In the days after a hooded gunman shot and killed UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson in midtown Manhattan, people on the Internet speculated endlessly about the gunman’s identity and motive. Perhaps he was an aspiring folk hero suffering from delusions of grandeur, or a red-pilled mansphere type yearning for power and vengeance – or he was a left-wing vigilante fighting an unjust system.
That was until authorities announced they had arrested Luigi Mangioni, a 26-year-old data engineer, and a complicated portrait began to emerge. Journalists and online sleuths quickly dug into his background, talking to friends and relatives and discovering his alleged accounts on social media platforms like X, Reddit and Goodreads. Raised in a wealthy real estate family in Maryland, Glutton was present A prestigious private high school, where he was valedictorian, and went on to study computer science at the University of Pennsylvania. He was a frat at an Ivy League school and Enjoyed an active social life. He has worked as a teaching assistant at Stanford’s AI and Video Game Studio Civilization VI.
On an X account believed to be his, he follows podcasters Joe Rogan and Andrew Huberman, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, biologist Richard Dawkins, social psychologist Jonathan Haidt, Vox co-founder Ezra Klein. Prominent personalities in Pro-Technology “Effective Acceleration” Like the community @BasedBeffJesus (real name: Guillaume Verdon) on GoodreadsHe is listed among them beloved Like self-help tomes Atomic practice And 4 hour work weeklike classic brave new worldand nonfiction bestsellers The Omnivore’s Dilemma And sapiens.
His recent posts and retweets indicate an interest in pop science, anti-establishment sentiment, Effective altruism and self-improvement, as well as concerns about men Unlimited access to pornographyDeclining marriage and birth rates, and simultaneously skepticism and optimism about rapidly evolving technology.
or, as Described by Max Read Worldview: “It’s a mish-mash of loudly nonpartisan, self-consciously ‘rational’ decadent conservatism, brother science And bro-history, simultaneous techno-optimism and techno-pessimism, and the stoicism of self-improvement — not left-wing, but not (yet) reactionary,” he writes. “The bottom line is something like this: The world is getting worse and phones are killing us; Politics can’t save us but technology can. Meanwhile, lift weights, take supplements, listen to podcasts.“
If what he uses online isn’t a complete picture of the average American citizen, many can find something to agree with.
Not the media diet of radical men we’ve seen commit brazen violence in this country over the past decade. It’s a far cry from the misogynistic incel ideology that drove Elliot Rodger to kill six people, or the white supremacist motivations of Dylann Roof, who killed nine. Mangione’s media consumption is, in fact, oddly typical, especially for 20-something Americans. If what he uses online isn’t a complete picture of the average American citizen, many can find something to agree with. Rather than aligning with an ideology that strongly believes in something, it is defined by it lack of Belief in the existing system. Like many young people, Mangioni seemed “blackpiled,” which is Internet parlance for saying he was generally pessimistic about the state of the world and willing to go to extremes to do something about it.
The most important element of Mangion’s worldview must have seemed to be a deep hatred of the American health care system. “The United States has the #1 most expensive health care system in the world, yet we rank roughly #42 in life expectancy,” he wrote in his essay. The alleged manifesto. “They continue to abuse our country for huge profits because the American public has let them get away with it.”
It’s also a view that crosses the left-right spectrum: While some on the left advocate a single-payer, Medicare-for-all health care system, movements like RFK Jr.’s “Make America Healthy Again” have found pharmaceutical, Criticisms of factory farming and public health industries have a strange resonance on the left and right. A large segment of Americans feel deeply alienated and frustrated by the US health care system, its high costs, and its byzantine bureaucratic approach to covering costs.
Americans seem to be increasingly blackpilled
The problem isn’t just health care or youth: All Americans increasingly find themselves in a nihilistic mood. Many of us, in other words, seem to have taken the black pill. Although idea Hailing from the proudly misogynistic manosphere, “black pill” is now increasingly used to depict the general disillusionment and nihilism shared by many Americans.
They are fed up with the economy, and feeling pessimistic about climate change, the dating market and their own loneliness. they are Losing faith in almost every major US institutionFrom public school systems to police departments, the military, unions, organized religion, and, of course, the media. It’s no wonder that more people are gravitating to influencers and online pundits — the ones Mangione apparently followed — who reflect their doubts and frustrations in a way that feels satisfying and authentic. Many of these people don’t even come across as particularly extreme; They simply embody the spirit of self-reliance and simplicity that people are hungry to hear.
Anti-capitalism Emotions are heightened on platforms like TikTok in recent years (and therefore has a satire-influenced brand of MAGA conservatism). Meanwhile, an entire generation — Mangione’s — has been dubbed “Dumers” thanks to the demographic-wide belief that “Humanity is destroyed”
Much of that anger has been exploited by bad-faith actors with massive online followings who tell their followers that the real problem is feminism, or immigrants, or “wokeness.” But it’s also evident in less extreme online spaces. You can see it in regular people’s reactions to events like Thompson’s murder, which have been met with a flood of memes, jokes, disciplinary readings, and contests that look like Mangione dominated.
While the euphoric public response was seen as shocking and uncomfortable in some corners, it’s not necessarily surprising how many people believed there was nothing to do but burn it down. Even the reelection of a president who is himself a mess of ideological conflicts reflects this particular national mood. In that sense, Mangione’s politics are particularly reflective of where the country is now — and perhaps more familiar than many of us would like to admit.
