The Curious Case of Luigi Mangione: The Internet Facing the Charged Shooter and the Birth of a Revolution
On Etsy, WIRED found almost 100 different listings featuring products with Mangione’s name or image. These include a tote bag featuring pictures of the alleged shooter alongside the phrase “Mama, I’m in love with a criminal” and PDF copies of a mocked-up cover of Time magazine featuring Mangione as Person of the Year and the tagline “Healthcare revolutionary, leading the charge to transform global health.”
There are many different T-shirts and hoodies for sale on the internet, some of which feature designs with the words “Free Luigi” on them.
Much of the merchandise is being sold by print-on-demand websites, which allow anyone to design and sell a range of products. On one such site, called My Porch Prints, one seller is offering a mug featuring a heart-shaped image of a topless Mangione alongside the words “I love my boyfriend.” A number of print-on-demand merchants are selling a stylized version of Luigi from Nintendo’s Mario video games holding a gun and wearing a green hoodie. Another hoodie available on multiple online stores, including one called Chill Guy, features an image of Mangione surrounded by love hearts.
The internet’s fascination with Mangione, who has good looks and a privileged background but is accused of a high-profile murder in broad daylight, have earned him fans who want to cash in. The fascination with Mangione is a worrying trend, researchers claim, which shows behavior that used to be confined to the fringes of the internet becoming mainstream.
Within hours of Luigi Mangione being charged with the murder of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson on Monday, online stores were flooded with T-shirts, hoodies, mugs, stickers, and other merchandise praising the alleged shooter and phrases like “In this house, Luigi Mangione is.” End of story.”
Some people decided to dedicate the songs to the shooter on TikTok. The backpack found in Central Park with Monopoly money that was thought to have belonged to Bluesky, was one of the things that they marveled over on Bluesky. There was a contest in New York. On Spotify, there were dedicated playlists. Fanfic sprung up on Archive of Our Own.
Online, fans exist for almost everything and everyone. The suspected murderer of Brian Thompson appeared to be unifying in a way that few others have been. He became an avatar that anyone who’d ever struggled with a hospital bill could understand.
Alex Goldenberg, a senior adviser for the NCRI, told The New York Times that he was disturbed by the fact that mass shooters and other perpetrators of violence are now commonly referred to as meme. People reacted to the death of Thompson like it signaled the start of a class war.
