So, the Internet Is Swooning Over the Suspected UnitedHealthcare Assassin
Early Wednesday, Brian Thompson, the CEO of UnitedHealthcare, was fatally shot outside the hotel where the company was hosting its investors day. And the suspect has sent the internet into a tizzy.
Photo: NYPD EntertainmentLatest
Slow news week, huh? Just kidding! Early Wednesday morning, Brian Thompson, the CEO of UnitedHealthcare, was fatally shot outside the Manhattan hotel where the insurance company was hosting a conference for its investors. As if the shock shooting on its own didn’t warrant enough frenzied coverage, the hooded, masked gunman successfully fled. According to early reports, the United assassin bicycled off into the sunset on a Citibike; those reports have since been redacted, but I refuse to let go of the slapstick-comedy-esque image in my head of a faceless killer making an eco-friendly getaway.
In any case, the unidentified man remains at large, and the scant surveillance photos that supposedly depict him at the scene of the crime, grabbing Starbucks beforehand, and reportedly flirting with a female employee at a nearby hostel, have since sent the entire internet into a tizzy.
As Rolling Stone’s Miles Klee and journalist Taylor Lorenz reported this week, the cultural reaction to this particular shooting in our society afflicted by endemic gun violence has been very different from reactions to other shootings. I just hope that… in a country where people have to call Ubers to the emergency room because their insurers won’t cover the ambulance ride, it’s self-explanatory why that might be.
The widespread memes about the assassin only grew more feral on Thursday, when the NYPD released additional surveillance photos supposedly depicting a person of interest in the shooting. There’s some dispute over whether the person in the new photos and the person in the surveillance video of the shooting are even the same — they appear to be wearing different jackets and backpacks. And, in weather like this, identifying a 5’10-ish white man in a winter jacket with his hood up is akin to finding a needle in the haystack.
Now, as the killer looms free, either camped out in Central Park or stowing away on a boat to the non-extradition nation of Moldova, social media users have spent the last 24 hours swooning over the grainy surveillance photos. And… I can’t say I don’t understand. As an attendee of the recent Timothee Chalamet lookalike contest, the alleged killer bears an uncanny resemblance to some of the attendees, if not the Dune actor himself. That hasn’t gone unnoticed by social media users. The New York Post itself reported on the aesthetic similarities between the few inches of his face we’ve seen and the likes of Chalamet and Jake Gyllenhaal. Ah, two famously average-looking men who inspire no reaction whatsoever from women!
NYPD has released photos of the alleged gunman who killed the UnitedHealthcare CEO, Brian Thompson. pic.twitter.com/YoYXtjbgfQ
— Pop Base (@PopBase) December 5, 2024
“look detective, we’re ALL looking for a hot 5’ 10” guy with athletic build and strong follow through instincts,” one user tweeted. Others speculated that a United Assassin lookalike contest in the city is imminent. “Every woman I know is down catastrophic for the United Healthcare CEO assassin so if you’re a lonely, unstable, disaffected young man yearning for love and connection I can confidently tell you that there’s (1) thing you can do to get that special girl’s attention…” another user wrote.