Luigi has become a folk hero of sorts, a villain, a thirst trap, and of course, a meme. The story behind the "Giga Chad Luigi" meme is complex, intertwining real-world events, social media trends, and deeper political sentiments. Understanding its rise requires examining the context from which it emerged.
The Incident and the Individual
The morning of December 4th 2024, Brian Thompson, CEO of United Healthcare, was shot and killed outside a hotel in Midtown Manhattan. Five days later, on the 9th, the suspected shooter was arrested and arraigned at a McDonald’s on East Plank Rd in Altoona Pennsylvania-after a worker called 911 on him. His name, as we all know, is Luigi Mangione. Ten days after that, Luigi pleaded “not guilty” to New York and Pennsylvania State, as well as federal criminal charges including murder and terrorism.
When police looked at the bullet casings from the attack, they found the words “deny,” “defend,” and “depose”-tactics used by the healthcare industry to avoid paying insurance claims-etched into them. It was a McDonald’s employee who phoned in the tip that led to Mangione’s arrest, according to police. Something about the shooting felt intertwined with my life from the outset - possibly because it occurred not far from buildings where I’ve worked in Midtown Manhattan, or because it was the CEO of the insurance company I receive care through who was killed.
The targeted killing was also the first instance of a sensationalized crime I could link my social circles to through social media. When Mangione was charged with the healthcare executive’s murder, I found his Instagram and quickly discovered mutual connections. These are tangential and imagined connections, but a phenomenon arises from the knowledge that the alleged killer is a member of the Gen-Z generation: Young people feel closer to a suspected killer who once occupied their same digital subcultures than they do to the slain executive of a massive corporation. Emerging from that sentiment is a humor that has fascinated the media.
The Spark: Images from the Security Apparatus
The most viral meme images of Mangione, the alleged shooter of that healthcare CEO, came from the security apparatus which caught him. Authorities have released several images of Mangione in custody. We have the original security camera footage in which, according to lore, he was flirting with a blue-haired Starbucks barista; the mug shot where he’s perhaps mewing but definitely mogging; and more recently the melodramatic perp walk with Eric Adams. These images became the basis for viral memes.
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All these Luigi pics from the police came with a baked-in prescription for how the public should interpret them. By steadfastly refusing to read these images the way authority wanted them to be read, and proudly proclaiming their counter-readings through memes, posters performed a kind of civil disobedience. Remixing a mugshot into a thirst trap or beatific portrait of a saint is a potent gesture, and it’s only possible when an image is so obviously tailored to mean another way.
Healthcare Context and Public Sentiment
In 2024, UnitedHealth Group was the world’s 8th largest company in the world by revenue at a staggering $371.6 billion. It also denies more insurance claims than any other insurer. Medicare Advantage is a supplement to Medicare where private insurers will provide patients with additional care not covered by base-medicare. Medicare pays those insurers to cover healthy individuals, as well as additional taxpayer dollars per diagnosis-regardless of whether or not they get treated. A key component of this plan is that it allows for both doctors and representatives of private insurers to make diagnoses individually.
Many Americans would like to see a European or Scandinavian-style single-payer system, and/or are increasingly frustrated with a government that empowers elected officials who seem not to represent the best interests of their constituents, and whose wealth makes them appear out of touch and ignorant of the daily realities of the working class.
Seemingly devoid of sympathy for the CEO’s death, memes glorifying Mangione alternatively function as symbols of mass solidarity with those who have died as a result of inadequate healthcare access. Thompson’s killing brought healthcare, which was rarely discussed in this year’s presidential debates, briefly into the feeds of millions of Americans.
Public opinion about Luigi Mangione does seem to diverge based on age and political affiliation, but not as much as you’d think. There, supporters found images of him available to be screenshotted and photoshopped, as well as lusted after. The theory is that his supporters might extend to his fellow inmates. If true, it was a result of fellow prisoners sending a message to the correctional officers that they were protecting him.
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And speaking of eyebrows, many people online who legitimately think he didn’t do it-often based their conclusions on comparisons of those eyebrows picture to picture-if the brow don’t fit you must acquit. “One hell of a movement slogan”
The Meme as a Form of Civil Disobedience
Part of what attracts me to this reading is it shifts focus away from the violence which Mangione allegedly committed and to the nonviolent actions of citizens. What makes this a cultural event isn’t that somebody killed a CEO, but that millions of people refused to respond the way they were supposed to respond. That refusal was signaled through memes and this is neither the first nor last time memes play that role. Guiding, anticipating, and conditioning public response to events is a major piece of governance.
Looking at history, what permitted the murderous for-profit healthcare system to bloom was the normalization of its brutality by the entities charged with narrating society’s story. I use the word “entities” in the last paragraph, having backspaced “people,” because I don’t think this situation is the result of only people but also institutions and technologies. I choose the word “normalization” because nobody was convinced by the media that the healthcare system worked, just that it was normal and impossible to change, a kind of natural disaster rather than a long and cruel con. The way it was talked about helped keep it going.
I’m saying memes - and the Luigi memes in particular - are an instrument for interrupting the normal process of telling society’s story. I’m also saying this disruption is direct political action because while the media is not formally part of the government, setting and sustaining narratives is a part of how societies are governed - and since the narrative is now set by what people post and share rather than what news outlets tell them, posting is more important than most people are ready to admit. The way we talk about things becomes the way they are.
The core cognitive maneuver of most memes is looking at somebody else’s looking. Whether it’s an image you’re recaptioning to mean something new, an audio you’re lip-synching to make a statement about your own life, or a character you’re ironically venerating, the relation that is most vibrant and meaningful is the one between the current speaker and other imagined or past speakers rather than the one between the speaker and the subject at hand.
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Smartly reframing a piece of media gets you more eyeballs and more money than smartly reporting it. The game of the news is about shuffling these screens, reinterpreting, and reframing - and the reinterpretation of the Luigi memes, by asserting the authority of interface over the institutional authority of the police or the media, is a way to shift the narrative in a new direction and attack a load-bearing post that holds up the for-profit healthcare system and the oligarchy more broadly. Many people online applaud this move, and rightfully so.
Almost immediately following Thompson’s murder, X users drew attention to an Anthem Blue Cross policy update that sought to place limits on coverage for anesthesia. Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield, obviously spooked, backtracked a decision they were about to make, which would have stopped anesthesia coverage after a procedure ran over a certain arbitrary amount of time. And the irony of gun violence preventing harm was not lost on anyone.
Luigi Mangione-inspired memes resurge following death of Blackstone executive in NYC shooting
Last week, I made a video discussing the memes around Luigi Mangione and what they tell us about the structure of politics happening on social media. More than most videos I’ve made for the Tok, this one led to interesting comments and exchanges. I would like to dilate on this post (isn’t that a wonderful old-fashioned way to use the verb “dilate” - we gotta bring that back in 2025!) and get more in-depth on what I said.
The release of Magione’s identity sparked commentary praising his appearance. This image and others like it compare Luigi Mangione to Jesus. Certo. The only thing missing is Moo Deng. Isa Farfan is a staff reporter for Hyperallergic.
| Aspect | Details |
|---|---|
| Event | Brian Thompson, CEO of United Healthcare, killed. Luigi Mangione arrested. |
| Images | Security footage, mugshot, perp walk photos released. |
| Public Reaction | Memes emerge, often glorifying Mangione and criticizing the healthcare system. |
| Political Context | Frustration with for-profit healthcare and government policies. |
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