If your social feeds are anything like mine, Luigi Mangione will have become a series regular in your digital life. The 26-year-old is accused of killing United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson in New York City last December. Yet his role in my online playground has been, at large, very unserious, in comparison to the reason he’s cast in it.
Ever since his arrest, I’ve seen him depicted as a saint, his face emblazoned onto merch, nail art, and countless memes. He even has his own extremely silly internet soundtrack. Mangione’s meme-ification has spread offline, too. A slideshow of his photos was played at a club night in Boston; ‘Free Luigi’ posters and graffiti have appeared in cities around the world, and even before Mangione’s identity was revealed, lookalike contests were held in the then-unknown suspect’s honour.
In short, Mangione has become a cultural phenomenon. But beyond the frivolous furore, interest in — and support for — Mangione goes much deeper. And, despite living thousands of miles away in a country with ostensibly free healthcare, as I got deeper into this particular rabbit hole, my fascination with the case only grew. The longer I spent in forums and on, let’s call it, LuigiTok, the more I noticed a disconnect between the reality of Mangione’s support and the mainstream conversations about it. A disconnect — between the people and the establishment that governs them — that likely led to this crime in the first place.
Mangione’s case is a symbol of a corporate world that prioritises profit over people in every system — healthcare, justice, media — that’s supposedly meant to serve the people. Mangione, then, is more to his supporters than a defendant in a murder trial. He’s become a lightning rod in a quest for, as People Over Profit NYC (an organisation calling for healthcare reform) puts it, “accountability, fairness, and justice”.
And so, I wanted to find out what Mangione’s status as an online phenomenon says about our current relationship to, and faith in, power — and whether feeling ignored, censored, or misrepresented by the media is only serving to galvanise Mangione’s supporters.
But there was a hurdle: these supporters — understandably — don’t want to talk to journalists.
‘The media has done enough damage already’
I’ve reached out to a few Mangione supporters on the 37k-strong r/FreeLuigi subreddit, and I’m checking to see if any of them have replied when a familiar post catches my eye. Someone I DM’d has shared a screenshot of my message. “I am NOT interested in answering her questions,” they wrote alongside it. “Maybe the article won’t even be that bad, but I don’t trust that shit.”
This scepticism was echoed in the comments. “Journalists will twist your words for headlines and clicks,” one person replied. “The media can kindly **** off, as they have done enough damage already and cannot be trusted,” said another.
One person who was willing to talk to me was 32-year-old Naomi*, who recently moved to the UK from the US. “This is a sensitive topic for Americans,” she tells me via Reddit DM. “And the media keeps pushing a false narrative about why Luigi’s supported. That’s why I hesitated to answer your questions.”
In fairness, r/FreeLuigi’s members have little reason to trust journalists. The tabloids have so far described supporters as ‘twisted’, ‘sick’, ‘fawning’, ‘disgusting’, and part of a ‘gross… cult’. Sensationalised stories are regurgitated with what appears to be very little, if any, fact-checking, while headlines cherry-pick or misframe stories, statements, and events related to Mangione’s case.
Admittedly, there has been a lot of thirst around Mangione. Every time a new photo of him emerges, the internet goes into a frenzy (the police could be partly to blame for this, staging seemingly endless photoshoots after Mangione’s arrest and then perp-walking him like a comic book hero). And there’s no denying that Mangione’s looks and background have boosted interest in the case (and have been exploited, as a recent viral story about Mangione’s alleged sex tapes — later debunked by his lawyer — proves).
Mangione’s most prominent supporters acknowledge this. “Whether it’s the algorithm or implicit bias, when I post a video about a white person, it gets infinitely more views, shares, likes, and comments,” says Lindsy Floyd, an advocate for prison reform who’s become one of the leading TikTokers in relation to Mangione’s case, posting under the alias Renegade for Justice (57k followers). “If Mangione was not a good looking white boy, we would not be having these same conversations.”
But, she adds: “The media is casting us either as silly little fan girls or wicked villains who want violence and chaos.”
Mangione’s looks are a double-edged sword, simultaneously keeping eyes on him, while also belittling the reason many people are looking. “The media has wilfully ignored people’s grievances with the system, reducing coverage and commentary to incriminate Luigi and dismiss his supporters,” says a spokesperson for People Over Profit NYC. Mangione himself reportedly suffered with debilitating back pain, owing to a spinal condition called spondylolisthesis; it’s been suggested that this could be the motive for his alleged crime.
Yet Mangione’s supporters are adamant that the wool won’t be pulled over their eyes. At the time of writing, more than 22,000 people have donated to a defence fundraiser set up for him, including two top donations of $36.5k (£28k) $30k (£23k). Last month, Mangione officially accepted the donations towards his legal costs.
“People interested in this case aren’t just edgelords,” says 30-year-old Harper* from London. “For me, it’s that people feel so nihilistic right now about the state of the world — in part because the systems that oppress us feel so faceless, impenetrable, and indifferent — and this act of violence reminded them that those systems are just made up by people, and that people are the weakest link within them.”
“I’m not saying that I want this to lead to more murders, because I definitely don’t, but I do think that people are finding hope in this case,” they continue. “It’s driving discussion around how we can [exploit] the weak points in the systems that are killing us — whether through healthcare, climate change, or poverty — and [utilise that for change].”
It’s this that’s leading people all over the world to write to Mangione, too: to share their own experiences of corruption that almost — or did — cost them or their loved ones their lives. “Health insurance and healthcare bills affect everyone in America, left or right,” says Naomi. “We are all fed up with corporate greed — and that’s what this conversation should be about.”
Sick systems
Here in the UK, we have free healthcare. It’s not perfect — the NHS has been underfunded for over a decade, leading to understaffing, a shortage of beds and equipment, and record-high waiting lists, especially for women’s healthcare. But we’re lucky it exists.
In the US, things are very different. People have three options: to pay for health insurance out of their own pocket, through their employer, or, if insurance itself is unaffordable, to be uninsured and therefore face prohibitive costs if they get sick or injured.
According to Forbes, the average cost of health insurance in the US is currently $635 (£495) per month, or, if you’re covered through work, around $150 (£117) a month, with employers contributing a monthly average of $518 (£404). Even if you are insured, there’s another hurdle to face: your insurer might not pay up. In 2023, roughly one in five Americans had their provider refuse to pay for care recommended by a doctor. And United Healthcare — the largest healthcare company in the US — has the highest rate of claim denials.
Naomi, like many Americans who are sympathetic to the motivations of Thompson’s killer, has experienced the injustice of her home country’s healthcare industry firsthand. “My mum died of terminal cancer,” she tells me. “When she was first diagnosed, her insurance company basically said they wouldn’t cover her treatment because she was so sick that she was going to die anyway. She only lived two years after that.”
After the insurance company (not United Healthcare) denied her treatments, a family friend who worked at the company “secretly reversed some of the denials”. “This person would have been fired if their boss found out,” she explains. “American healthcare viewed my mum as a number on a balance sheet.”
When Thompson was killed, adds Naomi, “it felt like someone finally took a stand against the abusive health insurance industry that tried to kill my mother before even giving her a chance to fight.”
In a poll conducted in December, 41% of 19 to 29-year-olds agreed that Thompson’s killing was ‘acceptable’ or ‘somewhat acceptable’, while another poll found that 70% of people said ‘denials for healthcare coverage by health insurance companies’ shared ‘a great deal’ or a ‘moderate amount’ of responsibility for Thompson’s murder.
That a man had to die before many corners of society took notice of this issue is devastating, and violence is never the answer. But many Mangione supporters note that this isn’t the only violence that has occurred — it’s just the most visible.
“If there are 68,000 Americans dying every year in preventable deaths because of insurance negligence, then we need to be having a conversation about that,” Floyd says. “It’s a tragedy that the family of Brian Thompson is grieving. [It’s a tragedy] that 68,000 people’s families are grieving. Once we’ve talked about them and how their deaths were preventable, then we’ll get to Brian Thompson.”
A vessel for rage
Even in the UK, those who’ve struggled with their health may be more likely to support Mangione. Harper, for example, suffers from a chronic pain disorder. “A lot of people who don’t experience chronic pain don’t understand,” they explain. “When you’re in a state of desperation, the frustration of interacting with a healthcare system that can feel so indifferent but also callous towards you is a dehumanising experience.”
Conversations about systems that don’t appear to care if you live or die is particularly stark in the UK right now, with the Labour government announcing major cuts to health and disability benefits. It’s estimated this will lead to 3.2 million families losing on average £1,720 per year, with 250,000 more people, including 50,000 children, being pushed into relative poverty.
“The difference between killing someone in the street with a gun and killing someone by denying their healthcare is purely linguistic,” Harper insists.
These are radicalising times; there is a lot of rage at the current status quo and the establishment that upholds it. And from speaking to his supporters on both sides of the Atlantic, it’s clear that Mangione’s case has become a vessel for that rage.
The 26-year-old is currently facing three murder charges for one alleged crime, including one ‘as an act of terrorism’, which could potentially carry the death penalty. He won’t be seen again in public until his next hearing on 26 June. But those in his corner know the discourse around him will continue to build.
“There’s such a widespread understanding for Luigi’s story,” says Sam Beard, spokesperson for the December 4th Legal Committee, which set up the legal fundraiser. “The elites of the world — the billionaire class, the political class, and the CEOs specifically — are scared by the widespread support. And that’s precisely why the state is coming down so hard on him.”
Lore and order
It would be easy to dismiss the interest in Mangione as another example of the Netflix-ication of crime stories, which sees armchair detectives and internet sleuths obsessing over trying to decipher clues and solve crimes, even as they’re happening.
There is, of course, an element of this in the CEO assassin case, heightened by the fact that the killer carved the words ‘delay’, ‘deny’, and ‘depose’ onto the bullets and allegedly left a bag filled with Monopoly money in the park. When you list that all out, it does sound like a crime designed for Netflix.
But none of these things would be noteworthy if the perceived motive wasn’t a feeling that so many people share: total disillusionment with the people, structures, and systems that govern our lives, an understanding that it doesn’t have to be this way, but a desperate helplessness in the face of it.
“You can only stay oppressed for so long,” concludes Floyd, capturing the outlook of Mangione’s supporters. “And then you either break — or you break the system that is breaking you.”
*Names have been changed
