WEEK IN REVIEW: Luigi Mangione Memes Dominate, Cola Tee Censored

Luigi Mangione dominated social media this week, while mainstream media looked on in horrified astonishment. The assassin of former UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson ascended to folk hero status, and memes helped spread the gospel of Luigi. Merch also proliferated, with dropshippers offering "deny, defend, depose" tees, keychains, etc. Even Cola got into the act, even though we pride ourselves on not dropshipping anything. Everything you order passes through our hands directly–everything except our new Luigi Mangione tee.

The original art included Luigi's face. I submitted it to a dropshipper no problem. However, when I tried to update the design files, I got a notification that the dropshipper'sAI had detected copyrighted material. This was impossible since the image was 100% original. I thought maybe the dropshipper had marked "Deny, Defend, Depose" as copyrighted material. That would obviously be incorrect, but maybe they used it as a shortcut to prevent anyone from using the phrase. So, I ran a test. I submitted a design using only the phrase, but the design was approved. That left us with the image. None of the elements had been taken from copyrighted material. It was puzzling. But then, what about Luigi's face? I substituted his face with the skull and it was approved. So, the dropshipper had fed Luigi's face to its AI, to preclude anyone using it. 

But! Now even the updated image, with the skull, is being marked as copyrighted. The original design files are still online and orders are being fulfilled by the dropshipper, but for how long, I don't know.If you want an original tee of Luigi Mangione riding an orca, you might want to act fast.

NOTE: This is the only dropshipped item on my website. Everything else goes straight through my hands to you.All proceeds from the Luigi Mangione orca tee go to medical-debt Gofundmes.