<\/p>\n
True or false: In the aftermath of conservative activist Charlie Kirk\u2019s death<\/a>, the rock & roll world has gathered in grief, with leading figures including Bruce Springsteen, Bob Dylan, and members of Led Zeppelin and the Rolling Stones eulogizing him, dedicating songs to him, and even breaking down onstage upon hearing the news of his murder.<\/p>\n False, of course \u2014 none of those things happened. But if one were to scroll through Facebook without thinking too hard, one could be fooled into thinking it was true.<\/p>\n More from Rolling Stone<\/strong><\/p>\n On any number of social media sites, you may encounter an AI-generated image of a forlorn Springsteen placing flowers<\/a> at a makeshift Kirk memorial, or a fake post about how Robert Plant interrupted<\/a> his show in Nashville to dedicate a performance of \u201cGod Bless America\u201d to Kirk. In a supposed moment onstage in New York, Mick Jagger is said to have announced<\/a> \u201cThis one\u2019s for you, Charlie\u201d \u2014 sorry, Watts<\/a>, not you \u2014 and sang \u201cAngie\u201d in Kirk\u2019s memory. (Wait \u2014 \u201cAngie\u201d?) Informed in the middle of his own gig that Kirk was dead, Bob Dylan, according to another meme<\/a>, intoned, \u201cThis one\u2019s for him\u201d and launched into a version of \u201cBlowin\u2019 in the Wind.\u201d There\u2019s even an oddly synthetic-looking photo of a distraught Dylan to prove it!<\/p>\n Speaking of Dylan, in another fake meme, he\u2019s even part of a bizarre supergroup \u2014 Dylan, Tom Jones, Dolly Parton, and Reba McEntire all singing together during an imaginary tribute to the assassinated activist. In another gathering, Springsteen, Jon Bon Jovi, and pop crooner Michael Bubl\u00e9 are seen harmonizing together in Kirk\u2019s memory. Perhaps even more troublingly, Springsteen also stars in a post that claims he made a provocative statement after Kirk\u2019s death: \u201cIf you want people to have kind words when you pass, you should say kind words when you\u2019re alive.\u201d In fact, he never said anything like that; those words were posted by Dwayne Johnson\u2019s daughter, wrestler Ava Raine, and drew significant backlash<\/a>.<\/p>\n The ghoulish trend is an outgrowth of an outpouring of AI-generated rock memes that have been popping up on a slew of social media sites in the last few months. As Rolling Stone<\/em> reported <\/a>last month, many of the fraudulent \u201cphotos\u201d and stories play off the fact that classic rockers are aging or falling ill. If one were to believe the fake art, everyone from Mick Jagger to Steven Tyler has visited Phil Collins in the hospital; Springsteen gave a haircut to bed-ridden comedian and actor Dick Van Dyke; and every rock star over the age of 70 helped bury Ozzy Osbourne. None of it is true. As social-media marketing executive Justin Grome told RS<\/em>, \u201cThese types of posts definitely tap into nostalgia, and people want to believe these types of things.\u201d<\/p>\n Back here in the real world, Coldplay\u2019s Chris Martin did reference the death <\/a>while trying to spread peaceful vibes onstage at a London show this week: \u201cLet\u2019s raise our hands like this and send love, anywhere you want to send it in the world. You can send this to your brother or your sister, you can send it to the families of people who have been going through terrible stuff, you can send it to Charlie Kirk\u2019s family.\u201d That one actually happened, which you can tell because there\u2019s lots of video and eyewitness evidence, and also because it has a certain ring of truth that escapes the rest of these odd AI fantasies.<\/p>\n Connecting Kirk to musicians known for their progressive or liberal-minded tendencies is a particularly strange twist. As of today, none of the numerous musicians depicted in these memes has commented publicly on Kirk\u2019s death, and representatives declined to comment to RS<\/em>. (A rep for one artist says that camp has repeatedly attempted to have the images taken down, but new ones or variations on the original keep popping back up.) Based on their comments, many who\u2019ve seen the memes realize they\u2019re fake: \u201cMick doesn\u2019t like Trump or Republicans,\u201d wrote one commenter. But not everyone does. \u201cI\u2019m loving Bob Dylan again,\u201d someone posted underneath a Dylan-Kirk image. \u201cHe\u2019s the man.\u201d<\/p>\n But in another post accompanying the same fake Dylan meme, one commentator put it best: \u201cRemember when fan fiction was limited to forums and diaries? I miss those days.\u201d<\/p>\n Best of Rolling Stone<\/strong><\/p>\n Sign up for RollingStone’s Newsletter<\/a>. For the latest news, follow us on Facebook<\/a>, Twitter<\/a>, and Instagram<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.yahoo.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" True or false: In the aftermath of conservative activist Charlie Kirk\u2019s death, the rock & roll world has gathered in grief, with leading figures including Bruce Springsteen, Bob Dylan, and members of Led Zeppelin and the Rolling Stones eulogizing him, dedicating songs to him, and even breaking down onstage upon hearing the news of his […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2027264,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25172],"tags":[29332,28851,340116,311659,317888,305352,320223,373441],"class_list":["post-2027263","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-entertainment","tag-bob-dylan","tag-bruce-springsteen","tag-charlie-kirk","tag-facebook","tag-led-zeppelin","tag-mick-jagger","tag-rolling-stones","tag-social-media-sites"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/Are-Rock-Stars-Eulogizing-Charlie-Kirk-in-Memes-Spoiler-Alert.jpeg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2027263","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2027263"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2027263\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2027264"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2027263"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2027263"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2027263"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}