Is Luigi Mangione a model for SHEIN?
Last year, Luigi became a household name following his arrest as a suspect in the death of a healthcare CEO.
He is a popular guy, with the world immediately dreaming up fancasting for inevitable biopics.
If he’s currently in jail (and he is), then why does his face seem to appear in an ad for cheap, controversial fast fashion?
Is Luigi Mangione modeling for SHEIN?
SHEIN is a controversial fast-fashion platform notorious for unbelievably cheap clothing.
Judging by people who have purchased and commented on social media, quality can be an issue. Some liken it to the Temu of clothing.
No one expected to see what strongly appears to be Luigi Mangione modeling for SHEIN.
Given SHEIN’s long list of controversies, we know that they have a history of attention-grabbing scandals. But … what in the world is this?
In case you need a reminder, Luigi is a young man who rose from anonymity to fame in late 2024 after he was accused of the fatal shooting of UnitedHealth CEO Brian Thompson.
Aside from the Epstein scandal, one struggles to think of a topic more unifying across the political aisle in these polarized times.
Americans have strong feelings about health insurance companies in our hellish dystopia.
That said, Luigi has not yet had his trial, and prosecutors have proven nothing. Therefore, it remains inappropriate to label him a “hero” as many have done.
Is that really him?
To be blunt, there’s simply no way that this is actually Luigi Mangione in the SHEIN ad.
He remains in jail awaiting his trial.
Though he has a groundswell of support from across the nation, that’s unlikely to get him some sort of work release to pose in clothes.
Besides, close scrutiny of the photos shows that it doesn’t look quite right. Some believe that it’s a model who only strongly resembles Luigi.
Others believe that the image may be genAI slop, potentially stealing Luigi’s likeness to promote a shirt.
Whatever is going on, SHEIN was using — past tense, was using — Luigi’s famously handsome face to advertise $11 shirts. Whether it’s genAI slop or a lookalike, the resemblance is staggering.
On theory is that SHEIN is employing some creative marketing. If you take a famous, hot face and plaster it onto a digital model, you’re going to attract attention.
Relatedly, the company could be deliberately chasing controversy. Even if you’ve never met such a person in real life, there are people who believe that Luigi is a “bad guy.”
The Trump administration hopes to kill him, which should be enough to remind anyone of which side is right.
This apparently deleted ad could also have been an accident
The third option is, to be blunt, that this could be an accident. A tired, overworked SHEIN employee (remember, this is a company for whom labor violations and slavery-related allegations come up multiple times) feediing prompts to whichever god-awful genAI program to generate models might just say “handsome 20-year-old man.”
GenAI is a plagiarism machine, scanning real faces, photos, writing, art work and more in order to churn out slop. It’s conceivable that it selected Luigi Mangione solely for his handsomeness.
Employees might not have recognized that the program stole the face of a famous guy.
That, of course, is purely speculation. Whatever happened, as of Wednesday morning, links to the ad page no longer showed Luigi’s face, as you can see above.
This is a positive development. Any company seeking to profit from Luigi’s handsome countenance should pay him to do so.