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There’s a Luigi (green cap and overalls, bushy mustache and lanky figure) who has been a video game icon for forty years, with merchandising that has generated more than $36 billion in profits. Yet today he is the second most famous Luigi in the world. The first is 26-year-old Luigi Mangione: a brilliant student, from what some might call a good conservative family, who was anonymous until two days ago. Subsequently, Mangione was arrested as the main suspect in the case murder of Brian ThompsonCEO of United Healthcare. Alleged details about his life are now everywhere (for example in this in-depth profile published by EL PAÍS), but social media has added its own even more bizarre theories, fascinated by the overly simplistic story that got us here: a handsome, idealistic young man killed a corporate monster from one of the most powerful companies in the world.
Mangione is very active on social media and has reportedly left a trail of information that creates an instant, seemingly accurate profile of who he is – or at least who he wanted to appear to be. Not so long ago, one had to rely on an experienced writer or a team of psychiatrists to create an exclusive profile of a criminal. These days, a quick look at their most played Spotify songs can give us an idea of who they are. Suspected nude photos have already surfaced, which he is said to have sent to someone who wanted to receive them. And now, in the age of social media, millions of people are eager to see them too, especially on platforms like X and other adult sites.
Whether these clues – his Spotify profile, his nude photos or even a so-called Tinder profile – are authentic remains unclear. After all, anyone with a cell phone can easily take fake screenshots. There are already voices claiming that the fake is Mangione himself, and that the real killer is someone else (“Look at the eyebrow!”), suggesting that the arrest is a farce. What is undeniable, however, is the frenzy this case has caused. An alleged murderer has become the antihero that will mark the end of 2024, a year in which the term “brain rot” – the mental decay associated with hours of exposure to unmoderated content on social networks – was named word of the year by the Oxford . Dictionary. ‘Rotten’ has come to define us all.
The fascination with criminals and the allure of evil is well documented. Truman Capote explored this obsession for years in his groundbreaking work In cold blood (1966), which not only captivated readers but also exposed Capote’s own fascination with murderers to such an extent that the veracity of the story was often questioned. In contemporary culture, television creator Ryan Murphy has devised a formula that fuels a similar fascination: glorifying notorious killers (or alleged killers) in aesthetically rich, musically charged series designed for the Netflix generation, eager to see new perspectives on figures like OJ Simpson, Andrew Cunanan and the Menendez brothers. The cby the Menendez brothers is strangely linked to Luigi Mangione: attractive, well-positioned and rebels with a cause (they claimed to have killed their parents after enduring years of abuse), the Menéndez brothers collected groupies who sent them love letters and even married two of them in prison.
“When the reason for killing someone is seen as just or understandable, it’s easy to put the killer on a pedestal,” explains Clara Tiscar, creator of the well-known podcast. Criminopathywhere she spent 128 episodes exploring the complexities of contemporary crimes. “In some cases, they do what others think is necessary but would never dare to do themselves – something many people want but would rather have someone else do. But of course this way of thinking is both dangerous and useless. In this case, killing a tyrant will not end tyranny: insurance companies will continue to profit from the death and suffering of those who need them.
Mangione’s story seems almost too perfect to be believable. A handsome young man kills a bad guy with three shots (Brian Thompson, CEO of UnitedHealthcare, earned more than $10 million annually as leader of the largest and most controversial health insurer in the US), and he does so with three bullets, each engraved with a word : deny, defend, reject. An anonymous man eliminates the figurehead of a corrupt and declining system – health insurance in the US, where a single night in a hospital can cost $2,000, and 47 million people have no health care coverage.
Mangione also has a personal backstory that fuels the myth: chronic back pain, which would place him among the many Americans burdened by medical bills and endless red tape. However, something doesn’t feel right: Mangione’s family was financially wealthy. It is rare for a wealthy person to gain sympathy unless he evades his position to defend a cause that is not a matter of survival. In his letter to the authorities, Mangione made his position clear: “These parasites just had to get there. As a reminder, the US has the most expensive healthcare system in the world, yet we rank roughly #42 in life expectancy. United is the largest company in the US by market capitalization, behind only Apple, Google and Walmart. It has grown and grown, but as our life expectancy?
“There are fictional heroes who are worse written than Mangione, who has everything,” says Paul Pen, a mystery writer who has created complex murderers with a cause in his novels (such as The infinite metamorphosis) and, like millions of Internet users, has become fascinated by this real killer. “He has charisma, intelligence, a case, a traumatic past that quickly explains his motivations, and even playful elements that make his story entertaining: bullets with words, a striking X-ray, Monopoly bills and an arrest at McDonald’s. All of this is also anchored in the modern world, making the story more accessible, complete with Goodreads reviews, Spotify playlists and even his alleged nudes.”
On social media, Mangione shared posts about his anxiety and self-care, along with photos of his travels and his body sculpted through exercise. If we can trust the information circulating online, he listened to the words of Britney Spears just hours before the murder. Criminala song with the lyrics: “Mama, I fell in love with a criminal / And this kind of love isn’t rational, it’s physical.” But whether we can believe this information is another question – and it is not wise to place too much faith in it.
Tiscar cautions against jumping to conclusions based on the immediate details provided by social media profiles, even if they appear verified. “In some cases they provide information, but excess information becomes noise,” says Tiscar. “Social media can speed up an investigation because it often makes things public that would otherwise take a long time to come to light. But it depends on how each person uses them: social media is not always a true reflection of a person, or of his life, but of what he wants to show or pretend.” Sifting through the false or exaggerated data, driven by sensationalism and the desire to turn Mangione into what the public thinks he is – whether the Swiftie Killer, the sick hero or the gay gym icon – makes it difficult to to play the amateur researcher. .
Virginia de la Cruz, co-founder of the Las amigas bastantes true crime podcast and later turned it into a book, advises aspiring crime detectives to rely on official sources — “police statements, autopsies, court reports.” She explains: “In this case, which is very new because it just happened, you have to follow the news in serious newspapers such as The Washington Postthat contain police statements, and not in newspapers that report news based on what someone has said on Twitter, for example The Daily Mail.”
There is no consensus among those interviewed on how to approach a figure like Mangione – whether it is acceptable to be fascinated by him or whether murder automatically negates any appeal. Writer Paul Pen looks at Mangione’s appearance as a murderer through a literary and cinematic lens: “Ever since the first news broke, I’ve been thinking about V for Vendetta or Joaquin Phoenix joker – because they are ordinary citizens fighting against enormous systems. Although his violence targets one specific victim, his real enemies are social injustice and the system itself.”
“I don’t think murderers generally inspire admiration among us,” Tiscar adds. ‘They arouse curiosity, a desire to understand the reasons that lead someone to murder. There are cases where we understand the reasons why someone kills without agreeing that this is the solution. In cases like Luigi Manglione or the Menendez brothers, the victims did something despicable so that we can share the anger their killers feel or think it is a just cause. They suffered injustice and took revenge. That makes it very easy to empathize.”
Virginia de la Cruz disagrees: “Luigi Mangione is a terrible person who chose to kill another human being – there is no defense for that. But the human brain often looks for convenient or sensational stories, and that’s the problem. When we are confronted with death, we ask ourselves: why? And if someone tells you: because the murderer had three nails in his back that condemned him to suffer excruciating back pain for life, we already start deducting points from the sentence. And besides, the killer is hot. And if his act is seen as an attack on the heart of the American health care system, we all applaud. But you can applaud the intention of that call to attention for a society broken by the lack of social security; you can applaud the figure of a masked avenger in the style of Robin Hood or Batman, but you can never applaud murder.”
Social media, where memes – some elegant, others hilarious or explicit – elevate Mangione to the status of a modern-day Robin Hood, seem unconcerned with the moral complexities. But it’s only been two days since his arrest. As more reports emerge, our opinion of Mangione may change. For now, we’re still admiring his abs and the green Levi’s jacket he wore in the surveillance footage that led to his identification, which has already sold out. After all, there aren’t many killers with abs, but actors portraying them in future Netflix series usually do. In that sense, Mangione might have even surpassed Ryan Murphy himself.
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