The obsession with the 'hot assassin' reveals a disturbing truth about celebrity culture | Vanessa Friedman

The folk hero status sometimes accorded to those charged with serious crimes means the victims and the violence can be forgotten

From the moment the world saw the smiling, unmasked face of the young man in the New York City hostel, memes began spreading about his looks. In the days since Luigi Mangione was identified and charged in the murder of the UnitedHealthcare chief executive Brian Thompson, it has been impossible to escape his photo. Or photos. They are proliferating.

They are on television, in the newspaper and all over social media. Not just pictures of Mr Mangione from his booking at a police station in Altoona, Pennsylvania, or his mug shots in prison orange, but photos of him in earlier times, in a navy blazer, crisp white shirt and tie. Images of him hiking shirtless in the hills. In all of them, he is clean-shaven, curly-haired, often flashing a bright, white grin. Even his Tinder profile has made it into the public, with more pics featuring his six-pack. One commentator compared the stream of pictures to an endless photo shoot".