Whenever big news breaks, the internet is always there to make off-color jokes about it. But after the CEO of UnitedHealthcare, Brian Thompson, was shot and killed in New York last week, the social media reaction shocked many in the mainstream media, who said they were disturbed by the macabre jokes and often gleeful responses to a health insurance executive getting murdered.
The alleged shooter, 26-year-old Luigi Mangione, was arrested at a McDonald’s in Pennsylvania on Monday and has been charged with second-degree murder, according to a criminal complaint in New York unsealed Tuesday. And the release of Mangione’s name, combined with the setting of McDonald’s, turned what was already a meme-fest of historic proportions into a non-stop torrent of internet riffing.
Laura Ingraham of Fox News perhaps best demonstrated the scolding that was happening on TV, along with the hypocrisy that comes along with supporting your own kind of vigilante killer.
“The Instagram posts from nutbag people, which I was sent in the commercial break earlier… crazy,” Ingraham said. “Like he’s cute, he’s this… and people celebrating this. This is a sickness. Honestly, it’s so disappointing. But I guess we shouldn’t be surprised.”
Then Ingraham immediately pivoted into a killing she supported, Daniel Penny who strangled a homeless man to death on the New York subway and was acquitted of manslaughter on Monday.
“And up next, Daniel Penny, a lot of people think he’s a hero. And tonight he’s not guilty. My take next,” Ingraham said.
Ingraham: The instagram posts from nut bag people ..people celebrating. This this is a sickness, honestly, it's so disappointing, but I guess we shouldn't be surprised.. up next, the other big news out of New York, Daniel Penny, a lot of people think he is a hero. pic.twitter.com/DRi5d1QNTv
— Acyn (@Acyn) December 10, 2024
What kind of “sickness” was Ingraham referring to online? If you’ve missed it, you’re definitely living under a rock. But we’ve compiled some of the memes and jokes we’ve seen below to give you a sense of what people are talking about.
There were plenty of jokes about Luigi from Super Mario Bros., including a fake deleted tweet that was photoshopped to make it appear as though Nintendo had asked for the suspect to be released. To be clear, Nintendo didn’t send the tweet.
Nintendo was cooking why did they delete 😭 pic.twitter.com/rnwfGegJDz
— vids that go hard (@vidsthatgohard) December 10, 2024
— Anonymous (@YourAnonCentral) December 9, 2024
Then there were the jokes about the fact that Mangione was picked up at McDonald’s.
Image: Twitter
Photoshopped Burger King sign reading “ACAB includes McDonald’s”
— John “BrewersRaptor” Egan (@BrewersRaptor) December 10, 2024
Memes also pointed out other killers who were glorified in media in one way or another, including Kyle Rittenhouse, the 17-year-old who brought a gun to civil rights protests in Wisconsin and killed two people. Rittenhouse claimed self-defense and was acquitted in the murder trial.
Kyle Rittenhouse (left) and Luigi Mangione. Screenshot: Twitter
Attempted Trump assassin Thomas Matthew Crooks (left) and Luigi Mangione. Screenshot: TwitterLots of people were also joking about giving Mangione an alibi for the day of the murder.
— Gritty is the Way (@Gritty20202) December 10, 2024
There were also plenty of jokes that filled in new elements to existing memes, video trends, and cartoons.
— Comrade Sisko 🖖🏾✊🏿 (@Pinko69420) December 10, 2024
Image: Imgflip.com
THEY ARE MAKING FAN EDITS ON TIKTOK pic.twitter.com/vZlIt8TUDn
— tooth 🔆🇵🇸🇮🇪 (@toothbrushlord) December 7, 2024
The number of murder ballads on sites like TikTok has been pretty astounding, with artists like Thomas Francis and Mipso singing about the killing in a long folk tradition.
Some of the videos, like a song from musician Joe DeVito, were deleted by TikTok for “violating community guidelines,” though DeVito’s video is still available on platforms like Instagram.
DeVito confirmed to Gizmodo his video had been deleted by the platform rather than him and said he was inspired to write the song because he sees the healthcare system as a form of profiteering.
“With Brian Thompson in the news I had been thinking of the healthcare crisis in the US and realizing more and more how its just a legal form of extortion..,” DeVito told Gizmodo via email, “essentially death profiteering on the blood of lower and middle-class Americans for the benefit of the ultra-rich etc.”
There were also lots of jokes about how attractive Mangione is, something that came up again and again even before the public knew his name and could only glean what he looked like from security camera footage.
There were even crafts inspired by Mangione and his manifesto.
Image: InstagramAnd, of course, there were the conspiracy theorists on Twitter who couldn’t help but turn things even weirder by trying to find hidden messages in everything that was coming out about the murder.
There have also been memecoins that have sprouted, which is to be expected in the cryptocurrency community. Before Mangione’s name was known, we saw Deny Defend Depose-themed coins, inspired by the words he allegedly scrawled on the bullet casings found at the scene of the killing. But since Mangione’s name has become public, there are new coins that have popped up with Luigi themes.
Where does all of this go next as Mangione sits in jail? Nobody knows. It’s possible the memes die down as the next big story emerges that will become the focus of jokes and celebrations online. But it’s also possible that Mangione becomes the kind of folk hero with a very long shelf life for people who feel like they’ve been screwed by the U.S. healthcare system. And that includes so many Americans that it seems to cut across every possible demographic in this country.
The memes collected here barely scratch the surface of what’s happening right now. There are so many being shared about this killing that it’s impossible to keep up. And as more information comes out about what may have inspired someone to kill a healthcare executive, it’s very likely the internet will keep talking about it and the horrifically broken system that is healthcare in the United States.
English (US) ·