How Are Luigi, The Wirkin and The LA Wildfires All Connected?
A survey of 2025 class conflict. Sh*t is getting sticky.
Only a few days in and 2025 is already acting up. Real bad.
In between switching out holiday decorations and vision boarding, I peeped on a pattern that needs to be addressed. A pattern that’s coursing through the news cycle and the calendar flip. Here’s how three vastly different news items have set us up to brace for new levels of class conflict. Let’s dive in.
When it finally made its long-awaited return to Netflix on Dec. 26, Season 2 of Squid Game broke viewership records, becoming the first series on the streaming service to debut at #1 in 93 countries around the world. The social commentary of the show is an obvious indictment of classism: Gluttonous, one-percenters watch and bet on which player will survive the deadly games – and who will kill each other along the way – while the lowly players hope to win big money to pay off their debts. It spotlights the type of dog-eat-dog scarcity the series creator experienced most of his life living in South Korea (the same scarcity that’s part of the reason South Korea’s real president was recently impeached with protesters calling for his arrest.) But Seong Gi-hun going back into the games in Season 2 in order to put a stop to them forever is hitting that ~art-imitating-life~ pang real strong right now. Because just before S2 dropped, we had another main character to fixate on.
Luigi Mangione was arrested on Dec. 9 for the murder of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson. Luigi, who's still in custody and who’s pleaded not guilty, is accused of shooting Thompson in broad daylight on the morning of Dec. 4 in Manhattan. In the time since his arrest, Luigi has turned into an Internet idol. To some, he’s a vigilante who’s making a political statement about America's healthcare system using brutal violence, the language America knows best.
At 26, Young Luigi has been lionized by the Internet for a few key reasons. First, he’s a baddie with a body. Let’s just get it out the way and not act like pretty privilege doesn't exist in this.
Second, a deeper dive into his profile reveals he’s from a rich family, is prep school and Ivy League-educated and had a solid job as a data engineer. And third, according to an archived Reddit account, began to suffer chronic pain after a spinal surgery and began to experience the vulturism that is the U.S. healthcare system. A manifesto that was reportedly found on Luigi at the time of his arrest denounces the corruption of the healthcare industry. So, a pretty rich boy who, even with all the privilege at his disposal, sacrificed his own freedom to try and take down an institution, just like our hero Seong Gi-hun. Instead of Seong gaining a following in the bunks, Luigi’s perp walk is being fan camed. This case will be a big story in 2025.
But right as those fan cams and corporate greed diatribes were funneling through the Internet to fuel op-eds on hot criminals and unite against the 1%, another manifestation of, let’s say, more attainable…more relatable greed popped up with the quickness to divide again.
Walmart has been selling a dupe of the Birkin, the long-worshipped Hermes handbag, for about a year. But in December, the bag worked luxury girlies into a tizzy. There’ve been Birkin knockoffs out there for as long as the original itself debuted in the 1980s, but for around $80 at a mass retailer, the Wirkin has 1) easily brought the silhouette to a lot more consumers and 2) put a spotlight on the arbitrary nature of the bag’s lure. The one and the two are exactly why real Birkin collectors are pressed. The appeal of the Birkin was that it could signal your elitism. Copyright violations aside, when a dupe becomes this widespread, it waters down the flex of the original. And if you don’t have a physical item to show you’re in a separate tax bracket, how do you differentiate yourself from the commoners?
The air of exclusivity and dedication associated with getting a genuine Birkin has deflated for the time being. That’s exactly what’s propelling Birkin owners to show off their elitism by shit-talking the Wirkin class. Even luxury content creators who say they’re not hating on Wirkin shoppers have admitted they won’t be buying new Birkins anytime soon. Meanwhile, Walmart is currently sold out of its bags.
While the pompous social air around a Birkin bag is souring, the actual air in LA has literally turned toxic this week. Wildfires in Los Angeles are currently ripping through areas like Palisades, Pasadena, Altadena and the Hollywood Hills. The flames are eating up homes and displacing hundreds of thousands of residents.
When natural disasters hit this hard, it's become a recurring pattern to bring out the best and the worst in humanity. Neighbors have been helping each other prep, distributing free meals, offering carpools out of evacuation zones, GoFundMe and Google Doc-ing, collecting clothes donations and providing free shelter. (Like I’ve said, community as a verb has never been more important.)
But, there’s also been shameless profiting, blame-gaming and politicking. When the fires first started, The Los Angeles Times had its evacuation maps posted behind a paywall. Smoke-covered evacuees told local news reporters they had to forgo fire insurance on their homes last year because of rising rates and now those homes are gone. Fake charity orgs have started publicizing donation buttons. Gov. Gavin Newsom told CNN hydrants running dry is the fault of “local authorities” but he’s been clocked for cutting the state’s wildfire prevention budget. The LAFD chief announced that the city’s budget cuts to the department for this fiscal year have severely affected their ability “to respond to large-scale emergencies” – a scenario she warned city council members about last year.
And as the fires rage, many theorists and sci-fi lovers have pointed out that Octavia Butler’s Parable series predicted such events. In Parable of the Sower, one of Butler’s most popular books written in 1993, California wildfires in 2025 ravaged the state, leading to a world of housing shortages, looting, famine and a lot more.
So, the Luigi, the Wirkin and the wildfires. These may seem like siloed conversations to certain corners of the Internet or region-specific calamities going down in certain parts of the country, but they’re all connected. On a basic, human level, they all harp on the same emotion; That itchy, head-jostling angst of impending chaos. In this case, chaos caused by capitalist-driven class conflict. The winds of change are knocking people out of their cushy roles in the status quo. And believe it or not, as weird and severe as they are, these moments still feel like the quiet before the real storm to me. Shit is getting sticky.
In the between time, here’s some other news to watch. Connections loading 💭 :
The U.S. got a new(ish) president coming in just as fact-checking is on its way out at Meta. Yup, you read that right.
Bad Bunny dropped his latest album – maybe his best?? – which celebrates Puerto Rico and calls out gentrification and irresponsible tourism on the island. My homies Felix, Anamaria and Isabella broke it all down beautifully on Alt.Latino podcast.
T-Minus 8 days til TikTok gets shut down in the U.S. The shift we’ll witness in the creator economy as a result is gonna be historic.
While the guys squabbled up, the women of the South changed the trajectory of hip-hop in last year. I wrote about Doechii, Latto and GloRilla shaping the canon. Shoutout to Jewel Wicker for her expertise and Phil Lewis for giving the piece a spotlight.
Love! Love! Love! The connections made are so on point and go even deeper for the fires in California if we begin to discuss the future effects of this fire on the different classes of people affected. ESPECIALLY, the black-owned historical homes lost in Altadena. Everyone better hold on to their edges. 2025 is about to take us on a wild ride