Deny, Defend, Depose, Slay: How Luigi Mangione Became a Thirst Trap

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When I started following “Latinas for Mangione” on Instagram, I expected news on Luigi Mangione’s ongoing federal and state cases, after spending a few months fascinated with Mangione’s alleged murder of United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson. What I didn’t expect was photos of Mangione as a child, accompanied by weirdly parasocial captions, and videos of him in college with comments about how sexy his voice is.

In a predictable turn of events in late technofascist surveillance capitalism, Mangione’s alleged crime—once understood by much of the public as a response to the inherently exploitative American healthcare system—has become depoliticized. Parasocial fandoms have stripped the assassination of its meaning while unfortunately becoming an essential part in how Mangione is raising funds and public support for his legal defense.

As an accused murderer that brought class inequality and exploitation undeniably to the fore, Mangione has attracted the wrath of society’s upper echelons, which have tried their best to make an example of the 27-year-old University of Pennsylvania graduate for anybody who might think class war is an effective strategy out of the mess in which we currently find ourselves. What started as a class-conscious discussion about health care corporations killing the American people for profit soon became a Robin Hood-esque hero worship that warped interest in the case into stan culture, one that unfortunately echoes the American obsession with true crime and alleged murderers over their real victims: the American people.

The Latinas for Mangione account, like many other pro-Mangione online spaces, oscillates between advocacy for a fair trial for Mangione, as the Trump administration seeks the death penalty in court and state prosecutors release evidence to turn the public against the defendant, and fandom-like posts about Mangione’s (admittedly very good) looks and (mostly speculated about) character. Photos of Mangione as a child are posted periodically with frankly bizarre captions: “Time has passed, but Luigi Mangione remains that genuine person who has always known how to give his best.”

The emphasis on the ethnic identity of this particular fan account feels like an entrenchment of an ethnic group that is currently under attack by the same fascist government attempting to deliver the death penalty in Mangione’s trial. There is, of course, a class relation between Latina women’s current vulnerabilities and the private health care industry Mangione allegedly attacked. But this parallel is not being discussed anywhere on the account.

What started as a class-conscious discussion about health care corporations killing the American people for profit soon became a Robin Hood-esque hero worship that warped interest in the case into stan culture.

Mangione fandom accounts also share communication from Mangione to his fans. On the week of Fourth of July, ”The Luigi Case,” which claims to be an independent source of information about the case rather than another devotee, received a letter from the man himself. In the beginning of June, Latinas for Mangione shared a letter where Mangione namechecked the group with his gratitude. Latinas for Mangione also shares catalogue updates of the mail Mangione receives in prison, but it’s unclear how that information is obtained by whoever runs the account.

The Flytrap reached out to both Mangione’s legal team and to Latinas for Mangione to better understand the relationship between the two, but received no response.

Much like the fan activism we have seen emerge in the last few years, the Mangione fandom organizes itself behind a parasocial relationship to an idol (Mangione) to achieve a goal the whole fanbase agrees to (paying for Mangione’s defense fund).

"I am overwhelmed by - and grateful for - everyone who has written [to] me to share their stories and express their support,” Mangione wrote in a message on his legal team’s website. “Powerfully, this support has transcended political, racial, and even class divisions, as mail has flooded MDC [the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn] from across the country, and around the globe. While it is impossible for me to reply to most letters, please know that I read every one that I receive. Thank you again to everyone who took the time to write. I look forward to hearing more in the future."

Parasocial or not, creepy or not, Mangione needs the support of the people to get himself out of a potential death penalty for an alleged crime with which much of the American public has empathized, given that so many people living in America have been forced to resort to online fundraising to pay medical bills as a result of a lacking and exploitative health care system. Consequently, Mangione and his legal team have largely leaned into the hype, issuing public-facing statements that are focused on Mangione’s defense and also liaising directly with groups raising funds for the defendant. His legal team has been so overwhelmed with donations and inquiries that it had to build a website for communications with the fandom, complete with case updates and information about the attorneys defending Mangione.

It seems we are all trapped in a system where basic rights—in this case, a fair trial and a means to pay for a good defense, though the same could apply to affordable or free health care—are dependent on your ability to win a popularity contest on the internet.

The fan activism surrounding his public image, as necessary as it seems to attain his freedom, has detracted from the cause as Mangione defines it. As the alleged original manifesto defends: “Frankly, these parasites simply had it coming. A reminder: the US has the #1 most expensive healthcare system in the world, yet we rank roughly #42 in life expectancy.”

I have a lot of sympathy for Mangione, and I hope he is proven innocent. If only we could back up and harness the horny momentum of Mangione fans into an actual movement for free, accessible health care, we could save ourselves.

It seems we are all trapped in a system where basic rights—in this case, a fair trial and a means to pay for a good defense, though the same could apply to affordable or free health care—are dependent on your ability to win a popularity contest on the internet.

He Had It Coming, But Can We Unpack Why?

When Thompson was shot and killed in Manhattan in December of last year, the probable motivations quickly became clear to most Americans as they watched the ensuing manhunt for the culprit. The struggle of becoming sick or injured in the United States and having to navigate exorbitant health care costs and bureaucracy is all too common for people who live—and die—in the United States.

As a part of the largest health care conglomerate in the country, Thompson’s United Healthcare has a long history of denying claims for necessary procedures or medications—a history of medical debt and premature death that people started to share on social media as soon as Thompson’s alleged murder hit the news. There was a general understanding that people had good reasons to hate these companies and the people who run them, even by the companies themselves who rushed to remove photos and names of company leaders from their corporate websites and decided to rethink their risk assessment strategies for their top executives.

As the police arrested Mangione, who had struggled with chronic back pain for years, testimonies about how health care companies have destroyed lives, emptied savings, and created insurmountable debt and poverty flooded social media platforms. It’s safe to say that there was a large amount of sympathy for whoever the alleged murderer turned out to be because we all inherently understood why someone would assassinate the CEO of a company that regularly denies care to its customers, a company that became a stand-in for the biggest villain of American modern life: private health care. It was the closest we’ve ever been to mass class consciousness.

As shocking as Thompson’s killing on a sidewalk of New York City was, it turned out that there was a sizable part of the population that believed he had it coming.

The conversations I was having on and off social media before Mangione’s arrest were elucidating, getting to conclusions that are necessary if there is any hope to fix a private health care system. In technofascist capitalism, we often acknowledge the immoral rich people who rule over us—but this was different.

We have failed monumentally to stay focused on what the murder of Thompson communicated: People who profit off the stripping of our rights should be held responsible for the lives they decided matter less than a company’s profit.

When Thompson was killed, mainstream media struggled to contain what was obvious for all to see: Thompson’s job was to kill people through the maximization of profits of United Healthcare, which requires the denial of health care for millions of people. Because of Thompson’s management, people who were denied coverage have died. People who were left with insurmountable debt died by suicide. In the middle of a manhunt for a “murderer,” isn’t it natural to wonder why people like Thompson are not liable for homicide charges?

We have failed monumentally to stay focused on what the murder of Thompson communicated: People who profit off the stripping of our rights should be held responsible for the lives they decided matter less than a company’s profit. There are real people behind this system, and they could stand to be afraid of the majority of the population that sustains and produces their wealth. U.S. society’s failure is a testament to how good the technofascist capitalist system is at taking genuine concerns and transforming them into consumption—be that of online content or actual products—that depoliticizes radical critiques.

This is what we lose when we give into the individualist cult of personality around Mangione. No matter who the killer may be, if their motive was indeed to protest the injustices of the health care system, they must be disappointed by how the public has turned to adore and thirst after Mangione rather than articulate a wider demand for change in the American health ”care” system. This is the cost of focusing on a person rather than the issue behind that person. While mainstream media has characterized the Mangione fandom as “dark” and “fanatical,” bemoaning how sick people are for defending the murder of a father of two, my critique is that the cult of personality around Mangione is detracting from the matter at hand: the inherently oppressive, exploitative, and murderous private health care system of the United States of America.

This piece was edited by s.e. smith and copyedited by Christine Grimaldi.