Luigi Mangione’s name had barely been released when the internet turned its attention to his digital footprint, poring over his posts and profiles for insight into the man accused of killing Brian Thompson, the CEO of UnitedHealthcare.

The web quickly settled on its own narrative: Mangione didn’t fit the mold. Instead, the 26-year-old from a well-known Baltimore-area family has been cast as a kind of ideological antihero.

From Goodreads, social media fixated on his review of a book by Theodore Kaczynski, known as the Unabomber.

“How long until we recognize that violence against those who lead us to such destruction is justified as self-defense,” he wrote in the Goodreads post. (The line appears to have been copied from a Reddit comment.)

Many also highlighted a quote he liked from Dr. Seuss’ The Lorax: “Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It’s not.”

From X, Mangione’s engagement in philosophical debates about utilitarianism — the idea of maximizing the greatest good for the greatest number — drew attention. He frequently retweeted figures like Stanford neuroscientist Andrew Huberman and podcaster Tim Ferriss, tech-world favorites known for promoting self-improvement.

His pinned post on X, from December 2022, refers to his senior speech seven years earlier. “Today, I will be talking to you about the future, about topics ranging from conscious artificial intelligence to human immortality,” he wrote. “Likely, you’ll dismiss all this pretty quickly as interesting, but just science fiction…”

It is perhaps his X header image that generated the most interest. To the left of a shirtless shot of Mangione on a tropical hike is an X-ray photo of a spine with four screws in it. His friends say he shared that he had suffered a back injury and needed surgery.

His LinkedIn profile added to the intrigue: two Ivy League degrees and a prestigious prep-school education seemed to underpin his philosophical musings. Mangione attended The Gilman School since the 6th grade, and his senior yearbook shows he favored the writing center and robotics club. At the University of Pennsylvania, he was a computer science major concentrating on artificial intelligence, a topic he’d go on to regularly discuss on social media.

From Instagram, amid posts of family vacations and college fraternity events, Mangione’s only saved story was a series of “predictions” he made in 2007, where “young Luigi” predicted a world in 2027 less reliant on fossil fuels and more likely to seek out plant-based meat alternatives. His Facebook account includes snapshots of him smiling with his friends, sometimes dressed in their prep-school blazers and ties.

Even before his name became known, Luigi Mangione had already been cast online as a kind of modern-day Robin Hood. Memes flooded the internet, portraying him as a crusader against predatory insurance practices. Some went so far as to tout their passing resemblance to him.

Users across social media platforms swarmed his profiles — most of which have been deactivated — leaving thousands of comments and messages, many offering well-wishes and some promoting crowdfunding campaigns for his legal defense.

His X account now has over 300,000 followers. Under his posts, which days ago had little to no engagement, a new hashtag has emerged: #FreeLuigi.