Luigu Mangione - A man bringing the Left & Right together.

Hot Criminals and the fickleness of the internet.

A mutual of mine on Instagram dmed me a circulating photo of CCTV footage of Luigu Mangione and asked if I thought he was hot. I had no idea of the context, blindly assuming he robbed a bank or something. ‘He’s pretty hot’ I replied. Now just a few days later I think I have seen the shirtless photo of Luigi hiking more than any other photo on the internet this year. I am seeing lusting ladies and horny gays joking that someone that hot can do whatever they want. Quips about peoples new workout goal to be that when they commit a crime they want to be jacked enough that the media posts their shirtless pictures. One meme posted that his fatal mistake in getting caught was in the traditional Italian way ‘flirting with the cashier at the cafe.’ All year I have been trying to write an essay about the irony epidemic; how the internet's obsession with memes and conspiracy had led to a loss of authenticity. I didn’t have a specific example to cling onto until today.

On December 4th a masked man we know as Luigu Mangione shot and killed United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson in New York City. To the legacy media's surprise people on the Internet from both sides of the political spectrum cheered and laughed. The Facebook post announcing his death was met with 23,000 laughing emojis before being taken down. Journalist Taylor Lorenz said ‘heath insurance companies are parasites siphoning blood money from the sick, dying and insured.’ With a comment on her post adding ‘I’m surprised it hasn’t happened sooner.’ The insurance sector of corporate America has a bad reputation for underpaying and refusing claims, with medical debt being the most common cause for personal bankruptcy. In conjunction with the growing loneliness epidemic and the fractured nature of American politics, I can see the logic in feeling like you need to take control of your life with your own hands.

Yet, most people my age are not getting their news and information from mainstream media establishments. They learn about a celebrity's pregnancy from a meme saying it’s the dead queen or about the situation in South career from a Tweet by an edge lord. I would argue memes play the biggest role in the proliferation and maintenance of discourse. I am the first to admit that I knew what he looked like from a Tweet not the New York Times. We need to be self-critical about how quickly we spread an image and inadvertently contribute to witch-hunts.

Just after the re-election of Donald Trump by the popular vote, populism is well and truly on the rise. This indignation towards people profiting off death and suffering is just a small part of it but also something Republicans and Democrats can agree on. Erosion of trust in the police, the law and government has been major issues for both sides of the political spectrum. The recent pardoning of Hunter Biden and the fact that a criminal can become president has further solidified the notion that the law is merely a political tool rather than a fixed truth. Actionable truths now lie in the hands of whoever has power at that given time. Through the studies of ends and purposes it is inevitable that individuals will take the law into their own hands.

From peoples internet stalking Mangione's politics seem to be a mesh of 4chan takes and Silicon Valley conspiracies, lacking in concrete ideology in either side of the political spectrum Through some of my own internet stalking I found he has written a google review about the McDonald’s he got arrested at possessing a fake ID and a gun. He has a Bachelor's degree in computer science and mathematics and a Masters degree in engineering. He last liked a Doctor Seuss quote on Goodreads and logged 295 books on the site. In one of his book reviews for the title ‘Industrial Society and Its Future’ he writes ‘when all other forms of communication fail, violence is necessary to survive’ and ‘violence never solves anything is a statement uttered by cowards and predators.’ He Tweets about anxiety and had 1.2k friends on Facebook and it would seem his back injury changed everything. While living in Honolulu he was living and working in a community called Surfbreak. He left due to a life long back injury that was made worse by physical labour on the Island. Around six months ago he was inactive on his social media and friends assumed his spinal surgery didn't go well. The assumption is that he committed this crime due to grudges against health insurers after the deaths of his grandparents and that his claims for his injury were rejected.

Now the moralism or legitimacy of his crimes are not my focus here. I have deep sympathy for those living in countries without free and accessible health care; yet I am not sure if I am quite in my vigilante era of political action. What I am interested and more educated to speak on is internet subcultures and the volatile nature of going viral. Maybe making everything political is isolating and a joke can be just a joke but where does the sincerity come in? He was arrested at McDonald’s due to someone recognising him from the CCTV footage and Burger King tweeted ‘We don’t snitch.’ I cannot put into words how dystopian I found this. It's creating a very weird reality where murder was a corporate joke like ‘demure’ or ‘Brat summer’. Further proving that if something is making waves on the internet, everyone has to get their word in, even big American operations trying to make a buck.