Within hours of Luigi Mangione being charged with the murder of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson on Monday, online stores were flooded with T-shirts, hoodies, mugs, stickers, and other merchandise praising the alleged shooter and featuring phrases like: “In this house, Luigi Mangione is a hero. End of story.”
On Etsy, WIRED found almost 100 listings featuring products with Mangione’s name or image. These include a tote bag featuring pictures of the alleged shooter alongside the phrase “Mama, I’m in love with a criminal” and PDF copies of a mocked-up cover of Time magazine featuring Mangione as Person of the Year and the tagline “Healthcare revolutionary, leading the charge to transform global health.”
These sellers are trying to cash in on the internet’s peculiar fascination with Mangione, whose good looks and privileged background have garnered him fans despite him being accused of a high-profile murder in broad daylight. The fascination with Mangione is a worrying trend, researchers say, that shows behavior that used to be confined to the fringes of the internet becoming mainstream.
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