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It barely took hours for the UnitedHealthcare shooting to become a meme. Last Wednesday, Brian Thompson — the CEO of UnitedHealthcare, whose parent company, UnitedHealth Group, Inc., is valued at $566 billion — was fatally shot while preparing to enter the company’s annual investors’ conference in Midtown Manhattan. By the end of rush hour, the internet was ablaze with comments criticizing Thompson and the healthcare system that can net a CEO like him $10.2 million in a year for running a company that Forbes reports denies a third of patients’ insurance claims. Social media feeds were also full of jokes, memes and speculation about whether the shooter was hot.
Some digital culture experts say they’ve been struck by the internet responses to Thompson’s death — and to suspect Luigi Mangione, who has been charged with murder. Whitney Phillips, PhD, an assistant professor of Digital Platforms and Media …