But with Luigi Mangione, the lead suspect in the murder of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, that process was reversed. Within hours of the shooting, social media was churning out a mythologized version of the masked man. That didn't stop the denizens of social media from pretending to be the most qualified people to lay out exactly who Mangione is. But social media has sped up the assumption cycle to the point where we put the killer into a category before police have found the killer. He is a contributing writer at Slate and was previously a staff writer at Quartz and Adweek covering media and technology.

---

Persons: Luigi Mangione, Brian Thompson, Robin Hood, Jake Gyllenhaal, Timothée, —, Ezra Klein, podcaster Joe Rogan, Alexandria Ocasio, Peter Thiel maligning wokeism, Donald Trump, Joe Biden, Charli XCX, Ayn Rand, Mangione, Marilyn Manson, Rammstein, Jonathan Haidt, it's, he's, Zer, Scott Nover Organizations: Ivy League, CIA, Boston Marathon Bomber, rockstar Locations: America, New York City, Washington, Alexandria, Cortez, Washington , DC