After Luigi Mangione was once arrested in December 2024 in reference to the killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, the web did what it ceaselessly does: It grew to become one thing severe right into a comic story.
Despite the fact that Mangione has pleaded now not accountable to second-degree homicide in New York and to federal stalking fees, viral memes on the time romanticized him as a well-liked – and extremely sexy – guy of the individuals who made company elites throughout the American medical insurance trade afraid.
A few of these memes adhered to standard kinds of political satire. One, as an example, quoted a speech from the film “A Bug’s Life,” by which a villainous grasshopper argues for the want to punish the film’s ant protagonist to stay the opposite ants in line. On this meme, the political level was once transparent: Elites keep energy by way of making examples of insignificant ants who dare to problem them.
The purpose was once much less transparent with different memes, together with celebrations of Mangione’s fashion-forward shackled ankles in courtroom and ridicule Burger King commercials referencing the truth that a McDonald’s worker have been the only to name regulation enforcement on him: “Burger King: We won’t turn you in to the Feds.” Reasonably than being ironic, they’re unserious.
However, memes like the ones won severe reactions from social commentators and political pundits who interpreted them as proof that The usa’s younger adults are nihilistic and morally detached.
As an experimental psychologist who research ethical judgments about real-world controversies, I’ve tested those attitudes towards Mangione and the humor surrounding him on-line.
I imagine those reactions are higher understood now not as a rejection of worth however as a refusal to take part in conversations that really feel selective and disconnected from younger other people’s broader financial and political frustrations. In my overview, Gen Z’s darkish and nonsensical humor does now not display a loss of ethical values, nevertheless it’s as an alternative the made from its want to have interaction in additional original conversations about what they imagine.
Alienation, now not indifference
Analysis presentations deep ranges of alienation amongst Gen Z, or younger other people born between 1997 and 2012. Having grown up with smartphones and social media, this technology has come of age in an increasingly more on-line international. Regardless of the web’s capability for on the spot interplay, fans have proved a deficient alternative for pals.
Gen Z is likely one of the maximum socially remoted and psychologically distressed generations on document. When compared with prior generations, fewer friendships and romantic relationships have left many younger adults yearning connection and cohesion. This alienation may be glaring of their skepticism towards establishments and standard narratives about values.
Many are pessimistic about attaining the American Dream and query the worth of upper schooling. What was once as soon as thought to be the optimum automobile for dwelling a greater lifestyles is as an alternative seen as a barrier.
If the American Dream feels out of achieve, and faculty turns out like a dear impediment, calls to take them critically would possibly really feel inauthentic, alienating and absurd.
Demonstrators stand out of doors the Ny federal courthouse in New York in a while after Luigi Mangione, the suspected killer of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, arrived for a listening to in December 2024.
AP Picture/Seth Wenig
When seriousness will get suspended
Discussions about values require some seriousness if they’re to resonate with their target audience.
If, as an example, a graduation speaker praising the worth of man-made intelligence is met with jeers from graduates – as former Google CEO Eric Schmidt was once in Would possibly 2026 – the speaker’s message is right away rendered inert.
Those scholars’ jeers fell in need of providing a controversy in opposition to the speaker’s claims; as an alternative, they created an environment that avoided the ones claims from receiving attention. For graduates pessimistic about AI’s implications for the exertions marketplace, claims professing its worth really feel inauthentic.
In combination, their jeers now not simplest equipped an get away from what felt like an alienating and inauthentic message in regards to the worth of AI, however in addition they created a way of cohesion via a shared suspension of seriousness.
A supporter of Luigi Mangione wears the Nintendo persona Luigi’s inexperienced hat out of doors a New York courthouse in February 2025.
AP Picture/Stefan Jeremiah
Humor provides an get away
Some distance from being distinctive to Mangione, this suspension of seriousness recurs all over on-line meme tradition.
The OceanGate implosion brought on identical memes, together with one depicting a pod of orcas with the caption “The water is safe, send more billionaires.”
Even Charlie Kirk’s assassination become subject matter. In a pattern referred to as “Kirkification,” customers superimposed his face onto pictures starting from the Mona Lisa to ladies in bikinis, remodeling a grim tournament right into a shared absurdity.
In my overview, Gen Z’s advent and movement of memes provides an get away from another way severe conversations – as an example, conversations in regards to the worth of the UnitedHealthcare CEO’s lifestyles. This can be very true when calls for to sentence Mangione seem to forget about inequities inside an American medical insurance machine perceived as corrupt and unjust.
Despite the fact that commentators ceaselessly brush aside Gen Z’s humor as nonsensical or nihilistic meme slop, scholarship means that it acts as a collaborative coping mechanism, pushed by way of a want for authenticity.
Memes about Mangione, and even campus lookalike contests targeted on him, fall in need of providing an exact ethical argument in prefer of in large part postponing seriousness.
This taste of humor will also be noticed in Mangione’s alleged choice to go away a backpack containing Monopoly cash in Central Park. It was once noticed, too, on shell casings recovered after Kirk’s killing, which integrated online game instructions, a sexually suggestive web pronouncing and “if you read this you are gay lmao.”
Miscast explanations of nihilism
With the assistance of roughly a dozen undergraduate scholars, I tested the mental and situational elements related to Gen Z’s reactions to Mangione and different occasions – like Kirk’s assassination and the Kamala Harris is “Brat” phenomenon all over the 2024 presidential election – in two research these days below evaluation.
Our findings point out that favorable attitudes towards Mangione had been related now not simplest with superficial elements, corresponding to his perceived good looks, but in addition with upper ranges of political cynicism.
Perceived systemic bias within the American justice machine, as an example, was once addressed in a meme depicting Mangione strolling into courtroom with the textual content “You can kill dozens of kids and get a lesser sentence because their lives don’t matter as much as a CEO’s.” Federal prosecutors had been in the hunt for the demise penalty in opposition to Mangione for a rate a pass judgement on disregarded in January 2026.
Casting Gen Z’s reactions as nihilistic obscures the values and institutional mistrust attached to them and fails to comprehend their egalitarian and pragmatic beliefs. Pushing aside them would possibly deepen the alienation that allowed the demise of a father of 2 to develop into a comic story.
Supporters of Luigi Mangione elevate indicators out of doors the Ny federal courthouse in New York in January 2026.
AP Picture/Yuki Iwamura
Why easy ethical messages alienate
Despite the fact that political commentators disagree about tips on how to interpret the reaction to Mangione, many settle for a reputedly elementary concept: Killing must by no means be justified.
But a long time of analysis on ethical judgment presentations that folks don’t follow that concept persistently. As an alternative, in sure scenarios, like within the well-known “trolley problem,” other people steadily pass judgement on killing to be morally permissible – particularly when that killing is predicted to advertise the well-being of others.
Simplistic and sweeping ethical injunctions now not simplest fail to comprehend other people’s precise ethical attitudes, however in addition they do away with the potential for having original and nuanced conversations.
The ones conversations needn’t finish by way of endorsing Mangione as a sympathetic determine. On the other hand, an open and original dialog about Mangione can’t be learned in areas that require all dialogue of the development to be diminished to affirmations that, as has been advocated by way of some, “Murder is bad. Period.”
Such necessities could make conversations about important ethical problems – even debatable ones, just like the morality of Mangione’s alleged movements – little greater than calls for for conformity. On this case, the ones barriers chance ignoring and, thus, additional alienating Gen Z.
Gen Z’s humor presentations that just about anything else can develop into a comic story. I imagine the chance of that isn’t that younger other people reject values, however that persevered alienation would possibly go away them guffawing when seriousness is maximum required.
