Luigi Mangione: The Ultimate Anti-Influencer

The Media, For the First Time Since the Sixties, Has to Choose Between the Youth and the Suits

A little more than a year ago, I noticed a group of creators that I called “anti-influencers”:

[U]nlike the deinfluencers analysed in this Vox article, who are focused on influencing you to not buy specific items, these anti-influencers are far beyond the language of bargains and ripoffs. They are telling you to stop buying things for a larger cause that they believe in.

But even this is not enough of a reason to call them anti-influencers. The primary reason is all of these TikTok creators are willing to burn bridges with any current or future sponsorship deals.

Yes, alleged UHC shooter Luigi Mangione is not a TikTok creator, but I would say that last bold, italicized part fits him snugly. MangioneMania has gripped the country. Comparing Hasan Piker’s sex appeal to the shooter’s is like comparing Neil Sedaka to Frank Sinatra. Why does an anti-corporate assassin have a hold on the youth that I haven’t seen from Chappell Roan, Timothee Chalamet or even Domingo?

Good looks may be an obvious factor, but let’s not forget there was an almost 24 hour gap between the shooting and the smile caught on the hostel CCTV cam. Even I am not cynical enough to say his skinny frame was enough to captivate the nation. Those 24 hours reminded me of the first day the #MeToo campaign trended. Women shared stories of abuse, rape, etc. followed by the #MeToo. Minutes after the shooting, stories of unjust claim denials, many leading to death, were shared. Unlike #MeToo, or even the Gaza movement, there is a clear center to this energy. — I cannot in good faith call him a leader, though I an confident many would make him their Che Guevara (who was a counterculture hero almost exactly 60 years ago).

Before we get too deep into the swamp, let’s get one thing clear: calling Mangione an “anti-influencer” is not dumb, like it would be to call, say, Albert Einstein an “anti-disco diva.” That’s the thing about “anti” terms; they often contain their purported opposite in a roundabout way. Anti-artists are artists. Only comedians use anti-humor. Using that framework, we clearly see that, though yes, he is an “anti-influencer,” he absolutely wanted to influence public opinion and he absolutely created content for an online audience. As

Liz Lenkinski

, writer of the indispensable Burn it All Down says, he cultivated a parasocial following by dropping clues like Taylor Swift (leaving a bag of Monopoly money, his obsession with the number 286, etc.)

Out of all the bizarre things related to the shooting, one that fascinates me: we watched a nation fall for a guy and cyber stalk him in real time. If you are a hot guy, take notes: this is what girls and gays are doing as soon as they get your socials on Tinder.

Like a Tinder crush, the parasocial attachment is created more through mystery and imagination than what is revealed. Like Sinatra (and unlike most celebrities of the past ten, fifteen years) Mangione has successfully cultivated an air of myth around himself.

Too bad the media can’t tap into any of it of course. OK; a few C-list celebrities made tasteless thirst jokes here and there to boost their socials. And we all know a Netflix treatment is on the way. But, like Gaza, the mainstream media has once again united together, liberal and conservative, to denounce the shooter and paint the CEO in a positive light. Unlike Gaza, there is now a fracture in the right that wasn’t there last year. During Gaza, conservatives across the board were happy to call Gaza protesters anti-Semitic. OK not completely true. Candace Owens got fired from the Daily Wire for her pro-Gaza beliefs. But Daily Wire commenters did not rally behind her like they are for the shooter. Truth is, as many have said, including

Sam Kahn

Ted Gioia

and

Frank DiStefano

(and presumably Martin Gurri would be saying now) this is not about left versus right anymore (as desperately as the press wants to keep it within that relatively easy paradigm); it’s about the people vs. the institutions.

Not only are the press not tapping into what would assuredly be the easiest and most bountiful wellspring of youthful enthusiasm yet: they are playing hot potato with him. The right are saying he’s a leftist and the left are saying the opposite. Turns out he is a member of the grey tribe; a radical centrist. This is the most comprehensive guide to his beliefs. But the question must be asked: why play hot potato? One fact that news organizations wish weren’t true but they have to face: they have an older readership. Kids like the news less now than they did before. Needless to say, a story about a 50 year old shot in the back by some little shit pretty boy will drive subscribers away if they take Pretty Boy Roid’s side. More to the point, news organizations have a cozy relationship with power, so they prefer to keep that bridge steady at the expense of the youth.

For now.

Taylor Lorenz

and

Ken Klippenstein

have bucked the legacy media trends (both are Substackers; perhaps that gives them the leverage to kick back). On X, Lorenz cited a source saying insurance companies wanted to stop paying for certain forms of anesthesia and said “And people wonder why we want these executives dead.” Vox dumped her as a result. Klippenstein published Mangione’s mini-manifesto, adding that the rest of the press was holding onto it. They may have burned some bridges, but I guarantee you I have seen both their names all over social media and, during an inflated attention economy, the press will forgive them soon enough.

This is at the heart of what interests me about all this here. For now, the media is cozy with the institutions. This was how it was in the ‘60s of course. Cronkite questioned Vietnam. But from 1965 to 1967, the press maintained an objective tone, if anything leaning on the US military side, not giving up hope for victory. Too soon to tell, etc. At some point though the white hairs had to give the floor to the long hairs. This is what

Matt Klein

would call “audience capture.” On this level, it has not happened again. The rock press lauded punk in the ‘70s, but hardcore punk was written off as too macho, this being perhaps the first example of working class rage being written off as a tool of the patriarchy — a device that has only had diminishing returns recently. From that point on, the Boomer Liberal Elite press would value indie and alternative rock ; remember, MTV taught the kids to love Nirvana instead of hair metal. It is true that first-wave Millennial hipsters influenced the mainstream media through the Internet and the mesoculture, but they did not have enough of a radical political agenda for this to be much of a challenge. Standard alternative marketing; big budget films and music for the chads and stacy’s, alt music played in commercials of sitcoms that hired alt comedians as actors. In the ‘10s, this paradigm was used, but now the audience was full of second-wave Millennial social justice warriors. Less about aesthetics, more about representation and messaging. Once again, the idea was about being more benign to different groups. Good politics, also good marketing. Why alienate certain demos when you can create new markets?

Gaza drove a wedge into this previously steady stream of audience capture — before that point, it wasn’t even really capture anymore. From the late ‘00s to 2022, it was more of a two way street. Entertainment cool hunters scoured the web, picked up bread crumbs, then the blockbuster IPs were bent to fit the trends and the fandoms reliably gagged and spread the word, to great returns. Gaza and now Mangione have been frustrating this once easy dynamic.

Again, unlike Gaza, Mangione seems to have united many anti-establishment types behind him. Before him, anti-establishment was a useless term. What did it mean? Anti-establishment in a Trumpy way? In a socialist way? Now, left and right anti-establishment types are united with him in empathy, even though many, Lorenz included, may not have agreed with the method.

The youth however seem to be united not only in thirst (guess that whole gender gap “no sex anymore” narrative is out the window huh?), but they seem to stand behind his actions. The Boomer Liberal Elite are alienated by Gen Z understanding violence as a response in the Gaza situation and justifying it in the Mangione incident. Frustrating of all to the media that is trying to avoid the temptation of audience capture from the youth: the CEO assassin may be the first truly unifying force of the previously divided Gen Z. He appeals to Good Ole Dudes as well as Girls & Gays, let alone Alt Dirtbags.

The youth are well aware, incidentally, of the battle lines:

@intagibleasset#luigi #reset #culture

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Even a center-left writer like Ryan Broderick knows all too well how the press is giving “hall monitor” vibes. What’s more: in a year that has already seen record skepticism against the media, who’s to say that those right-wing commenters who are alienated by the Daily Wire don’t start thinking to themselves, “Hmm…if the media is lying about this, maybe they are also trying to cover up the genocide in Gaza?”

Still, the media will try every strategy before giving up. One that failed: blaming video games. One that the media and establishment will absolutely try, like they did with Gaza: reframing this as domestic terrorism, once again using security as justification for fascism.

@5149jamesliHow would you feel if the government made it ILLEGAL to criticize corporations? 🤨

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But the center can only hold for so long. The new Great Refusal is only getting greater.

Katherine Dee

‘s latest in The Spectator:

But Mangione’s alleged assassination attempt aligns with a more deliberate logic, however twisted, one that might imagine you can change the world by taking out a key player. Perhaps there has been a different sort of vibe shift: one where the cultural script is shifting from “nothing matters” to “something must be done.”

Once again: capitalist realism (“there is no alternative”) is turning into capitalist surrealism (“there must be an alternative”).

This is what happens when culture stagnates too long: now Mangione has joined the ranks of Bob Dylan, Kurt Cobain and Lena Dunham as the voice of a generation. The media can only hold out for so long. Yes, they won’t rehabilitate his image, nor should they. But journalists will start making health insurance CEOs sweat with pointed questions soon enough. Movies and music will reflect the rage on the streets in due time.

Make no mistake; the media will want something in return. The last time Trump was this quiet, he was just banned from Twitter. Elon Musk tried eliciting sympathy by bringing his child to a government meeting. Perhaps he read my comparison of him and Daniel Plainview from a month ago and decided to lean into it. Won’t be long before the media tries to direct the rage of the youth against rich guys like Trump and Musk. Should be an easy enough trade-off.

It is important to be wary of political audience capture. We saw what happened with wokeness: personal stories of feeling marginalized made way for rectconned Hollywood slop. This does not seem likely though. Instead, expect less literal art, more ambiguity and complexity, much like there was in the ‘60s, when filmmakers and musicians mostly avoided directly putting anti-Vietnam messages in their work.

For now, though, Delay, Deny and Defend is a bestseller. Time will tell if the publisher uses the shooter’s Goodreads review as a dust jacket blurb.