Many Respond Following The Death Of Hulk Hogan

By
Rachel Stevenson
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The announcement of Hulk Hogan’s death didn’t even have time to settle into the collective grief before the knives came out—and oh, they came out fast.

You’d think the passing of a man who defined an era of American entertainment would earn at least a respectful pause. But no. Within hours, the digital mob was busy typing out sneers, cheap shots, and that now-standard virtue-signaling outrage that feels less like grief and more like a performance.

Scroll through the chaos and you can almost feel the glee radiating from some of these posts. Not a shred of hesitation. Not a hint of, “Hey, maybe this isn’t the moment.” Instead, we got social media users proudly typing things like, “I USED to love Hulk too… Once I learned he was racist, it faded away in an instant. Very easy. Fuck him.” There it was—raw, celebratory venom aimed not at a policy or a politician, but at a man whose body was barely cold.

And then came the snide political jabs, as if every American figure—dead or alive—must be shoved through the tribal grinder. “Onie more trumpie dow many coming soon,” one X user sneered, complete with typos but brimming with ghoulish anticipation. Another couldn’t resist: “Don’t let ya wrestling nostalgia make you forget that Hulk was a racist, union busting, boot licker.” They weren’t done. One self-described former Gawker writer chimed in with, “Dance on any grave you want to, but this one’s mine.” It’s not grief. It’s not even criticism. It’s theater. It’s rage cosplay, streamed live for clicks.

And then—because of course—they had to drag politics directly into a fan’s moment of mourning. JD Vance posted a heartfelt tribute. The response? “Hulk was a racist, a homophobe and a real MAGA dickhead Trump ass tonguer!” That’s not commentary. That’s performance art for an audience that rewards cruelty.

What’s striking—what’s worth sitting with—isn’t just the cruelty itself. It’s the speed. It’s the instant pivot from mourning to mockery. It’s as though any shared cultural memory now has to be scorched and purified in the fires of ideological purity before we’re allowed to feel anything.

But here’s the part they didn’t count on. While the loudest corners of the internet screamed their disdain, something else was happening. Tributes flooded in. Wrestlers who shared locker rooms with Hogan, actors who remembered his cameo-packed years, fans who grew up with those larger-than-life storylines—they all spoke up. They spoke louder than the sneers, and their memories didn’t need approval from the outrage machine.

Hulk Hogan’s legacy was complicated—sure. That’s true for almost every towering figure in American culture. But the rush to spit on his memory before the man’s legacy was even properly recounted says more about our times than it does about him. And if that doesn’t make you pause, if that doesn’t make you wonder who gets to define our cultural heroes now, just wait. Because the next time someone beloved passes, the same playbook will open—and you might not like whose grave they’re dancing on.

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