3 reasons behind the disturbing glorification of Luigi Mangione

In the days since Luigi Mangione was charged with the murder of a top executive at one of America’s largest health insurance companies, countless people online declared him a modern-day hero.

A fundraiser for his legal defense raised thousands of dollars before it was taken down. Online stores sell T-shirts bearing his face and messages such as “In this house, Luigi Mangione is a hero, end of story.” On TikTok, users posted videos with phrases like “Free my leg” and “My sympathy is for people who deserve it.”

Mangione, 26, was accused of shooting Brian Thompson, 50, from behind as he entered a midtown Manhattan hotel to prepare for his company’s annual investor conference on December 4. His lawyer said he intends to plead not guilty.

It usually goes without saying that murder is one of the most heinous crimes. Thompson’s murder certainly caused a lot of shock and anger. But experts in online communication, clinical psychology and health care reform believe there are three main reasons why many members of the public would celebrate an accused killer instead – and say some of these factors were festering in plain sight.

“I think what’s going on is pretty straightforward, almost to the point of obvious,” said George Bonanno, a professor of clinical psychology at Teachers College at Columbia University in New York City.

First: disdain for health insurance companies

The first reason is that some level of anger and frustration about the U.S. health care system “has been simmering for some time,” Bonanno said.

Americans pay more for them health care Residents of any other high-income country. But the data also shows that spending on insurance premiums, out-of-pocket costs, drugs and hospital services has risen over the past five years, according to the Associated Press.

Health insurance companies can sum up a lot of what many feel, heartless and broken about the system – they can be cold, distant and impossible to navigate in a way that can seem as if it was intentional.

Contempt is not unanimous – Public opinion polling data shows that most Americans are happy with their insurance plans -But when bitterness is present, it is deep.

“If you’re treated unfairly by the health care system, you have no recourse at all,” said Bonanno, author of “This Feeling Makes People Feel Helpless, Angry, and Desperate to Do Something.” The end of the shock.

Then “this guy comes and does it.”

Second: The CEO makes the villain easy

Given their intense disdain for insurance companies, many online saw Thompson as an easy villain and Maggione as an easy hero, Bonanno said.

“(They) were quite ripe to be complete stereotypes,” the psychologist said.

Thompson led UnitedHealthcare, which had $281 billion in revenue in 2023. His $10.2 million compensation package made him one of the company’s highest-paid executives.

“This is the CEO of one of these companies, who makes $10 million (US) a year. Then he’s shot by a young man who’s not really recognizable. (The gunman) looks kind of handsome. He’s mysterious. He got away.” “On a bike,” Bonanno said.

“It looks Robin Hood-y.”

Soon those words came out The words “delay,” “refusal,” and “deposit” were written on the shell casings It was found at the crime scene, and it mimics the title of a 2010 book: Delay, Denial, and Defense: Why Insurance Companies Don’t Pay Claims and What You Can Do About It.

The murder was also widely condemned and Pennsylvania Governor 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-age children. Andrew Witty, CEO of parent company UnitedHealth Group, described him as a humble man with working-class roots in the Midwest.

“BT, as we knew him… never forgot where he came from, because it was the needs of people living in places like Jewell, Iowa, that he first considered when finding ways to improve care,” he wrote in an op-ed. For the New York Times. He also clarified that Mangione was not a client of the company.

Former NYPD Detective Sergeant Felipe Rodriguez also condemned the online backlash in support of an accused killer.

“They made him a martyr because of all the problems people had with their insurance companies,” he told Reuters.

Third: Who is Mangione?

The online conversation about Thompson’s death took another turn Monday when the public discovered the identity of the accused killer.

Mangione can be described with a range of adjectives, including young, fit, wealthy, and male. He graduated from an elite private high school and has two Ivy League degrees. He comes from a prominent upper-class Maryland family and has maintained an active online presence.

Furthermore, he also suffered from chronic back pain that affected his daily life, according to his friends and online posts, although his specific treatment and coverage date are unclear.

“This was of course couched as one of us,” said Ioana Litrat, a communications professor at the same college where Bonanno teaches.

“One of us” as in social media user, “one of us” as a young person, and most importantly, “one of us” as someone dealing with this system that doesn’t work for ordinary people.”

The crime reflected Hollywood’s style of problem-solving: a rogue vigilante – usually a young, muscular white man – swoops in to break the rules and save the day, often accompanied by drama and violence.

Leitrat said Mangione could be seen as particularly attractive to Generation Z. Another Canadian professor who studies health care reform said Many teens and young adults in their 20s have lost trust in the societal institutions that are supposed to help them and can relate to finding justice through their own activism.

“I think youth and young adults are justifiably resentful of people in positions of power, political power, and commercial power,” said Julian Somers, a professor at Simon Fraser University in Burnaby, British Columbia.

Several experts said the reaction likely would have been different had Mangione not looked the way he did.

“In the comments, there was a deep conversation about, ‘Well, what if he was black?'” Leitrat said. What if he is poor? What if it doesn’t look like that?

Psychologist says black humor helps people cope

In his opinion piece, Whitty said he understood public frustration over the “flawed” health care system in the United States, but he mourned Thompson’s death and condemned “the vitriol directed at our colleagues who have been subjected to a barrage of threats.”

In addition to ill-wishes on insurance companies, black humor was popular online. Literat said this tone is part of the “TikTok language,” but Bonanno believes it goes deeper.

He said these jokes were a way to deal with the serious reality of what he suspected had happened in America: A person in his mid-20s felt that 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 going to go out and kill somebody, it’s not a good idea. It’s not a good precedent to set,” Bonanno said.

“Pushing it away with humor makes it easier to live with.”