3 reasons behind the unsettling glorification of Luigi Mangione
'I think it’s straightforward what’s happening, almost to the point of being obvious,' professor says
In the days since Luigi Mangione was charged with killing the top executive at one of the largest health insurers in America, an untold number of people online have declared him a modern-day hero.
A fundraiser for his legal defence raised thousands of dollars before being removed. Online stores are selling T-shirts bearing his face and messages like, "In This House, Luigi Mangione Is A Hero, End of Story." On TikTok, users posted videos with phrases like "free my man" and "my empathy is reserved for people who deserve it."
Mangione, 26, is accused of shooting Brian Thompson, 50, from behind as he walked into a midtown Manhattan hotel to prepare for his company's annual investors' conference on Dec. 4. His lawyer said he plans to plead not guilty.
It usually goes without saying that murder is one of the most reprehensible crimes. And Thompson's killing has certainly sparked plenty of shock and outrage. But experts in online communication, clinical psychology and health-care reform believe there are three key reasons so many other members of the public seem to be celebrating an accused killer instead — and they say some of those factors have been festering in plain sight.
"I think it's straightforward what's happening, almost to the point of being obvious," said George Bonanno, a clinical psychology professor at Columbia University's Teachers College in New York City.
First: A disdain for health insurers
The first reason, Bonanno said, is that some level of anger and frustration with the U.S. health-care system "has been boiling for some time."
Americans pay more for their health care than residents of any other high-income country. But data also shows spending on insurance premiums, out-of-pocket costs, pharmaceuticals and hospital services has all risen over the last five years, according to The Associated Press.
Health insurance companies can encapsulate so much of what feels, to many, heartless and broken about the system — they can be cold, remote and impossible to navigate in a way that can seem as though it's on purpose.
The disdain isn't unanimous — public-opinion polling data shows most Americans are pleased with their insurance plans — but when the bitterness is there, it's visceral.
"If you're treated unjustly by the health-care system, you have no recourse at all.… That feeling makes people feel helpless and angry and have desires of doing something," said Bonanno, author of The End of Trauma.
Then, "this guy comes along and does it."
Second: A CEO makes an easy villain
With their seething contempt for insurance companies in mind, Bonanno said, many online saw Thompson as an easy villain and Mangione as an easy hero.
"[They] were absolutely ripe to be complete stereotypes," the psychologist said.
Thompson led UnitedHealthcare, which brought in $281 billion US in revenue in 2023. His own compensation package, worth $10.2 million US, made him one of the company's highest-paid executives.
"Here's the CEO of one of these companies, who makes $10 million [US] a year. And then he's shot by a young person that isn't really identifiable. [The gunman] looks kind of handsome. He's mysterious. He gets away on a bicycle," Bonanno said.
"It seemed very Robin Hood-y."
It soon came out that the words "delay," "deny" and "depose" were on shell casings found at the murder scene, mimicking the title of a 2010 book: Delay, Deny, Defend: Why Insurance Companies Don't Pay Claims and What You Can Do About It.
The killing was also widely condemned and Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro said the glory directed at the shooter was "deeply disturbing."
Thompson, who lived in Minnesota, left behind a wife and two high school-aged children. Andrew Witty, CEO of parent firm UnitedHealth Group, called him a humble man with working-class Midwest roots.
"B.T., as we knew him … never forgot where he came from, because it was the needs of people who live in places like Jewell, Iowa, that he considered first in finding ways to improve care," he wrote in an op-ed for the New York Times. He also clarified Mangione wasn't one of the company's customers.
Former NYPD detective sergeant Felipe Rodriguez also condemned the online reaction supporting an accused killer.
"They've made him a martyr for all the troubles people have had with their own insurance companies," he told Reuters.
Third: Who Mangione is
The online conversation around Thompson's death took another turn on Monday when the public found out the accused killer's identity.
Mangione can be described with a host of adjectives, among them young, fit, wealthy and male. The valedictorian of an elite private high school with two Ivy League degrees, he comes from a prominent upper-class family in Maryland and maintained an active presence online.
On top of that, he also suffered from chronic back pain that impacted his daily life, according to friends and online posts, though his specific treatment and coverage history is unclear.
"This, of course, is framed as, 'He's one of us,'" said Ioana Literat, a communications professor at the same college as Bonanno.
"'One of us' as in a social media user, 'one of us' as a young person and, very importantly, 'one of us' as someone that is dealing with this system that doesn't work for regular people."
And the crime mirrored the Hollywood method of solving problems: A rogue vigilante — usually a young, muscular, white man — swoops in to break the rules and save the day, often with drama and violence laid on thick.
Literat said Mangione could be considered particularly appealing to Gen Z. Another Canadian professor who studies health-care reform said many teenagers and 20-somethings have lost faith in the societal institutions that are supposed to help them and could relate to finding justice through their own activism.
"Youth and young adults are, I think, justifiably resentful of people in positions of power, political power, commercial power," said Julian Somers, a professor at Simon Fraser University in Burnaby, B.C.
Several experts said the reaction would likely have been different if Mangione didn't look the way he does.
"In the comments, there was a deep conversation about 'Well, what if he was Black? What if he was poor? What if he didn't look like that?'" Literat said.
Dark humour helps people cope, psychologist says
In his opinion piece, Witty said he understood public frustrations with the "flawed" U.S. health-care system, but mourned Thompson's death and condemned the "vitriol that has been directed at our colleagues who have been barraged by threats."
In addition to ill wishes for insurers, dark humour has been common online. Literat said that tone is part of "the language of TikTok," but Bonanno believed it goes deeper.
He said those jokes are a way to cope with the grave reality of what's suspected to have unfolded in America: Someone in their mid-20s felt the only solution to a common American pain point was to shoot another human being — a married father of two — in cold blood on a public sidewalk.
"The idea that if we're not happy, we're gonna go out and kill someone, it's not a good thought. It's not a good precedent to be endorsing," said Bonanno.
"Pushing it away with humour makes it easier to live with that."
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