A listing on ultra-fast-fashion e-commerce site Shein used an AI-generated image of Luigi Mangione to sell a floral button-down t-shirt.

Mangione—the prime suspect in the December 2024 murder of United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson—is being held at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn, last I checked, and is not modeling for Shein. 

I first saw the Mangione Shein listing on the culture and news X account Popcrave, which posted the listing late Tuesday evening.

Shein removed the listing on Wednesday, but someone saved it on the Internet Archive before Shein took it down. “The image in question was provided by a third-party vendor and was removed immediately upon discovery,” Shein told Newsweek in a statement. “We have stringent standards for all listings on our platform. We are conducting a thorough investigation, strengthening our monitoring processes, and will take appropriate action against the vendor in line with our policies.” Shein did not immediately reply to 404 Media’s request for comment. 

The item, sold by the third-party brand Manfinity, had the description “Men’s New Spring/Summer Short Sleeve Blue Ditsy Floral White Shirt, Pastoral Style Gentleman Shirt For Everyday Wear, Family Matching Mommy And Me (3 Pieces Are Sold Separately).”

The Manfinity brand makes a lot of Shein stuff using AI-generated models, like these gym bros selling PUSH HARDER t-shirts and gym sweats and this very tough guy wearing a “NAH, I’M GOOD” tee. AI-generated models are all over Shein, and seems especially popular with listings featuring babies and toddlers. AI models in fashion are becoming more mainstream; in July, Vogue ran advertisements for Guess featuring AI-generated women selling the brand’s summer collection.

Last year, artists sued Shein, alleging the Chinese e-commerce giant scraped the internet using AI and stole their designs, and it’s been well-documented that fast fashion sites use bots to identify popular themes and memes from social media to put them on their own listings. Mangione merch and anything related to the case—including remixes of the United Healthcare logo and the “Deny, Defend, Depose” line allegedly found on the bullet—went wild in the weeks following Thompson’s murder; Manfinity might have generated what seemed popular on social media (Mangione’s smiling face) and automatically put it on a shirt listing. Based on the archived listing, it worked: A lot of people managed to grab a limited edition Shein Luigi Ditsy Floral before it was removed: According to the archived version of the listing, it was sold out of all sizes except for XXL. 

About the author

Sam Cole is writing from the far reaches of the internet, about sexuality, the adult industry, online culture, and AI. She’s the author of How Sex Changed the Internet and the Internet Changed Sex.