The bad news is that anyone did.
We first learned about the contest to find lookalikes on Wednesday when the Observer's social media editor, Jordan Maddox, noticed flyers posted on light standards around the UNT campus announcing the contest scheduled for Friday afternoon. The flyer included a photo of Mangione, who is accused of murdering United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson on Dec. 4. in Manhattan, and a QR code linking to an X feed about how, to put it bluntly, fuckable Mangione is.
We could've written a story about the flyers, but we could find no information about who was behind them or whether this was some sort of tasteless prank. Lookalike contest flash mobs, usually trying to find people who resemble popular actors, are a trendy thing, and we might have gotten tons of people to click on a story about a local one about Mangione.
We decided instead to not provide publicity for an event making light of the killing of an unarmed, 50-year-old father of two who was shot in the back. We're not fans of the U.S. healthcare system — Who is? — and we've made our share of crass and unkind jokes about politics and politicians over the years, but chuckling over a cowardly act of terrorism while a family mourns was a bar too low even for us.
We're not telling you this to brag about what nice people we are. We aren't. And this isn't another think piece about what the social media and public reaction to Thompson's execution says about the state of the nation's culture. Tons of people have written plenty about Mangione's bogus folk hero status over the past week. In fact, we probably would have ignored this altogether had the two young men who organized the contest not included a "creativity" portion that had the final two contestants reenacting the shooting.
Do something like that on the public square and you obviously want to get some attention, and we're happy to help get the word, along with your names and faces, out in the world where everyone can share the "joke." Same goes whether you're a Proud Boy, a Jan. 6 rioter or a student attempting to make a comment, we suppose, about the need for better access to affordable healthcare. You made the statement, kids. Now own it.
Here's Jordan's report from the event:
"As the bell tower rang 1 p.m., Emmanuel Allison perched atop the brick retaining wall of a flower bed along the UNT Library Mall. Gabriel Houston stood beneath him on ground level.Jordan spoke to one of the organizers of the contest afterward.
Slowly, almost timidly, four hooded figures approached Allison and Houston. I joined the group slowly as the group huddled.
Eventually a small crowd converged to watch the show. Fewer than 30 onlookers packed a section of the Library Mall as the lookalike contest began.
The organizer, Allison, announced that there would be three categories: resemblance, trivia and creativity — whatever that meant.
Allison called for three people in the crowd to be judges.
Allison and Houston passed out flyers — the same ones that had been stripped from the university’s light poles quickly after they went up. It was the flyer for the Luigi Mangione lookalike contest.
Laughter filled the space as the event kicked off. One-by-one the small crowd of no more than 30 people took turns cheering for each contestant - the one with the loudest cheers would be deemed the winner and would be safe to go on to the next round.
After that, the judges selected one of the contestants to eliminate.
The second round was Mangione trivia consisting of questions like: What was he eating when he was caught, how much money did he have on him when he was caught, what fake name did he use to check into the hostel, where did he go to college, what was his degree in and what industry was his family in?
Unsurprisingly, the unorganized hosts failed to count who got the most answers right, so the fate of the contestants was in the hands of the judges. One more was eliminated — leaving just two left.
The final category was "creativity." Originally, Allison admitted to not knowing what to do for the category — until someone chimed in saying that they should do a reenactment of… well, you know.
The final two contestants were given “creative liberty” with reenacting their versions of Thompson’s murder. Houston played the part of Thompson — laying out the scene for the crowd before the first contestant did his run.
After the winner was crowned by Allison, he was given the prize of “free healthcare” - which was just a first aid kit filled with gag gifts.
Afterward, they took group photos with the UNT tower standing proudly in the background.
"It was just like a joke I came up with as soon as he got captured and there were photos of him," biology student Emmanuel Allison said. "How wacky would it be if there were a lookalike contest?" So he put up a call for the contest on Instagram. Absurdity is "so innate in our politics" these days, he said, why not embrace the absurdity? "Embracing Luigi and what he did and what he stands for is something we're actually able to take power in."
He did acknowledge that the murder was "tragic in a sense" but "what it stands for appeals to so many people across the United States."
We're not exactly sure that "absurd" is the right word to apply to a celebration of a man being shot down from behind in a "tragic in a sense" murder, or what Mangione, reportedly an Ivy League-educated son of privilege, stood for or whether it also counts as absurd. In the spirit of helping out a student, we suggest Allison look it up. While he's at it, he can see whether he can find the word to describe the use of violence, especially against civilians, to create fear and intimidation for political ends.
