By Rikki Schlott

Copyright nypost

One of the very best things about the internet — and social media more specifically — is that you can find a community of other people who share your passions, no matter how niche. Love eating oranges in the shower? Or watching videos of Siberian Huskies throwing tantrums? There’s a subreddit for that.

But we also have an absolute crisis of kids living in the digital world, with their views warped by fringe memes that they are now applying to real life.

The inscription carved into the casing of the bullet used to kill Charlie Kirk at Utah Valley University last Wednesday, along with messages on unfired bullets found nearby, demonstrate how too much time spent too deep online can totally divorce someone from reality.

And they should serve as a red-siren warning for parents of Gen Z and even Gen Alpha — digital natives born in 2012 or later — about allowing excessive screen time.

“The best way I can describe him is just, like, a Reddit kid,” a former classmate said of Kirk’s alleged killer, Tyler Robinson, on Instagram.

He added: “All I’m gonna say is this is the kind of s—t that happens when you spend way too much time online, and all of a sudden your beliefs are all the way this way, or all the way this way, and you do some dramatic s—t to please these people who are not your friends.”

Parents, please listen to what he’s saying.

We’ve long heard about the horror of children being groomed by online predators. But the internet can also turn children into dangers themselves.

If your teens are spending time online, be it in subreddits or on Discord channels or interacting with TikTok commenters, they are quite likely making friends with strangers. And thinking that age controls will protect them is naive.

“The chronically online life is often an angry and polarized one,” Dr. Jean Twenge, author of “10 Rules for Raising Kids in a High-Tech World,” told The Post. “The online world becomes an echo chamber that becomes more and more extreme … Political discussions online are a far cry from IRL discussions where you’re interacting with a few people and can see their facial expressions.”

Robinson’s vocabulary seems to have been hijacked by gamer-style humor and post-ironic memes, as evidenced by the inscriptions on the bullets allegedly linked to him.

“Notices bulge, OwO what’s this?” was etched into the bullet that killed Kirk. As digital culture researcher Alex Turvy told The Post, “OwO” — an emoticon suggesting a wide-eyed animal face — is common in online role play and forums dedicated to the furry subculture.

“More than anything, it’s sort of demonstrating that you speak the language of the Internet,” Turvy said. “It’s sort of an inside joke and referencing it a [is a] marker of who you are. That you spend a lot of time online.”

Robinson appears to have had an account on FurryAffinity.net, a website for swapping sexualized images and chatting about the kink.

Former classmates told The Post that the 22-year-old was shy and quiet at Pine View High School and kept to himself. “The only thing that makes me say, ‘That sounds about right’ was when ‘notices bulge OwO’ was written on one of the bullet casings,” one said.

Unfired bullets were inscribed with the messages, “Hey fascist! Catch” and “Oh Bella ciao Bella ciao Bella ciao ciao ciao” — apparent references to the video game “Helldivers 2.”

Another read, “If you read this, you are gay lmao.” That’s the sort of immature internet trolling that speaks for itself.

This language may have been indecipherable to anyone who knew Robinson in real life — except, maybe, his roommate and reported partner Lance Twiggs, an aspiring pro gamer who was also highly active on subreddits filled with sarcastic humor.

While lost boys might be more susceptible to ideological radicalization online that can lead to political violence IRL, girls are hardly immune. Social media companies like Instagram have been accused of downplaying just how popular self-harm content is among teen girls.

Nobody is safe when there are nihilist “friends” hiding behind avatars ready to goad them into destruction.

But they’re likely to be more safe if they have roots in reality.

Dr. Twenge admits even she has struggled with imposing tech rules with her kids, but she says staving off social media, smart phones and easy internet access with her 13- and 18-year-old has been hugely beneficial to their wellbeing.

She personally advises holding off on smart phones until your kid gets a driver’s license.

“Having concrete rules that are reasonably strict is usually the way to go,” she recently told the New York Times. “When stuff has gone wrong, it’s often because I’m like, ‘Okay, just this one time.’ And then it blows up in my face.”

Parents have a serious challenge on their hands. We’ve all been at the mall or a restaurant and seen toddlers glued to iPads.

But screen time is the enemy, and there’s always a risk of feeding your own children to the trolls.

School systems, including here in New York City, have finally started banning electronic devices, including cell phones, in the classroom — a solid reminder that we can all go at least eight hours without them.

Utah governor Spencer Cox, a unique voice of unity through the Kirk tragedy tragedy, was right when he said of social media: “There is no question in my mind — ‘cancer’ probably isn’t a strong enough word. What we have done, especially to our kids, it took us decades to realize how evil these algorithms are.”

So, please, encourage your kids to go out and touch grass.