism anthem during Benito Mussolini’s dictatorship.

It has won renewed popularity in recent years thanks, in part, to featuring multiple times in Netflix’s Spanish television series Money Heist.

A popular remix of Bella Ciao has hit more than 260 million streams on Spotify worldwide and it’s become a favourite on TikTok, as well as within the gaming community.

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4. ‘If you read this, you are gay lmao’

This juvenile insult, using the well-known abbreviation for ‘laughing my ass off’, is a common ‘gotcha’ phrase and simply appears to mock investigators.

The messages, another expert has said, make one thing clear – the suspect was likely seeking fame.

Lindsay Hahn, a University at Buffalo associate professor who researches ideological extremism and the ways in which perpetrators of violence justify their actions, said the messages do not necessarily indicate a specific ideology.

“But what they do indicate, is that the shooter wanted to get a message across and therefore be talked about online,” she told NBC.

“It sort of seems like these messages, at the very minimum, were selected because he knew they were going to be talked about.”

If you want to know why so many Labour MPs are seething over the government’s response to the Mandelson saga, look no further than my mobile phone at 9.12am this Sunday.

At the top of the screen is a news notification about an interview with the family of a victim of the notorious paedophile Jeffrey Epstein, saying his close friend Peter Mandelson should “never have been made” US ambassador.

Directly below that, a Sky News notification on the business secretary’s interview, explaining that the appointment of Lord Mandelson to the job was judged to be “worth the risk” at the time.

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Peter Kyle went on to praise Lord Mandelson’s “outstanding” and “singular” talents and the benefits that he could bring to the US-UK relationship.

While perhaps surprisingly candid in nature about the decision-making process that goes on in government, this interview is unlikely to calm concerns within Labour.

Quite the opposite.

For many in the party, this is a wholly different debate to a simple cost-benefit calculation of potential political harm.

As one long-time party figure put it to my colleague Sam Coates: “I don’t care about Number Ten or what this means for Keir or any of that as much as I care that this culture of turning a blind eye to horrendous behaviour is endemic at the top of society and Peter Kyle has literally just come out and said it out loud.

“He was too talented and the special relationship too fraught for his misdeeds to matter enough. It’s just disgusting.”

There are two problems for Downing Street here.

The first is that you now have a government which – after being elected on the promise to restore high standards – appears to be admitting that previous indiscretions can be overlooked if the cause is important enough.

Package that up with other scandals that have resulted in departures – Louise Haigh, Tulip Siddiq, Angela Rayner – and you start to get a stink that becomes hard to shift.

The second is that it once again demonstrates an apparent lack of ability in government to see around corners and deal with political and policy crises, before they start knocking lumps out of the Prime Minister.

Remember, for many the cardinal sin here was not necessarily the original appointment of Mandelson (while eyebrows were raised at the time, there was nowhere near the scale of outrage we’ve had in the last week with many career diplomats even agreeing the with logic of the choice) but the fact that Sir Keir Starmer walked into PMQs and gave the ambassador his full-throated backing when it was becoming clear to many around Westminster that he simply wouldn’t be able to stay in post.

The explanation from Downing Street is essentially that a process was playing out, and you shouldn’t sack an ambassador based on a media enquiry alone.

But good process doesn’t always align with good politics.

Something this barrister-turned-politician may now be finding out the hard way.

A memorial for right-wing US influencer Charlie Kirk will be held next Sunday, in a stadium that previously hosted the 2023 Super Bowl.

The 31-year-old, who was a close ally of Donald Trump, was fatally shot in the neck on Wednesday while speaking to university students at an event in Utah.

His appearance at Utah Valley University was part of a planned tour of US college campuses.

Turning Point USA, the prominent youth conservative organisation of which Mr Kirk was the president and co-founder, is holding the event at State Farm Stadium outside Phoenix.

The venue is the home of the NFL’s Arizona Cardinals and can hold more than 60,000 people.

Tyler Robinson, a 22-year-old from Washington, Utah, is being held without bail after being arrested on suspicion of aggravated murder, felony discharge of a firearm causing serious bodily harm and obstruction of justice charges, according to court documents.

The motivation behind the fatal shooting is still unclear, but Utah governor Spencer Cox commented that Robinson described Mr Kirk as “full of hate and spreading hate”.

Robinson is due to make an initial court appearance on Tuesday, when he is also expected to be charged, the Utah County attorney’s office said.

President Trump, who will be back in the US after his UK state visit next week, has previously said he plans to attend Mr Kirk’s funeral.

Mr Trump has said he will be posthumously awarding Mr Kirk with the nation’s highest civilian honour, the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

Mr Kirk’s body was flown back from Salt Lake City to his home state of Arizona on Air Force Two on Thursday, with the US vice president and close friend JD Vance on board.

His widow, Erika Kirk, has vowed to continue his campus tour and his radio and podcast shows.

Speaking publicly for the first time in a livestreamed video on Friday, she said: “To everyone listening tonight across America, the movement my husband built will not die.”

“It won’t. I refuse to let that happen.”

She said she told her three-year-old daughter: “Daddy went on a work trip with Jesus.”

Read more: What the engravings on bullets in Charlie Kirk case may refer to

Mr Kirk, who was a father of two, had millions of followers across social media.

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A makeshift memorial to Mr Kirk has been set up at Utah Valley University, with flowers, American flags and handwritten messages left at the main entrance.

The university says there will be increased security when classes resume on Wednesday.