Setting the stage for the pretty huge dick tweet has been your greatest contribution to mankind, Max, and I don't say that out of disregard to your other ventures
I made that joke many times on X lol. FWIW I mention the following as a footnote but I think it’s worth highlighting: I didn’t actually see either tweet at the time. I was not following him and have replies from non followers set to not notify. The first time I saw either of them was after he was named at the shooter. I have no idea why I wasn’t following him—I thought I was—as I enjoyed the conversations we had. Big bummer to me cause I think we would have had a lot more fun conversations and debates back then.
Edit: This is wrong. While there are a few tweets I didn't reply to because I didn't see, I did actually reply to his PhD comment back in May.
oh the letter he sent to someone that you mentioned. It's on my list to review. It's outside the scope of part 1 and likely even part 2, and I am trying to preserve my focus on whichever article I am working at the time. Will review soon.
The tl;dr is that it’s a letter reply with a joking context and makes self deprecating comments on his arrest. Some Luigi factions are spiraling over its legitimacy because they can’t believe he would say things like that.
girl i compared the handwriting it's consistent with every letter dude is a straight up dork. i love it.
He is so unaware of his sexiness it's hilarious.
Girls are saying it's fake bc they're mad he sent them a letter that just says "dear you, thanks for the love. carpe deim, luigi" this is funny as shit.
I find it strange that after a national manhunt ending at a busy McDonalds there would be ZERO footage of the arrest by witnesses, which would have gone viral. There is also no security or police footage. The police records also state he was never fingerprinted in PA (you can find them on his official website), yet at that time the NYPD claimed to have a fingerprint match.
I find this quote from Luigi interesting "(...)The issue with this guy is that he’s discounting “nurture” so hard he’s voluntarily ending his own bloodline”
If Luigi is indeed guilty of the assasination, he too voluntarily ended his own bloodline, or at least made it very difficult for himself to have children, and practically impossible to be present in their lives. I wonder what might have led him to consider this path acceptable for himself.
This stood out to me as well. Overall if he is guilty, it seems like this was a considered and chosen opt out of his own life. I know the popular going theory is altruism, but it doesn’t make much sense to me.
Yes, that’s true. I agree with your points; if he actually is guilty, based on what we know, he was actively trying to flee and not get caught. Still, it seemed like he was trying to run away from the life he knew. I always think, if he could get away with it, was he just never going to contact his friends or family again? Where was he going to hide out? Was he going to leave the country? So many unanswered questions. I definitely think he was struggling with severe mental illness, but we obviously don’t know the specifics of that.
"Reddit – First Reddit comment. Multi-paragraph comment in r/Pokemongo detailing his thesis for why he believes Nintendo will announce a Pokémon Go update at the 2016 Nintendo Pokémon Direct event.
Reddit – First reddit submission. asking what others think of his thesis re: Pokemon Go update."
I'm sorry this is so unintentionally funny it's cute. This man is innocent.
I don’t get how people interested in this case don’t find this useful. Although you’re kind of insane for taking the time to do this. I look forward to part 2 😀
This is actually a great reference doc due to the timeline format and I will be bookmarking it. I’ve read through Luigi’s socials, but seeing it all merged in this format helps a great deal to understand the progression and the gaps.
The additional context you’ve added about the book topics and more about the Twitter accounts he was replying to is also illuminating. I’m not in these spaces and to be honest reading his twitter history kinda bores the hell out of me so I appreciate the tidbits here. (there’s a running joke about how boring or off putting he must be to women in real life based on his takes)
Much of this stuff has already been dissected to death on Reddit, so don’t be surprised if you get told that this adds nothing, but I think it does, given the timeline format and additional insights.
I have some comments on the footnotes-
16. TrueCar isn’t unknown imo (granted, I do live near a building with their logo emblazoned on top) but I agree it’s not a FAANG job, and I wonder if he wanted that. I have seen speculation elsewhere about having to settle due to his internships and networks (he was a camp counselor at Stanford instead of taking tech internships). Do you have any insight into whether he was let go or quit in 2023? He told friends that he quit because it was boring, but there were also mass layoffs at the time so it’s been wondered if he was covering.
25. But… he did have his back pain by Feb 2022. As you noted it’s likely the injury was in January. But even so, he said on Reddit that he had spondy since childhood and mild back pain that he basically learned to deal with. It’s quite possible he had looked into cures before, so this doesn’t stand out to me.
29. I agree he probably rated it low if it encourages people not to get surgery. Based on his reddit history it seemed like he was afraid to get surgery until he realized that all other options had been exhausted, but he was never “against” it. So that tracks.
36. The personal story in that review about arguing with his mom over the proper way to cut steak (at 6 years old!) and having that interaction stick with him is notable to me. This is hearsay, but you might be interested to know that the police say that a friend told them that Luigi’s mom is “somewhat overbearing”. (https://archive.is/r38Jt)
40. See above
43. Thanks for deciphering this
47. I’ve kinda skipped over the non-review goodreads stuff so thank you for the additional context, I need to go read whatever quotes he liked
49. Additional lore here - a former friend posted a text convo from February 2024 where Luigi said “Eh yea I have this boomer vendetta against phones” (I can send the screenshot in PM)
60. This is one of the most legendary pieces of Luigi Lore and I’m sorry you missed it at the time. (Edit: I guess you did reply but I overlooked that since the convo ended there)
61. Thanks for linking the doghouse clip. I’d heard it was a Norm joke but I hadn’t actually seen it. RIP Norm
Thank you for comment. This is exactly what I was trying to do with this unified timeline. I agree that unifying is makes it much easier to assess changes in his personality. I understand why zealots who never grow or change will see it as unnecessary. But this series is not for them.
As far as footnotes and other comments, will need to review and provide longer response later.
re 16: I had never heard of it. It doesn't give me any prestige vibes either way. Everything about his life up until graduation was all high-prestige stuff. I think there is something telling about his prestige trajectory flatlining after college. WHAT it says, i'm not sure, but it's worth thinking about.
25. The note was mostly over the fact that everything I've seen says his injury was in July. But as may or may not be evident, I have not paid attention to much outside of these SM things up until the last week. If reddit sleuths or newer articles already ack that it happened in jan/feb then my note is superfluous.
29. I get the sense that he trusted doctors who advised against surgery and eventually was in so much pain that he did it and become angry that he was told by so many to be afraid of or avoid it. I personally don't think this anger influenced the (alleged) shooting (or at least wasn't at the heart of it), but i do think he had lost trust in the advice of doctors.
37. yes good note I had forgot about that. I do want to be careful to read into it too much as I suspect most upper class mothers are very "proper" in that way and I've seen little evidence of an extremely strained relationship between him and his family (the primary being the fact that after college he moved away to hawaii and traveled but this is entirely consistent with the idea that he just wanted to explore the world), but worth keeping in the mental archive for future associations.
40. Thinking more about 40, i actually changed the note. I no longer thing the 48 laws of power has any relation to TRP for Luigi. Updated to "While this book is a common one reference in “Red Pill” communities, and he was engaging with a few “Red Pill” accounts. I think he would have added “The Rational Male” if he truly believed there was some validity to “Red Pill” ideas."
43. yw
49. that does not surprise me. It seems very evident to me he wanted technology be something that is only a tool rather than a master.
16. Well yeah, TrueCar is definitely not prestige I agree. Why he went there is a mystery. I mentioned he did summer jobs as a Stanford camp counselor rather than taking tech internships, so it’s been speculated that he couldn’t land a better gig.
On the subject of Stanford, one thing I find kind of interesting but I don’t really see talked about much is that his 2015 WP blog was luigimangionestanford and that was made when he was in high school. Was Stanford his dream school? Was Penn his choice for reasons that weren’t his? I wonder about this.
I admit I don’t follow LM reddit that closely because they are fanatical and exhausting so maybe they’ve already come to a conclusion on this.
25 My brain is currently mush as well so if you have a citation for July 2022 injury let me know. If it’s just an assumption based on an ER visit I’m skeptical. I’d be going off his words on reddit over that.
29 I lost trust in doctors about his age too, so I feel for him. Thankfully I didn’t have so much of a life altering issue. But anyway I agree it was likely not a motive, if the police report of him writing “insurance checks all the boxes” is true then it’s not about doctors themselves.
37 the family is a major question mark in this and it’s not surprising that they’ve closed ranks given their status. It will be interesting to see if any close family attend the trial or otherwise come forward. So far we have a generic press release and a deleted post from his sister saying “praying for you”.
re: 25 he says on multiple occasions on reddit that his surgery was on July 21st 2023. The media says his injury was july (7th?) 2022, because he had an ER visit then. But his reddit history very clearly suggests that it was before that. He explicitly says at least once that his spondy became debilitating in Jan. I have it in the article. It would be odd that his spondy because debilitating in Jan and then in feb he had the surfing injury. But not impossible. Either way, assuming he's not completely schizophrenic, his spondy was def debilitating before July 2022 when he had ER visit.
2023 was a typo on my part, I meant 2022 for the injury. I’m sure someone will correct me if I’m wrong but I think the accepted timeline is early 2022 for the injury not the ER visit.
In regard to 49 - that convo always lead me to believe that Luigi was using anonymous burner accounts for some platforms. I don't want to look for the screenshot rn, but the friend says something about wondering who the random account trying to follow him was. It makes me wonder about the efficacy of social media analysis. It's not that this isn't well done or well researched, I just think that there might be more recent stuff out there that we're not privy to.
I’m sure he had alts. No way this dude wasn’t secretly on r/wallstreetbets
Most of what’s been uncovered was based on searching his email addresses. But iirc the reddit account was only found because he linked to his own GitHub which happens to be lnmangione. So yeah there’s gotta be more.
I myself, orbit around spaces that involve luigi(X,subreddits, ig, youtube) and i try to see all perspectives. whether or not i agree with certain points, i think it’s important to see all angles. i appreciate any analysis or perspectives on luigi, including yours. i don’t understand the need for luigi stans to vilify anyone that doesn’t immediately get down on their knees for him. you can say things that might put him in a “negative light”, bc humans are flawed! and that’s reality, which is where i would like to be. im in the subreddits for info updates and some of the comments make me feel like i might be in the wrong space. very parasocial behavior and they attack anyone that doesn’t align with them, like packs of wolves. anyways, im looking forward to reading all parts and getting your perspective on luigi, thank you for writing this.
I agree. The Reddit behavior is parasocial and creepy, but Reddit in general is a hit or miss. You’ll see that Reddit really attracts obsessive and toxic individuals and it also heavily depends on the type of subreddit too. There are a ton of other subreddits dedicated to controversial figures, and even serial killers (I’m NOT comparing Luigi to a serial killer or anything like that). Some subreddits are full of reasonable people, others are full of hateful crazies. Whatever or whoever is popular or notorious on the internet, Redditors will run with it and create a mini-cult out of it.
He also had Instagram and Facebook which are deleted now but you can find screen recordings on tiktok. It was all just pics of him and his friends having a good time. Makes you wonder what went wrong
@Max if you’re interested in the Insta/FB referred here by Ioana I can send you what I have. Not sure it will really add anything to the recap you’re doing here as it’s light social media stuff, but let me know.
He disappeared and cut off his family and friends, which as you know from all their statements was concerning and unusual. He was supposed to attend that best friend’s wedding in September and they were all looking for him. Whether he was coerced into something, or had a mental break, we don’t know why, and we’ll probably not know until the trial.
This is screaming “I am lost and lonely. I need help.” It makes me sad. I haven’t been this knee deep into the range of discourses like LM but I was in the atheism + skepticism + pseudo science pipeline and it was a depressing period of my life. I was questioning my family trauma-bound existence, relationships and was hopeless.
Thankfully, timely therapy and a few good friendships helped me. It is also striking that relationships get little to no importance in his intellectual pursuits. That’s really the missing centre of this whole puzzle (I think). I stopped relying on parasocial relationships on the internet (even if they were giving me answers I wanted) and found help in people IRL I could get vulnerable with.
Most of my male friends can’t say “I need help”. They will do everything else: travel, gym, build a start up, get into podcasts… but won’t take therapy and fix relationships until their problems get too big and collapse on them. LM is too relatable. The reason I feel emotionally invested in this whole thing is not because of the Robinhood-ification of the crime. Its the story of tech-induced Gen Z male loneliness, which will never get discussed in mainstream media. Thank you for the effort :)
I agree with you here, and when I analyzed this stuff myself it was abundantly clear to me that he was going through it. I partially connect with the dude because of my deep hole in the ground depression and I can see that..... I've been there. I've tried to end my life several times. I try not to project but even as a woman seeing a guy deal with that kind of stuff brings out the protector in me. Again, I don't want to be parasocial about a stranger and blow it up out of proportion in my mind, but I've always been the caretaker, so, no surprise I fall into that role even from a distance. Kinda why I chose it for my career.
Feminism forgot about our boys. We need to show those boys that they can be strong too--and that they don't have to be embarrassed by telling other men that they need help. When I've got a 7 year old boy telling me that the only way he knows how to handle is depression is through violent outbursts in class, we've got a problem.
to build on your comment, some sort of ableism excerbated by patriarchal beliefs of what masculinity "looks" like it may have contributed to these feelings of loneliness. him being bed bound for days due to a life-halting injury that subsequently sent him into bouts of chronic pain signals the end of his mobility freedom. his interest in nature vs nurture discourse also points to a potential desire to make sense of his injury (whether spondy was inherited or caused by a certain environment, or his parents had passed down trauma to him through genes). he obviously tried identifying many problems pedantically to find proactive solutions, turning to books, reddit, etc.
what is worth noting is that his circumstances (socially, physically, mentally) did not necessarily align with those masculine ideals imposed on men by society. i am not talking about the alpha male rhetoric about owning women and stuff, but the traditionnal beliefs like protecting the nuclear family, pulling yourself by your bootstraps, and self-discipline (notably through exercise). being disabled physically can prevent many to reach those ideals. but he did seem grounded enough to approach "problems" with nuance and open-mindedness. without speculating much on his mental health and family, i have a feeling that growing up in the uptight environment he grew up in (with a grandfather prone to outburts, see old 1980s newspapers), living in a country where there are only two political parties to vote for (thus, no one fully representing his views), and suffering under the weight of patriarchal standards of men may have shaped his ways to approach to understanding life, problems, and ultimately his own feelings.
i don't agree that men loneliness isn't discussed enough because it has been front and center since mass shootibgs became daily occurrences and got more mainstream after the US elections. however, it is most often discussed in parallel to women and how they deal with their loneliness at the supposed expense. yet, those who discuss it without care for intersectionality and feminism, in general, mostly blame women for male loneliness when the actual concept should be discussed in relation to societal norms placed on men due to patriarchal beliefs. excluding such frameworks from analyses on men loneliness epidemics overlooks the shared humanity we have, and may prevent many from all sides of the issue to use compassion over accusatory remarks.
Male loneliness is not discussed enough. I work in mental health. We are a female-dominated field and most women are not focusing on male loneliness. It seems like you're speaking anecdotally here. I'm currently reading about sexual objectification of men, which is something that has been increasing since the 90s. Very difficult to find scientific articles on this topic even though it is a thing, however not to the extent that women experience it.
I wanted to note, I’ve noticed that his job at true car is something people don’t talk about a lot. I think he was most likely laid off, but we don’t know for sure. I seriously think that contributed to his possible spiral. I’m sure he felt that he had to live up to huge expectations, and it can be devastating and a blow to anyone’s ego to be laid off or fired. It’s also possible he didn’t like the trajectory his tech career was going in? But we don’t know enough about that. Interested in hearing your thoughts on that :-)
I'd also be interested if this was confirmed. Because I read (pretty sure it was in one of his notes/reviews) that he preferred the idea of short period of "retirement" throughout life rather than working for decades to only then enjoy your freedom. This, together with the comment that the job was "mind numbingly boring" would suggest he quit by himself
Maybe he did quit? Hopefully, we’ll get more clarity on that in the future. There are reports saying that he likely was laid off, but we really don’t know. There are so many unanswered questions, and I feel like there is so much about him we don’t know yet that’ll eventually come to light and could surprise us.
Ah nice finds. A lot of the claims made in those articles irked me, twisting facts to fit a narrative... but it sounds like they literally reached out to his employer to confirm he was no longer employed there so I think we can reasonably assume it is a fact.
He also never told his family he didn't work there anymore, which I think is very interesting.
His mother reported him missing in Nov 2024, and was under the assumption he still worked there. She reported him missing in San Fran because that's where the TrueCar offices are.
Apparently he went back to Baltimore last Christmas, so I think it's very telling he never told his parents that he no longer had a job... whether he quit or was laid-off, I think it's important.
I’m really surprised no journalist has gone digging at TrueCar. No one can say was it early, mid, late 2023 that he stopped working there. If end of 2023 he may have quit to go travelling. Not unusual for someone in their mid 20’s.
I was fully prepared to roll my eyes at yet another unneeded summation of every moment Luigi spent on social media. It's not like it hasn't been examined and discussed to death, right? So it's a pleasant surprise that this actually provides a new and somehow more impactful way of seeing and absorbing all of this than anything I have seen so far.
I am intrigued, and looking forward to the next part.
I am glad to have pleasantry surprised you. I agree that seeing it all together allows for a much more cohesive storyline to form from the facts alone—seeing his evolution rather than him as a "fixed" state; as well as being able to actually digest it rather than just seeing an overwhelming collection of data (something which forces us to rely on our pre-existing biases to filter it). It is precisely why I took the like 40 or so hours it too write it lol.
In my opinion, the post he made in the OneBag subreddit: Journal / Packing List: 2+ Months in Asia in a Mid-Sized Backpack from Friday, 04/05/2024, sheds a lot of light on his personality. I didn’t see you delve into it, and I would really like to read your perspective on it.
First, thank you for your lengthy analysis. The header of this article - lol, what do you think of his chess.com username? AFAIK, people in r/chess called him a noob based on his profile. Obviously, I can’t judge since I don’t know anything about chess.
Have you ever thought that his social media, particularly his X account, is just his other online persona? I remember your Substack post a few days ago about having a different online persona than in real life.
I personally don’t believe in MBTI because the questions are too vague, and I couldn’t give any sincere answers.
Also, thank you for making this article and previous ones into Substack audio so I can cheat and call it reading lol
I chose that picture because I think it is one of many examples that Luigi liked to have fun, and I believe that the zealots on both sides could benefit from being reminded of that.
I don't know anything about Chess either so also can't comment on anything besides that.
I have considered whether his SM is a persona. And while we are all persona's, wearing masks, and we all only go to the internet to get things which we cannot get from the people in our real life's: I find it hard to believe that he would be willing to put him name and face and lots of PII to things which he was not OK with being associated with him and who he truly was.
With that said, I intend to entertain it later in the series to cover all my basis.
As far as Substack audio, I didn't even realize that this was not enabled by default until a few days ago. I basically just have to re-save them so they are available as audio. It's on my list to go and do all of them, but if you have one in particular you're interested in, lmk and I can just update it real quick.
I appreciate your clearly very intensely researched timeline. Personally I would be a bit more speculative/careful when attributing one time engagements with various accounts to seismic political shifts or even to any political shifts at all. I only joined Twitter towards the end of 2024, so correct me if it used to function differently at the beginning of that year, but in my experience at least, Twitters algorithm is somewhat eclectic and has often recommended me posts from all kinds of accounts, including many that I would describe as being "outside of the overton window", despite my personal twitter profile being very apolitical. I have also often stumbled upon them out of curiosity in the replies of another tweet. Usually I do not take a deep dive into the account connected to a tweet before liking it or commenting, so god knows who I have interacted with. Therefor I would foot my analysis more on Luigis specific tweets, the people he followed, and the people he interacted with more than once, although the rest may still make for interesting speculative analysis.
Yes I agree completely. I only mention the radical nature of a few other these accounts because I think people will already fixate on those things, and I intend to dispell or much of their significance in the next part. But I will double check what I wrote as far as footnotes and things based on your comment. thanks!
FWIW I appreciated the context for these accounts. As I said in my main comment I’m not in these spaces so I don’t know and don’t care to research who they are.
Also worth noting that the last time he attempted to reach out to Gurwinder privately, it was a request for help curating his timeline. Who knows what direction he wanted to go in though, because Gurwinder ignored him. Ah well.
Personally I have not seen people particularly focusing on the ideological nature of the accounts behind the tweets he commented something lighthearted under. I believe this is partly because twitters peculiar algorithm is familar to most users, and partly because most of the people interested in him are not as savvy in those circles as you are and would not really recognize those accounts.
In my opinion that could be the case (for example reading the post left me with a different impression than reading your first reply to my comment). However it would probably be best to examine on a case by case basis. If Luigi had multiple interactions with an account, the likelyhood that he was familiar with it obviously rises (I believe this is the case with the Jenny Epstein account, although he did not seem to particularly like them).
Luigis personal tweets also reveal him favoring "traditional architecture" (but not suspecting any sort of malicious conspiracy behind barebones modern architecture) and being somewhat "pronatalist", views I personally also share, and which (to borrow some Scott Alexander verbiage) are "red team coded", despite not being particularly offensive or disagreeable to most people. This would presumably also impact his twitter algorithm.
A thorough analysis of the makeup of his following lists on Twitter and Substack is minimally done elsewhere. I suggest you do one since you're very familiar with both platforms and your insight will add more dimension to the puzzle pieces we're all trying to put together collectively.
Setting the stage for the pretty huge dick tweet has been your greatest contribution to mankind, Max, and I don't say that out of disregard to your other ventures
I made that joke many times on X lol. FWIW I mention the following as a footnote but I think it’s worth highlighting: I didn’t actually see either tweet at the time. I was not following him and have replies from non followers set to not notify. The first time I saw either of them was after he was named at the shooter. I have no idea why I wasn’t following him—I thought I was—as I enjoyed the conversations we had. Big bummer to me cause I think we would have had a lot more fun conversations and debates back then.
Edit: This is wrong. While there are a few tweets I didn't reply to because I didn't see, I did actually reply to his PhD comment back in May.
wait, did you not reply with "hardy harr wise guy" to his pretty huge dick tweet back in may? https://x.com/minordissent/status/1794160915031711924
so don't despair too much!
oh wow you are right. Sounds like I am recollecting incorrectly. I will fix this.
it is mildly concerning that I have such a thorough knowledge of this specific Luigi tweet...
Nah it's a banger you are making the right choice
"Oh god. I hope your mugshot t-shirt has the photo of me in blue (the day I was picked up at McDonalds for the heinous crime of ordering a hashbrown)"
😂
the man DOES NOT know
i dont understand this comment. enlighten me?
i sent you this dude, get with it! look in your DMs
oh the letter he sent to someone that you mentioned. It's on my list to review. It's outside the scope of part 1 and likely even part 2, and I am trying to preserve my focus on whichever article I am working at the time. Will review soon.
The tl;dr is that it’s a letter reply with a joking context and makes self deprecating comments on his arrest. Some Luigi factions are spiraling over its legitimacy because they can’t believe he would say things like that.
always assumed that was a fake letter, but who knows
girl i compared the handwriting it's consistent with every letter dude is a straight up dork. i love it.
He is so unaware of his sexiness it's hilarious.
Girls are saying it's fake bc they're mad he sent them a letter that just says "dear you, thanks for the love. carpe deim, luigi" this is funny as shit.
The funny thing is Jules (carpe diem) is the one who believed it was real off the bat. It’s everyone else who can’t accept it.
Yeah I was just using it as an example I love Jules. It wasn’t meant as an insult to her.
doesn't the "but that didn't bother tiktok" part of the letter imply that he is indeed aware of his effect on us? lol, love him
Right but..... You gotta be blatantly obvious with men like this. trust me. It will probably take him 6 months before it clicks.
Luigi, I want to have your children!
hoping he writes me "Dear Maggie, Oh god."
😂
I think it’s real and I predict that it will be the accepted as real within the next few weeks as more letter samples come out.
I think it would be obvious because the letters would be too consistent and unnatural if traced.
there are specific ways to tell if handwriting is forged. I won't get into it but this aint it.
I find it strange that after a national manhunt ending at a busy McDonalds there would be ZERO footage of the arrest by witnesses, which would have gone viral. There is also no security or police footage. The police records also state he was never fingerprinted in PA (you can find them on his official website), yet at that time the NYPD claimed to have a fingerprint match.
I find this quote from Luigi interesting "(...)The issue with this guy is that he’s discounting “nurture” so hard he’s voluntarily ending his own bloodline”
If Luigi is indeed guilty of the assasination, he too voluntarily ended his own bloodline, or at least made it very difficult for himself to have children, and practically impossible to be present in their lives. I wonder what might have led him to consider this path acceptable for himself.
This stood out to me as well. Overall if he is guilty, it seems like this was a considered and chosen opt out of his own life. I know the popular going theory is altruism, but it doesn’t make much sense to me.
Yes, that’s true. I agree with your points; if he actually is guilty, based on what we know, he was actively trying to flee and not get caught. Still, it seemed like he was trying to run away from the life he knew. I always think, if he could get away with it, was he just never going to contact his friends or family again? Where was he going to hide out? Was he going to leave the country? So many unanswered questions. I definitely think he was struggling with severe mental illness, but we obviously don’t know the specifics of that.
"Reddit – First Reddit comment. Multi-paragraph comment in r/Pokemongo detailing his thesis for why he believes Nintendo will announce a Pokémon Go update at the 2016 Nintendo Pokémon Direct event.
Reddit – First reddit submission. asking what others think of his thesis re: Pokemon Go update."
I'm sorry this is so unintentionally funny it's cute. This man is innocent.
The guy’s got OPINIONS on Pokemon and he must share with the Internet!
Unshackle him!
I don’t get how people interested in this case don’t find this useful. Although you’re kind of insane for taking the time to do this. I look forward to part 2 😀
I am definitely insane. but the only penance for insanity is to make oneself useful.
Pretty insightful first part. By the amount of research made I can see that this must have taken lots of work and time to be put together 👍
This is actually a great reference doc due to the timeline format and I will be bookmarking it. I’ve read through Luigi’s socials, but seeing it all merged in this format helps a great deal to understand the progression and the gaps.
The additional context you’ve added about the book topics and more about the Twitter accounts he was replying to is also illuminating. I’m not in these spaces and to be honest reading his twitter history kinda bores the hell out of me so I appreciate the tidbits here. (there’s a running joke about how boring or off putting he must be to women in real life based on his takes)
Much of this stuff has already been dissected to death on Reddit, so don’t be surprised if you get told that this adds nothing, but I think it does, given the timeline format and additional insights.
I have some comments on the footnotes-
16. TrueCar isn’t unknown imo (granted, I do live near a building with their logo emblazoned on top) but I agree it’s not a FAANG job, and I wonder if he wanted that. I have seen speculation elsewhere about having to settle due to his internships and networks (he was a camp counselor at Stanford instead of taking tech internships). Do you have any insight into whether he was let go or quit in 2023? He told friends that he quit because it was boring, but there were also mass layoffs at the time so it’s been wondered if he was covering.
25. But… he did have his back pain by Feb 2022. As you noted it’s likely the injury was in January. But even so, he said on Reddit that he had spondy since childhood and mild back pain that he basically learned to deal with. It’s quite possible he had looked into cures before, so this doesn’t stand out to me.
29. I agree he probably rated it low if it encourages people not to get surgery. Based on his reddit history it seemed like he was afraid to get surgery until he realized that all other options had been exhausted, but he was never “against” it. So that tracks.
36. The personal story in that review about arguing with his mom over the proper way to cut steak (at 6 years old!) and having that interaction stick with him is notable to me. This is hearsay, but you might be interested to know that the police say that a friend told them that Luigi’s mom is “somewhat overbearing”. (https://archive.is/r38Jt)
40. See above
43. Thanks for deciphering this
47. I’ve kinda skipped over the non-review goodreads stuff so thank you for the additional context, I need to go read whatever quotes he liked
49. Additional lore here - a former friend posted a text convo from February 2024 where Luigi said “Eh yea I have this boomer vendetta against phones” (I can send the screenshot in PM)
54. You didn’t note this but he also replied to the same tweet saying that he worries that we’re heading toward the movie Idiocracy. https://x.com/pepmangione/status/1783149744392651058
60. This is one of the most legendary pieces of Luigi Lore and I’m sorry you missed it at the time. (Edit: I guess you did reply but I overlooked that since the convo ended there)
61. Thanks for linking the doghouse clip. I’d heard it was a Norm joke but I hadn’t actually seen it. RIP Norm
Thank you for comment. This is exactly what I was trying to do with this unified timeline. I agree that unifying is makes it much easier to assess changes in his personality. I understand why zealots who never grow or change will see it as unnecessary. But this series is not for them.
As far as footnotes and other comments, will need to review and provide longer response later.
re 16: I had never heard of it. It doesn't give me any prestige vibes either way. Everything about his life up until graduation was all high-prestige stuff. I think there is something telling about his prestige trajectory flatlining after college. WHAT it says, i'm not sure, but it's worth thinking about.
25. The note was mostly over the fact that everything I've seen says his injury was in July. But as may or may not be evident, I have not paid attention to much outside of these SM things up until the last week. If reddit sleuths or newer articles already ack that it happened in jan/feb then my note is superfluous.
29. I get the sense that he trusted doctors who advised against surgery and eventually was in so much pain that he did it and become angry that he was told by so many to be afraid of or avoid it. I personally don't think this anger influenced the (alleged) shooting (or at least wasn't at the heart of it), but i do think he had lost trust in the advice of doctors.
37. yes good note I had forgot about that. I do want to be careful to read into it too much as I suspect most upper class mothers are very "proper" in that way and I've seen little evidence of an extremely strained relationship between him and his family (the primary being the fact that after college he moved away to hawaii and traveled but this is entirely consistent with the idea that he just wanted to explore the world), but worth keeping in the mental archive for future associations.
40. Thinking more about 40, i actually changed the note. I no longer thing the 48 laws of power has any relation to TRP for Luigi. Updated to "While this book is a common one reference in “Red Pill” communities, and he was engaging with a few “Red Pill” accounts. I think he would have added “The Rational Male” if he truly believed there was some validity to “Red Pill” ideas."
43. yw
49. that does not surprise me. It seems very evident to me he wanted technology be something that is only a tool rather than a master.
54. will add ty
60. yeah sorry brain is no function lately lol
61. yw
16. Well yeah, TrueCar is definitely not prestige I agree. Why he went there is a mystery. I mentioned he did summer jobs as a Stanford camp counselor rather than taking tech internships, so it’s been speculated that he couldn’t land a better gig.
On the subject of Stanford, one thing I find kind of interesting but I don’t really see talked about much is that his 2015 WP blog was luigimangionestanford and that was made when he was in high school. Was Stanford his dream school? Was Penn his choice for reasons that weren’t his? I wonder about this.
I admit I don’t follow LM reddit that closely because they are fanatical and exhausting so maybe they’ve already come to a conclusion on this.
25 My brain is currently mush as well so if you have a citation for July 2022 injury let me know. If it’s just an assumption based on an ER visit I’m skeptical. I’d be going off his words on reddit over that.
29 I lost trust in doctors about his age too, so I feel for him. Thankfully I didn’t have so much of a life altering issue. But anyway I agree it was likely not a motive, if the police report of him writing “insurance checks all the boxes” is true then it’s not about doctors themselves.
37 the family is a major question mark in this and it’s not surprising that they’ve closed ranks given their status. It will be interesting to see if any close family attend the trial or otherwise come forward. So far we have a generic press release and a deleted post from his sister saying “praying for you”.
re: 25 he says on multiple occasions on reddit that his surgery was on July 21st 2023. The media says his injury was july (7th?) 2022, because he had an ER visit then. But his reddit history very clearly suggests that it was before that. He explicitly says at least once that his spondy became debilitating in Jan. I have it in the article. It would be odd that his spondy because debilitating in Jan and then in feb he had the surfing injury. But not impossible. Either way, assuming he's not completely schizophrenic, his spondy was def debilitating before July 2022 when he had ER visit.
2023 was a typo on my part, I meant 2022 for the injury. I’m sure someone will correct me if I’m wrong but I think the accepted timeline is early 2022 for the injury not the ER visit.
In regard to 49 - that convo always lead me to believe that Luigi was using anonymous burner accounts for some platforms. I don't want to look for the screenshot rn, but the friend says something about wondering who the random account trying to follow him was. It makes me wonder about the efficacy of social media analysis. It's not that this isn't well done or well researched, I just think that there might be more recent stuff out there that we're not privy to.
I’m sure he had alts. No way this dude wasn’t secretly on r/wallstreetbets
Most of what’s been uncovered was based on searching his email addresses. But iirc the reddit account was only found because he linked to his own GitHub which happens to be lnmangione. So yeah there’s gotta be more.
I myself, orbit around spaces that involve luigi(X,subreddits, ig, youtube) and i try to see all perspectives. whether or not i agree with certain points, i think it’s important to see all angles. i appreciate any analysis or perspectives on luigi, including yours. i don’t understand the need for luigi stans to vilify anyone that doesn’t immediately get down on their knees for him. you can say things that might put him in a “negative light”, bc humans are flawed! and that’s reality, which is where i would like to be. im in the subreddits for info updates and some of the comments make me feel like i might be in the wrong space. very parasocial behavior and they attack anyone that doesn’t align with them, like packs of wolves. anyways, im looking forward to reading all parts and getting your perspective on luigi, thank you for writing this.
I agree. The Reddit behavior is parasocial and creepy, but Reddit in general is a hit or miss. You’ll see that Reddit really attracts obsessive and toxic individuals and it also heavily depends on the type of subreddit too. There are a ton of other subreddits dedicated to controversial figures, and even serial killers (I’m NOT comparing Luigi to a serial killer or anything like that). Some subreddits are full of reasonable people, others are full of hateful crazies. Whatever or whoever is popular or notorious on the internet, Redditors will run with it and create a mini-cult out of it.
Your comments are interesting. I too have read all of his social media trying to make sense of him. Looking forward to reading your next post.
He also had Instagram and Facebook which are deleted now but you can find screen recordings on tiktok. It was all just pics of him and his friends having a good time. Makes you wonder what went wrong
@Max if you’re interested in the Insta/FB referred here by Ioana I can send you what I have. Not sure it will really add anything to the recap you’re doing here as it’s light social media stuff, but let me know.
yes pls DM. i dont know if i'll include it here but would be good to see for analysis.
nothing went wrong.
He disappeared and cut off his family and friends, which as you know from all their statements was concerning and unusual. He was supposed to attend that best friend’s wedding in September and they were all looking for him. Whether he was coerced into something, or had a mental break, we don’t know why, and we’ll probably not know until the trial.
This is screaming “I am lost and lonely. I need help.” It makes me sad. I haven’t been this knee deep into the range of discourses like LM but I was in the atheism + skepticism + pseudo science pipeline and it was a depressing period of my life. I was questioning my family trauma-bound existence, relationships and was hopeless.
Thankfully, timely therapy and a few good friendships helped me. It is also striking that relationships get little to no importance in his intellectual pursuits. That’s really the missing centre of this whole puzzle (I think). I stopped relying on parasocial relationships on the internet (even if they were giving me answers I wanted) and found help in people IRL I could get vulnerable with.
Most of my male friends can’t say “I need help”. They will do everything else: travel, gym, build a start up, get into podcasts… but won’t take therapy and fix relationships until their problems get too big and collapse on them. LM is too relatable. The reason I feel emotionally invested in this whole thing is not because of the Robinhood-ification of the crime. Its the story of tech-induced Gen Z male loneliness, which will never get discussed in mainstream media. Thank you for the effort :)
I agree with you here, and when I analyzed this stuff myself it was abundantly clear to me that he was going through it. I partially connect with the dude because of my deep hole in the ground depression and I can see that..... I've been there. I've tried to end my life several times. I try not to project but even as a woman seeing a guy deal with that kind of stuff brings out the protector in me. Again, I don't want to be parasocial about a stranger and blow it up out of proportion in my mind, but I've always been the caretaker, so, no surprise I fall into that role even from a distance. Kinda why I chose it for my career.
Feminism forgot about our boys. We need to show those boys that they can be strong too--and that they don't have to be embarrassed by telling other men that they need help. When I've got a 7 year old boy telling me that the only way he knows how to handle is depression is through violent outbursts in class, we've got a problem.
to build on your comment, some sort of ableism excerbated by patriarchal beliefs of what masculinity "looks" like it may have contributed to these feelings of loneliness. him being bed bound for days due to a life-halting injury that subsequently sent him into bouts of chronic pain signals the end of his mobility freedom. his interest in nature vs nurture discourse also points to a potential desire to make sense of his injury (whether spondy was inherited or caused by a certain environment, or his parents had passed down trauma to him through genes). he obviously tried identifying many problems pedantically to find proactive solutions, turning to books, reddit, etc.
what is worth noting is that his circumstances (socially, physically, mentally) did not necessarily align with those masculine ideals imposed on men by society. i am not talking about the alpha male rhetoric about owning women and stuff, but the traditionnal beliefs like protecting the nuclear family, pulling yourself by your bootstraps, and self-discipline (notably through exercise). being disabled physically can prevent many to reach those ideals. but he did seem grounded enough to approach "problems" with nuance and open-mindedness. without speculating much on his mental health and family, i have a feeling that growing up in the uptight environment he grew up in (with a grandfather prone to outburts, see old 1980s newspapers), living in a country where there are only two political parties to vote for (thus, no one fully representing his views), and suffering under the weight of patriarchal standards of men may have shaped his ways to approach to understanding life, problems, and ultimately his own feelings.
i don't agree that men loneliness isn't discussed enough because it has been front and center since mass shootibgs became daily occurrences and got more mainstream after the US elections. however, it is most often discussed in parallel to women and how they deal with their loneliness at the supposed expense. yet, those who discuss it without care for intersectionality and feminism, in general, mostly blame women for male loneliness when the actual concept should be discussed in relation to societal norms placed on men due to patriarchal beliefs. excluding such frameworks from analyses on men loneliness epidemics overlooks the shared humanity we have, and may prevent many from all sides of the issue to use compassion over accusatory remarks.
Male loneliness is not discussed enough. I work in mental health. We are a female-dominated field and most women are not focusing on male loneliness. It seems like you're speaking anecdotally here. I'm currently reading about sexual objectification of men, which is something that has been increasing since the 90s. Very difficult to find scientific articles on this topic even though it is a thing, however not to the extent that women experience it.
I wanted to note, I’ve noticed that his job at true car is something people don’t talk about a lot. I think he was most likely laid off, but we don’t know for sure. I seriously think that contributed to his possible spiral. I’m sure he felt that he had to live up to huge expectations, and it can be devastating and a blow to anyone’s ego to be laid off or fired. It’s also possible he didn’t like the trajectory his tech career was going in? But we don’t know enough about that. Interested in hearing your thoughts on that :-)
do we know for sure that he didn't work there anymore? I also think that his job situation tells us a lot.
He didn’t work there anymore after 2023 and most reports are claiming he was laid off.
I'd also be interested if this was confirmed. Because I read (pretty sure it was in one of his notes/reviews) that he preferred the idea of short period of "retirement" throughout life rather than working for decades to only then enjoy your freedom. This, together with the comment that the job was "mind numbingly boring" would suggest he quit by himself
Maybe he did quit? Hopefully, we’ll get more clarity on that in the future. There are reports saying that he likely was laid off, but we really don’t know. There are so many unanswered questions, and I feel like there is so much about him we don’t know yet that’ll eventually come to light and could surprise us.
Are there credible reports that he was laid off? All I’ve seen is speculation but it’s my personal theory so I’d love a source.
>He didn’t work there anymore after 2023
Says who? I trust your judgement so assume you are right that the claim is credible but would like to see the evidence myself.
Says TrueCar.
Source: https://archive.is/gTQrh
It is not confirmed if he was laid off or quit. Supposedly he told a friend that he quit because it was boring.
Source: https://archive.is/EcrlO
Ah nice finds. A lot of the claims made in those articles irked me, twisting facts to fit a narrative... but it sounds like they literally reached out to his employer to confirm he was no longer employed there so I think we can reasonably assume it is a fact.
He also never told his family he didn't work there anymore, which I think is very interesting.
His mother reported him missing in Nov 2024, and was under the assumption he still worked there. She reported him missing in San Fran because that's where the TrueCar offices are.
Apparently he went back to Baltimore last Christmas, so I think it's very telling he never told his parents that he no longer had a job... whether he quit or was laid-off, I think it's important.
I’m really surprised no journalist has gone digging at TrueCar. No one can say was it early, mid, late 2023 that he stopped working there. If end of 2023 he may have quit to go travelling. Not unusual for someone in their mid 20’s.
I love lists. I appreciate the work involved in this timeline Max. Your footnotes added some context I was missing.
I was fully prepared to roll my eyes at yet another unneeded summation of every moment Luigi spent on social media. It's not like it hasn't been examined and discussed to death, right? So it's a pleasant surprise that this actually provides a new and somehow more impactful way of seeing and absorbing all of this than anything I have seen so far.
I am intrigued, and looking forward to the next part.
I am glad to have pleasantry surprised you. I agree that seeing it all together allows for a much more cohesive storyline to form from the facts alone—seeing his evolution rather than him as a "fixed" state; as well as being able to actually digest it rather than just seeing an overwhelming collection of data (something which forces us to rely on our pre-existing biases to filter it). It is precisely why I took the like 40 or so hours it too write it lol.
Hi Max,
In my opinion, the post he made in the OneBag subreddit: Journal / Packing List: 2+ Months in Asia in a Mid-Sized Backpack from Friday, 04/05/2024, sheds a lot of light on his personality. I didn’t see you delve into it, and I would really like to read your perspective on it.
Thanks.
Yes you're right. I planned to talk about his travel bug in part 2 but you are right I don't think I provided enough context here on it. will update.
First, thank you for your lengthy analysis. The header of this article - lol, what do you think of his chess.com username? AFAIK, people in r/chess called him a noob based on his profile. Obviously, I can’t judge since I don’t know anything about chess.
Have you ever thought that his social media, particularly his X account, is just his other online persona? I remember your Substack post a few days ago about having a different online persona than in real life.
I personally don’t believe in MBTI because the questions are too vague, and I couldn’t give any sincere answers.
Also, thank you for making this article and previous ones into Substack audio so I can cheat and call it reading lol
I chose that picture because I think it is one of many examples that Luigi liked to have fun, and I believe that the zealots on both sides could benefit from being reminded of that.
I don't know anything about Chess either so also can't comment on anything besides that.
I have considered whether his SM is a persona. And while we are all persona's, wearing masks, and we all only go to the internet to get things which we cannot get from the people in our real life's: I find it hard to believe that he would be willing to put him name and face and lots of PII to things which he was not OK with being associated with him and who he truly was.
With that said, I intend to entertain it later in the series to cover all my basis.
As far as Substack audio, I didn't even realize that this was not enabled by default until a few days ago. I basically just have to re-save them so they are available as audio. It's on my list to go and do all of them, but if you have one in particular you're interested in, lmk and I can just update it real quick.
I appreciate your clearly very intensely researched timeline. Personally I would be a bit more speculative/careful when attributing one time engagements with various accounts to seismic political shifts or even to any political shifts at all. I only joined Twitter towards the end of 2024, so correct me if it used to function differently at the beginning of that year, but in my experience at least, Twitters algorithm is somewhat eclectic and has often recommended me posts from all kinds of accounts, including many that I would describe as being "outside of the overton window", despite my personal twitter profile being very apolitical. I have also often stumbled upon them out of curiosity in the replies of another tweet. Usually I do not take a deep dive into the account connected to a tweet before liking it or commenting, so god knows who I have interacted with. Therefor I would foot my analysis more on Luigis specific tweets, the people he followed, and the people he interacted with more than once, although the rest may still make for interesting speculative analysis.
Yes I agree completely. I only mention the radical nature of a few other these accounts because I think people will already fixate on those things, and I intend to dispell or much of their significance in the next part. But I will double check what I wrote as far as footnotes and things based on your comment. thanks!
FWIW I appreciated the context for these accounts. As I said in my main comment I’m not in these spaces so I don’t know and don’t care to research who they are.
Also worth noting that the last time he attempted to reach out to Gurwinder privately, it was a request for help curating his timeline. Who knows what direction he wanted to go in though, because Gurwinder ignored him. Ah well.
yes good point
Personally I have not seen people particularly focusing on the ideological nature of the accounts behind the tweets he commented something lighthearted under. I believe this is partly because twitters peculiar algorithm is familar to most users, and partly because most of the people interested in him are not as savvy in those circles as you are and would not really recognize those accounts.
are you suggesting that even mentioning them or their leanings could lean to more rather than less confusion or misinterpretation of him?
In my opinion that could be the case (for example reading the post left me with a different impression than reading your first reply to my comment). However it would probably be best to examine on a case by case basis. If Luigi had multiple interactions with an account, the likelyhood that he was familiar with it obviously rises (I believe this is the case with the Jenny Epstein account, although he did not seem to particularly like them).
Luigis personal tweets also reveal him favoring "traditional architecture" (but not suspecting any sort of malicious conspiracy behind barebones modern architecture) and being somewhat "pronatalist", views I personally also share, and which (to borrow some Scott Alexander verbiage) are "red team coded", despite not being particularly offensive or disagreeable to most people. This would presumably also impact his twitter algorithm.
Good feedback. I will review and make changes as needed. thank you.
Just updated footnotes and original bullets. see footnote 50 and 54 and their corresponding bullets. then confirm or deny your satisfaction.
A thorough analysis of the makeup of his following lists on Twitter and Substack is minimally done elsewhere. I suggest you do one since you're very familiar with both platforms and your insight will add more dimension to the puzzle pieces we're all trying to put together collectively.
Can you link a couple of you have them? I haven’t seen that and would like to read.