ps -xal | grep vlc returned a bunch of:
0 1000 19188 1345 20 0 2803448 202280 futex_ Sl ? 1:49 /usr/bin/vlc --started-from-file /$path
Going through kill -9 for each of the pid’s killed them, and the icons are gone
I wonder why they were resistant to killall and pkill, but kill -9 works? Is it sending a different signal?
Also thanks @Eden, ps aux | grep ‘Z’ revealed a process:
crews 19986 0.0 0.0 1808292 0 ? SNl Feb05 0:00 /usr/bin/totem-video-thumbnailer
that was started days ago