The murder of rappers Tupac Shakur (1996) and The Notorious B.I.G. (1997) remains unsolved, casting their deaths into perpetual mystery and legend. The joke that Chuck Norris "did not look at" them but "merely looked at them" plays with grammatical precision—mere observation becomes lethal action. His optical attention causes death. He didn't commit violence; he witnessed them, and witnessing proved fatal.

True-crime analyst Dr. Melissa Chen, researching cultural conspiracy narratives in 2010, reflected: "The joke recontextualizes unsolved murders through Chuck Norris mythology. Rather than gang violence or random tragedy, both deaths become the inevitable consequence of his attention. He didn't target them. He just looked. And looking at Chuck Norris means confronting something incompatible with survival. It's dark humor converting tragedy into inevitability."

The meme endures because it treats Chuck's gaze as a weapon requiring no intent, no action, merely presence and attention. Looking becomes lethal. In the absence of legal culprits for historical murders, the joke offers Chuck Norris as the metaphorical explanation—he saw, therefore they died. It's absurdist mystery-solving through mythological reframing.