Two men, two crimes that shook the United States, two completely opposite reactions from the public.
Tyler Robinson was identified as having killed a figure many women described as a constant threat. No donations, no messages of support, total silence on social media. Luigi Mangione, accused of killing an insurance company CEO, almost immediately became a symbol of a popular cause: he raised 1.5 million dollars in donations from strangers who saw in him something different from a simple homicide suspect.
Why does the same type of act generate empathy in one case and total indifference in the other? The answer seems to lie less in the crime and more in who committed it, what they look like, and what story they project to the public.
