“I felt this little dopamine spike:” Sean Strickland shares raw, unfiltered response to Charlie Kirk’s death

A chilling moment in American politics took a shocking turn this week, when conservative activist Charlie Kirk was fatally shot during a live Q&A session in Utah. While tributes and anger poured in, one of the most surprising reactions came from former UFC middleweight champion Sean Strickland, who admitted in raw, unfiltered fashion that the tragedy revealed just how numb society has become to violence.The former UFC middleweight champion posted a raw video reflecting not only on the tragedy itself but also on America’s growing desensitization to violence.Kirk, 31, was shot in the neck by a sniper during a public session at Utah Valley University’s Sorensen Center courtyard. Despite being rushed to the hospital, he did not survive. Shortly after the news broke, Sean Strickland took to X to give his brutally honest but controversial take. Instead of a traditional statement of mourning, the fighter admitted his first instinct was disturbingly detached and weird.In his video, Strickland didn’t shy away from criticizing not just the shooter, but the culture at large. He revealed feeling a “dopamine spike” when he read Kirk had been shot, comparing it to the same adrenaline people get from watching violent clips online. “I'm on Twitter and somebody says, 'Hey did you hear that Charlie Kirk got shot?' And my gut reaction was like, 'No I fu*king didn't, but I'm excited.' Like I felt this little dopamine spike in me where I'm like, “Dude I wanna see the video.”He said he felt like a “sociopath” for being more curious than empathetic, and then questioned how America had reached this point.“How the fu*k did I become such a sociopath? Like how am I so disattached from human beings,” Strickland confessed. “We watch a girl get stabbed, murdered on the subway. We're watching little kids get pulled out of buildings…we are so desensitized, we're so socialized,” the UFC star reflected.Strickland’s raw perspective didn’t stop at desensitization. He speculated about the political fallout, even wondering if the shooter’s identity would be used as fuel for more division.