An rare opinion piece on the Luigi Mangione phenomenon that doesn’t argue for the status quo to be maintained (i.e., rich capitalists that systematically exploit the poor and profit from their deaths deserve to live their lives in peace without fear of reprisals, for some reason, according to 95% of mainstream media).
The message is clear enough: if there’s going to be a new idol, someone with whom to forge a parasocial bond, it will not be another singer, dancer, or neo-Kardashian. The youth, at least, increasingly feel this way. They cannot be told to stop with their Luigi memes as anger at institutions continues to build. Even Trump, the great disruptor, will not be immune to this dynamic when he is president again.
Over the next decade, the great clashes might not be between left and right but inside and outside – those who are open about their disdain for existing institutions and those who seek a new order. The worship of Mangione is less about Mangione himself, and more an indication of where we are headed. The rancor will not abate.
Edit: To the person who reported this article as being off topic for this community:
The point of posting this article was to illustrate the widespread neoliberal propagandist take of the vast majority of the mainstream media hand-wringing over “violence” in this particular case. When the target of violence is a rich CEO behind one of the most scummy health insurance companies in the US, the mainstream media (at least in neoliberal countries) is apoplectic with shock over what they see as a “terrorist” attack on the core of their society.
But when the target of violence is poor or otherwise marginalized people, then they are perfectly happy to go along with it. Every time a cop murders a black guy, do we get this sort of response from the mainstream media? Fuck no. This is a clear example of propaganda being used to prop up the status quo of the US healthcare system, including the systematic use of structural violence towards the poor and disenfranchised for the sake of shareholder profit (an inherent characteristic of the US economy broadly supported by Democrats and Republicans alike).
Even if you really believe that non-violence is the only valid approach, then that principle needs to be extended to include CEOs that generate profit from the misery and death of their customers. That shit should be 100% illegal and those CEOs should be locked up in prison already like Mangione is. Until that starts happening, then I’ll keep on pointing out the hypocrisy of the mainstream media in being complicit in effectively supporting one form of violence (the profitable kind) and not the other.
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Capitalism is being adjusted, please do not resist.
I don’t think we’re going to see a loss of celebrity like this author is talking about. The Taylor Swifts of the world will survive, I think the growing trend is authenticity, and maybe not even that exactly but more a willingness to believe in your convictions. As someone who was a child at the time, I feel like the late 80s through the early 2000s was time of cynicism aimed at the world and could be seen in popular entertainment through things like the Grunge movement and TV shows like South Park gaining popularity. A lot of that culminated about 10/15 years ago in the “I like this thing ironically” mindset that was popular on the internet at that time. That cynicism bled into politics because the status quo never changed but things kept getting worse for a majority of the working class.
My opinion is that Trump and Luigi Mangione are symptoms of that cynicism. While I believe Trump is a con man, to his supporters, he is “authentic” because Trump believes or at least, attempts to stand behind what he says. Contrast that with top Democrats, I don’t believe a word out of Nancy Pelosi or Chuck Schumer’s mouths. I forced myself to believe in Kamala Harris but I never actually believed she would do anything progressive. She was another Neoliberal, there to make sure Our Oligarchs continue to be the only truly protected group/class. She wasn’t authentic. If Luigi Mangione is the shooter, he let his actions talk and that is authenticity. Mangione is also speaking truth to power that hasn’t truly been checked in decades. The ACA was nice but it allowed the Health Insurance industry to continue to profit off of other people’s illnesses and in the end didn’t have enough teeth to truly take them on. Another bandage and only breeds more cynicism.
I was a teenager in high school and then becoming a man at the peak of liking things ironically. I did it all the time. All my friends did it. But, funny enough, the people I knew that showed true authenticity were the most popular.
I’m now in my early 40s and I’ve purged that ironic attitude over the years. It’s nothing more than a shield against people thinking you’re uncool.
Gen Z seems to have true authenticity. I worry about how young men are influenced by manosphere and grindset bullshit. But I think they will see past this as they age. I like Gen Z.
I’m a bit confused what you both mean by “liking things ironically”, I understand the concept in various different ways, but having a hard time understanding the context of this one.
It’s hard for me to put into words. Like I used to have a purple shirt with a bald man on it, that said bald is beautiful. I had another shirt that was light lime green that showed a blurry photo of some kind of rib-like meat. We got these weird things generally from Goodwill and Salvation Army stores. I had a 100% polyester button up with insane swirling colors and massive lapels. I would wear it buttoned down so my chest hair showed with a fake gold chain.
I wore these clothes “ironically”. This kind of fashion was popular from the late 90s to like 2010 or so. It was associated with a “I don’t give a fuck” punk or punk-adjacent style. The thing is, I did like these ridiculous clothes. But I wore them “ironically” as a shield against being thought uncool. We did all kinds of things ironically. Listen to “bad” music, watch “bad” movies, etc.
The irony excuse was always there to protect you because you didn’t really like any of this stuff, only ironically. I think it was a very damaging attitude to the mental health of my generation. Many of us became incapable of being real, at least for a time.
What MutilationWave said is probably the best description of what “liking things ironically” was and the thought process behind it. “I like this thing but I can let other people know so I wear it but pretend to dislike it.”
My opinion is, prevalence of that attitude in the late 2000s/early 2010s was a culmination point of a cultural cynicism that was prevalent in the US during the 90s. That cynicism started in popular culture but filtered into politics and the capitalist system as the status quo got worse. The popularity of Donald Trump or the person that shot that health insurance CEO is because they are seen as authentic even if they might not be, as a the case with Trump.
I think they’re wrong about the “idol”, an idol for gen Z simply needs to strongly and consistently fight for gen Z. No one from the oligarch class will ever do that.
*without marketing and PR
To the person who reported this article as being off topic for this community
I’m not going to lie, but I’m very disappointed in this response, I was expecting this community to be a place for the factual information, because all of Fedi is already filled with all kinds of opinions, with varying degree of accuracy. I was expecting that the community the name [email protected] will be a place for facts, and I have even been subscribed to it, because I’ve seen stories from reputable fact-checkers and organizations being posted there, i don’t see a problems with posting your opinion in reply to a fact, but posting an opinion as one seems completely different to me. I’m not talking about this specific article that I might agree or disagree with, the point is that it’s an opinion, not a fact. t’s okay if you don’t like some fact, it doesn’t make it less true, but that’s not it. What the point of “fact-checking” community if these posts with be mixed with not fact-checked opinions?
@[email protected] , in my eyes, pushing your agenda instead of focusing on the facts and fighting disinformation is the wrong way to go, it completely discredits the idea of this whole community, but it’s your community and you’re the mod, so it’s choice to where you want to take this community, to become another propaganda pub(but with “right” opinions) or to fight propaganda and disinformation like you baldly claim. Thank you for spending your time to read this.
I’ll start by saying this is an anarchist instance, and my politics tend towards that direction. I’m not a journalist, and I’m not making any claim to be impartial. That much should be obvious to anyone who has read my profile or post history inside or outside of this community. But having said that, you are correct that I don’t usually post much in the way of editorialized content since I usually prefer to re-post from (at least arguably) authoritative sources. I really only did so on this occasion because I find myself mostly posting about Russian and Chinese disinformation and propaganda campaigns (because they are some of the biggest culprits, admittedly) but US propaganda tends to get off more lightly than it should, simply because it isn’t reported on as much (after all they are the “good guys”, right?). My motivation here was to provide some balance, not to push “an agenda” other than keeping the bastards in power honest (there I am editorializing again!), no matter which country they come from.
As you haven’t really gone into detail, I have little idea what (if anything) you find counterfactual or misleading about my comments, or what you find disappointing about posting an opinion piece, except for the reason you provided that it isn’t a fact-check. My take is that so long as an article is relevant to the topics of astroturfing, disinformation or propaganda, and has something interesting to say, then it probably belongs in this community. There’s nothing in the community rules about only allowing fact checks (although I do post a lot of these), or only allowing re-posts from specific websites. At the end of the day, you are completely free to select which posts you find useful/interesting or not. You might not have found this particular article to be to your taste, but it seems like it was a fairly popular post for the broader community compared to the usual fact checks, so presumably most other folks didn’t take the same issue with it that you did. Hopefully it provided some much needed alternative perspective for them on this massively propagandized topic.
Having said all that, I appreciate you taking the time to leave some feedback.
But the narrative of the MSM regarding the UHC ceo murder is disinfo and it’s manufacturing consent. It belongs here.
