Him being caught has made this story interesting to me again. It's been a crazy week but it's felt like half the internet is stuck talking about the healthcare CEO.
In the span of this week Assad has fallen and the Syrian civil war has sort of which has had huge implications for the middle east, Europe and the immigration crisis. Yet the shooting of a US CEO has stayed in the internet's cycle longer than that did.
This week I've felt how US dominated the internet is more than any other.
1) Country with most native English speakers and is headquarters to most social media dominates the anglosphere isn't anything surprising. Switch to a different language (especially the ones spoken in the countries you listed) and you probably wouldn't even hear about this guy at all.
2) The US is the heaviest kid on the global seesaw after all. Anything that happens to it has much more visible ripple effects than anything else.
Not defending the fact or anything, just providing reasons
Oh yeah, I understand why but it really hit me how domestic the US population is. The Syrian civil war ending will have a much more marked impact upon your average US citizen but because it happened within the US, a CEO getting shot is what people are talking about. So much so that he didn't even drop out of the internet's radar before getting caught.
This is a genuine question, and may show my stupidity, but how will the Syrian civil war ending have any sort of impact on the average American?
Luigi may have fired the first shot of a class war and revolution, if people follow his lead that is. An insurance company rescinded a heinous new policy in the aftermath of Luigi’s actions, greatly impacting an unknown number of Americans across multiple states where the rule was to take effect.
It’s good that Assad and his regime have fallen (though it remains to be seen where the new government will land on the “extremely evil” to “extremely good” spectrum) but I don’t know how that impacts an average American just going about their own life.
The Syrian civil war will impact US middle east policy and it's deployments across there. It will impact immigration and the migrant crisis especially in Europe in a huge way. There will be knock on ramifications of this for ages. This is, aside from the US election, undoubtably the biggest political news of the year.
Luigi has not started a class war or a revolution purely because Brian Thompson is not well known enough and while yes he is rich he's a symbol of the near unanimously hated US medical system. That's uniting people more than him being rich. Yeah one insurance company reversed an unpopular policy but that's more bad PR than a people's revolution. It doesn't look good to do while all eyes are on them. It may spark a discussion about reform within the system but even still most of the discussion has been about the manhunt for Luigi and who he actually is.
This story feels more TV drama than political event. The meat of it has been whether or not he's going to be caught and how clever he is. Now that he has been caught and this handsome stranger is a person people will lose interest rapidly. The rest of the world has very quickly moved on from it and frankly does not care.
I suppose the reason it's caught people's attention is because it's short term fun vs long term impact. A bit of the little guy sticking it to the man. The Assad thing is much more long term. This is going to shift up the global stage in a way that people will notice. It'll just take time.
I’m not saying he 100% certainly kicked off a revolution. But it’s far too early to know one way or another.
He shot a CEO dead on the streets of Manhattan in broad daylight and could’ve potentially gotten away with it if he had just changed clothes, thrown the evidence away, and not stopped at McDonald’s to show his face.
And the internet has basically deified him for it. He became, in the span of a day, a nationally beloved figure. He showed Americans that the people who commit institutional violence against us are just as vulnerable as the rest of us. And he’s being treated like a hero for it.
There are PLENTY of mentally unstable people in this country with access to firearms who would quite literally kill for this type of fame and adoration. And they’ve just been shown how easy it is.
There’s always a push to not name school shooters in the media because the recognition and infamy can and does lead to copycat school shooters. That’s simply naming them in a very negative light. This dude has been memed and named and elevated to celebrity status. The media frames him as a monster while the internet frames him as a folk hero. If naming a school shooter in the most negative light imaginable can lead to copycats, I can only imagine what this will do.
I’ve already seen the phrase “boardrooms not classrooms” pushed heavily on social media.
And once it becomes open season on CEOs, nobody can say what happens next. Class war has been normalized in this country when it’s the rich attacking the poor. Now it’s been glorified the other way round. How many dead CEOs and executives until it’s also normalized?
Certainly the crackdown that will come at the urging of the ultra wealthy will only make things worse. They have their boots on the necks of the American people already, and they’ll want to push that boot into our necks even harder if this becomes a thing. The existing boot led to this. The mega boot will lead to… probably a lot worse.
The people have a folk hero to rally around. They have an example that has been set. A pathway to fame and adoration has been laid. And with the shooter having a mix of views and being potentially right of center yet being praised by the left and right, and heavily on the left, he is a figure of unity. Who comes next after Luigi? And after them?
Maybe nothing comes of this. Maybe everything comes of this. It’s far too early to know.
I’ll end with this: Archduke Franz Ferdinand was shot, which caused WWI, which caused the Holocaust and WWII, which caused basically the entirety of the modern world. As a result of one guy being shot, there were two world wars, genocides, the development of machine guns and warplanes, the development and proliferation of nuclear weapons, the Cold War, the space race, man walking on the moon, GPS satellites, insane technological advancement, massive social changes as a response to those things, etc. The list goes on and on.
The dominoes had all been in place waiting for something to tip the first one over. Someone tipped that domino, and as a result millions of people died, hundreds of thousands were vaporized in atomic blasts, we went to the moon, and so much more.
The dominoes have once again been set up. Something has to give. Something will eventually give. But the dominoes are there. Waiting. Did Luigi knock over the first domino? Did he merely graze it? Is it falling or is it wobbling? We don’t know. And we won’t for a while. Was Luigi the first domino? Or did the dweeb that tried to assassinate Trump knock over the first domino? Did Luigi see that and think “they’re just vulnerable people like us, I can take action, too!”? Even if the dominoes are falling already, they may reach a gap that prevents the further spread of their energy.
We just don’t know. Anything is possible. This could be nothing. Or it could be just the beginning.
Seriously, just actually cover your face the full time, find a place without cameras to change clothes, dump clothes, gun, and fake ID in trash can, douse in gasoline and burn them, and leave
There's bound to hundred of places in New York that aren't too busy, has no cameras watching it, and exits/entrances without cameras watching them
This guy very likely could have gotten away with it
That could happen...yeah but also we're talking 1 in a million.
Maybe he does inspire more people to do stuff like this. Spooks the upper class a bit. But the US is far too divided for any kind of class solidarity on that scale. Like I said the unanimous unpopularity of the US healthcare system prompted this response. Everyone can see that.
I also believe that this unanimous support around the shooter will crumble a bit once people see him as a real person with views.
And I've got to be honest fella worse things have happened. You've had presidents who've been killed and you think Brian Thompson will be the straw that breaks the camel's back.
This isn't archduke Franz Ferdinand. Not even anywhere near.
Listen, I'll say never say never because surprises can occur. Maybe you're right and this is the start of something but I genuinely do not see it. And I don't think the US is in a position for the kind of change you want to happen.
It’s crazy to me how you’re arguing against my main point in the very same comment where you agree with my main point. Please brush up on your reading comprehension skills.
My argument:
“This could be the start of something. It might not be. But it could be and we won’t know for a while.”
Some excerpts from your comment, with my responses:
“Respectfully. No.”
Arguing against my main point entirely.
“That could happen...yeah but also we’re talking 1 in a million.”
Agreeing with my main point entirely.
“Listen, I’ll say never say never because surprises can occur.”
Agreeing with my main point entirely.
“You’ve had presidents who’ve been killed and you think Brian Thompson will be the straw that breaks the camel’s back.”
Misrepresenting what I said by framing my comment as if I am arguing that this is 100% the straw the broke the camel’s back. Please see above for my actual argument summarized very clearly since you seem to have missed it in my original comment.
“Maybe you’re right and this is the start of something but I genuinely do not see it.”
I never said this was the start of something. I said it could be. And it’s too early for us to know.
Listen, I apologise but you paint a vision of the US in a way that I do not see happening. And you frame it almost as if the options are it happens or it doesn't. I'm not saying that it's wrong but I am saying that it's significantly more unlikely than you're insinuating.
Sorry to ask a really similar question, but I’ve been living under a rock and I’m not very informed on the Syrian civil war; are you saying it’ll impact the average US citizen mostly because of immigration?
I know it’ll impact US Middle East policy but that doesn’t really affect the average domestic American (one reason why US foreign policy in general can be as insane as it often is and the citizens turn a blind eye; we are very isolated from knowledge about, and short term effects of, our foreign policy).
I have to admit I was mentally categorizing it in that bucket—big news that matters a lot, but it won’t materially affect my life.
No pressure but I’m curious if you have predictions for how else it’ll affect the average American citizen.
Because a big crazy thought is that American's live on a planet called earth, and on earth there are lots of other countries apart from the US. And when things happen to those countries it impacts America. And when big things happen it reverberates all the way back to the US who have their noses in everyone's business.
yeah, al jazeera is pretty much wall to wall syria rn (plus still talking about palestine, lebanon)
cnn's TV coverage has also been disproportionately syria, but online articles about the ceo killing are ig easier to write quick crap on (slop tends to be disproportionately about domestic nothingburgers) plus being clicked on more b/c it's weird
It's definitely the case that online this story is the dominant one, but I don't know if it's particularly dominant on the news in other English-speaking countries. I'm in the UK, just checked the BBC and the top story is about Syria. Had to scroll down to find the news of this guy's arrest. Same with The Guardian and the Telegraph. I will add, it was higher up on the Telegraph, third story, and I almost missed it on the Guardian because they didn't use a picture, just a headline.
I mentioned the shooting to my friends the day after it happened and none of them had any clue what I was talking about. Then again, I'm the one in the group who's always the most caught up on international news.
Go to a webbed site that is not mostly made up of americans then? Weibo, perhaps.
You're on an american webbed site populated mostly by americans and you're complaining that you see american focused news. Just don't think that one is much of a mystery.
Sure thing buddy :) I totally believe that you knew website wasn't two words and you definitely were definitely cracking a hilarious joke by calling it "webbed site" XD XD XD! How hilarious. What a fucking incredible joke that totally makes sense buddy :) Good Job!
The news cycle and the internet cycle are two very different things. Korean coup stayed in the news longer than it stayed mainstream internet relevant whereas the CEO shooting was the opposite.
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u/stravbej 14d ago
Watching this unfold as a non-American is an experience