Genius and Evil on TikTok

In 1924, the Leopold and Loeb trial captured the world’s imagination as one of the most famous trials of the era. Two affluent university students, Richard Loeb and Nathan Leopold, murdered 14-year-old Bobby Franks in a delusional quest to prove themselves Nietzschean Übermenschen—superior beings above the morality and intellect of mortals.

Strutting on TikTok, 100 years later, is a new Leopold and Loeb-style persona, in the form of Luigi Mangione. For killing Brian Thompson, 50, a husband and father of two, Mangione faces charges of first-degree murder and terrorism—he violated the morality of the state.

And then: the world watched in disbelief; some know-nothings even cheered in jubilance.

Similar to Leopold and Loeb, the accused presents himself as a Nietzschean seer, claiming to shape futures, to transcend traditional moralities and faiths in order to inscribe new values. “Like Nietzsche, I see through the facade,” he wrote in one Amazon review.

Nietzsche in Basel, Switzerland, c. 1875 (Source: Public Domain, Wikipedia)

On TikTok is where traditional morality, faith, and virtue face a fusillade of abuse.

Is TikTok the new Tower of Babel? The platform sows confusion over virtue and morality, much like the ancient tower that symbolized chaotic ambition to reach the heavens.

TikTok inflates Nietzschean self-love into a surreal spectacle of madness. The “misunderstood genius” is a TikTok charade: Mangione, the killer cast as faux intellectual.

His TikTok enthusiasts do not debate the minutiae of legal insanity; they lionize his sanity.

What I call “TikTok Mangione” marks a new era of cultural degradation. This story, like Leopold and Loeb’s, invites us, first, to confront the risks of misattributions of genius and the scandal that is TikTok. Second, to examine the idolatry of social media infamy. And third, to distinguish as we must between true and false knowledge (“da’at” versus “da’at sheker”). And, in this process, to expose and expunge the evil lurking among us.

Leopold and Loeb’s self-perceived intellect was revealed through their bombast and self-aggrandizement, fictionalized masterfully in Compulsion, the 1956 bestseller by Meyer Levin. Orson Welles starred in the film adaptation as defense attorney Clarence Darrow, winning the Best Actor award at the Cannes Film Festival for his role. The amateur stumbles of Leopold and Loeb—including their clumsy ransom demands, and Leopold leaving his glasses at the crime scene—unveiled their ordinariness, despite their methodical planning of the murder. Like Mangione, their tragic course was born of an incorrigible belief in their superiority, fueled by society’s lack of clarity into what brilliance is and is not.

The Talmudic tradition illuminates a timeless paradox: genuine genius often hides in plain sight, while destructive TikTok Mangione-style narcissism demands center stage. Consider Joseph, whose extraordinary gifts were dismissed by those closest to him. His brothers first saw vanity in his dreams and ambitions, blind to the divine wisdom that would later save nations. When destiny finally placed Joseph before Pharaoh—a moment ripe for self-promotion—he demonstrated true greatness by attributing his gifts to G-d. Pharaoh’s response echoes through millennia: “There is no one as wise and discerning as you.”

This blindness to greatness persists as a peculiarly human failing. When Samuel arrived to anoint a new king from Jesse’s sons, David—the future poet-warrior king—wasn’t even invited to the ceremony. His own family had deemed him unworthy of consideration, relegating him to tend sheep while his “more promising” brothers stood before the prophet.

These biblical narratives stand in stark contrast to today’s TikTok performers, who mistake notoriety for nobility. Unlike in the hollow theatre of TikTok, Joseph’s genius manifested in moral action and in service to others. His story teaches us that authentic intellect doesn’t demand followers—it creates leaders who hoist others toward their own potential.

Meanwhile, many TikTok videos anoint Mangione with smarts, attaching dramatic titles like “Ex-Ivy League genius turned prime suspect” and “Brilliant former Ivy League student,” which boost him to mythical status. On TikTok, influencers know that videos tagged with “genius” receive higher engagement than those using boring, grounded virtues like “diligent” or “ethical.” This disparity echoes the cultural climate of 1924, where sensationalist headlines fed into Leopold and Loeb’s inflated sense of self-importance.

So, what truly defines genius? How can we distinguish between TikTok Mangione and a mind of genuine greatness worthy of admiration?

Genius is exceedingly rare. It is sometimes associated with IQ scores above 160 (less than 0.1 percent of the population). Akin to the righteous person, it manifests not just in intellect but in moral and spiritual elevation, a beautiful combination. Sometimes it comes in eye-popping academic contributions, such as an h-index above 80 (achieved by fewer than one percent of scientists over a career). And in novel and watershed advancements in a field (occurring in less than 0.1 percent of individuals). Or in problem-solving skills so innovative that they reshape our common understanding (less than 0.1 percent). Most important in my view, genius exhibits expertise across multiple domains, contributing original insights later embraced by leaders in those fields (less than 0.01 percent in my estimation).

While these metrics are imperfect, they illustrate the rarity of genuine genius.

By these standards, Mangione’s actions demonstrate mediocrity in achievement. Mangione has no notable academic or technical or entrepreneurial contributions. By the same age of 26, Einstein had revolutionized physics, publishing groundbreaking works on special relativity, the photoelectric effect (which later earned him the Nobel Prize), and Brownian motion, among others—all published during his “miracle year” of 1905.

On platforms like Twitter, Reddit, LinkedIn, and GitHub, references to Mangione’s projected status as Nietzschean seer are scant, and the few that did exist have been deleted. Not so on TikTok. TikTok’s virality refracts his self-image into a myth of misunderstood brilliance. This distortion trivializes the painstaking, verifiable achievements that herald true genius.

Yiddishkeit is more than intellectual knowledge; it’s about morality in its entirety. This understanding stands in contradistinction to the applause for vacuous, anti-capitalist defenses of Mangione as glorified on TikTok. Once we sacrifice the meaning of what intellectual knowledge actually is, our culture atrophies—the two are inextricably linked.

Leopold and Loeb believed their supposed intellect exempted them from moral scrutiny, contending that illuminating their cleverness was more important than the life of Bobby Franks. Similarly, the TikTok schlock around Mangione elevates self-delusion to pretentious intellectualism, heralding false idols while extinguishing standards of right versus wrong.

This is especially concerning given TikTok’s impressionable, young user base, mostly at the age when goal-setting intensifies. A study by NewsGuard in September 2022 found nearly one fifth of TikTok videos presented in the platform’s search results convey misinformation. In an age distribution of TikTok users published in 2022, researcher Kexi Liu of Ningxia University found 77 percent of users under 30 years old, and 15 percent between 31 and 40.

TikTok, like Leopold and Loeb, thrives on calculated illusion. It algorithmically amplifies lies that resonate emotionally with those in a state of incredulity. Mangione’s TikTok-driven hagiography shows the need for discernment in a culture that equates virality with merit.

Leopold and Loeb remind us of the dangers of unchecked narcissism cloaked in false intellect. To honor Bobby Franks and all the century’s victims of Aryan-style Übermenschen, we must teach our children to be in awe of Yiddishkeit, to cultivate it—and to expose TikTok for what it is: an abyss of narcissism, and, in this case, an assault on Yiddishkeit.