Why Gen Z turns everything – even murder – into a joke
After Luigi Mangione was arrested in December 2024 in connection with the killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, the internet did what it often does: It turned something serious into a joke. Although Mangione has pleaded not guilty to second-degree murder in New York and to federal stalking charges, viral memes at the time romanticized him as a popular – and incredibly attractive – man of the people who made corporate elites within the American health insurance industry afraid. Some of these memes adhered to conventional forms of political satire. One, for example, quoted a speech from the movie “A