Crime

Where did the rumour that Luigi Mangione is bisexual come from? Unpacking the internet trend

Luigi Mangione's post-arrest photo

Photo released by the Altoona Police Department of Luigi Mangione after his arrest (Getty)

One of the related terms that comes up in Google when searching the name of the alleged UHC shooter is “Is Luigi Mangione bisexual?”

It might seem like a pretty strange thing to focus on, but it makes sense in the context of the wider, and often bizarre, viral storm around the 26-year-old, who was arrested in Pennsylvania earlier this week.

It’s been a wild seven days on the internet since the world-shaking news broke that United HealthCare CEO Brian Thompson had been killed in a “premeditated, preplanned targeted attack” outside an NYC hotel.

Brian Thompson, 50, was on his way to speak at UnitedHealth Group’s investor conference on Wednesday 4 December, when the gunman approached from behind and “fired several rounds,” Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch confirmed at the time. It sparked a huge manhunt, and also lit a raging fire on social media.

Add in the CCTV footage of the alleged gunman – young, handsome, his mask pulled down as he smiled at a receptionist – and the fact that people were quick to paint Brian Thompson as the Ebenezer Scrooge-like villain of the piece, and bam: the ‘sexy shooter’ memes quickly went viral.

X users in particular were positively tripping over each other to see who could post the horniest response to the photos. It was, at its core, an outlet for people’s intense frustration about the US healthcare crisis – as well as a distraction from the doom and gloom of modern life.

The suspect, Luigi Mangione, was apprehended on 10 December at a McDonald’s in Pennsylvania, after being spotted by an employee. But instead of putting dampener on all of the thirsty social media posts it just fuelled them, with people trawling his social media accounts for info – and more photos.

Within what felt like seconds, internet sleuths had found his Facebook page, his X account, his Letterboxd profile, his Goodreads reviews, and much more besides. It had become a new competition: who could find out the most information about Mangione in the shortest time – including his sexuality and dating history.

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His music streaming history was also available, so people started to dig into that, discovering that he seemed to be a fan of the Big Pop Girlies, like Britney Spears, Taylor Swift, Lana Del Rey, Ariana Grande and Charli XCX.

A small but vocal minority of LGBTQ+ people started, at that point, to claim Luigi Mangione as one of their own, despite any evidence other than his love of artists beloved by the queer community.

Several X users began to call Mangione gay and shared unconfirmed photos of his “boyfriends.”

However, the ‘Luigi Mangione is bisexual’ rumour really took flight at 7.45pm on December 9, when the X account of 34th Street Magazine – which covers University of Pennsylvania campus culture- tweeted: “BREAKING; LUIGI MANGIONE BI CONFIRMED” along with an unverified screenshot of what looked like a text message. It read: “a friend of mine made out with him when he was a student. For those curious he is bi.”

Despite a lack of any clear evidence or information about where the screenshot came from, people leapt on it. It quickly went viral, and has had over six million views at the time of writing.

This in turn led to an almost immediate spike in Google searches for the term: “Luigi Mangione bisexual”, which dropped off slightly the following day, but has continued to peak and trough since then.

Google searches for ‘Luigi Mangione bisexual’ spiked after the viral tweet (Google)

There is no evidence at all that Mangione is bisexual. Maybe he is, maybe he isn’t, but at the moment it certainly seems like wishful thinking – or at the very least forcing his story to fit the desired narrative.

What we do know about Luigi Mangione is that he was an Ivy League graduate and attended a private all-boys high school in Baltimore, where his wealthy family is prominent in the real estate business, and that he was Mangione was charged on Monday night (9 December) with second-degree murder.

More information is no doubt going to flood the internet in the weeks and months to come, but at the end of the day it’s important to stick to the facts at hand – instead of making fake Grindr accounts for him.

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