What do we believe in? I stop to observe this question and I really wonder what can be believed, at least right now. A question, perhaps, uncomfortable but necessary, especially in a difficult moment like this.
We cannot see each other, except through a screen. Our physical and interpersonal relationships are mediated by a video camera and a telephone. We can't touch each other. "Real" people have "become" rare.
And no, this is not the beginning of a science fiction story, but it is, today, our reality. A new reality, but true, indeed very true and paradoxical.
We have the opportunity and time to reflect, and these days, I have asked myself many questions and given many answers. I'll explain better.
I started to make several reflections when I read (and I recommend it) the March issue of Vogue Italia, entirely dedicated to the reality vs fiction issue and how today, there is a faint difference between what we believe to be real and what we believe to be false or not true.
The magazine directed by Emanuele Farneti, has decided to deal with the theme of fiction, starting from the use of filters, algorithms, apps, which almost all of us use to change our face or our voice. In short, to change our natural beauty, but also our reality.
Basically we have the possibility, for about 15 seconds or for the duration of a post, to be able to be something else different from us.
So I thought that more than ever, especially on social networks, we need only the truth.
For this reason, in these days of forced quarantine, looking at social media, especially Instagram, I understood how much this reality-fiction duality is more important than ever.
By following different web characters, I really realized who managed to create a real fan base and how the latter manages to perceive the character himself as close. The perfection of the filtered, retouched photos disappears to make room for imperfection, or rather, naturalness and spontaneity.
Never before has social media, the only tools that actually allow us to stay in touch with the lives of others, useful for telling real life, for what it is.
Then I wondered if "in the world of perfection", editorial photos, perfect and institutional communication of many profiles, one need not stop.
Perhaps we all needed to return to reality, to perceive the people we follow as true and identify with them. To live more slowly and carefully.
We no longer think about glossy feeds, their colors, but we are focusing on what they really are and what they have to say. Indeed, communicating in a sincere way allows people to unite and truly network.
We realized how natural and normal being is becoming our hallmark.
Natural in the way of being, natural in weaknesses, natural in communicating and not natural because everyone is and then I must be too. This is not real but again, fiction and fake empathy.
Social media are currently the mirror of our reality, different from that of three weeks ago. It is a slow, daily reality, at times weak but true and from which it is not possible to escape. We needed to go back to believing we were all normal people, with normal lives.
Social media have in turn returned to being the tool for which they were born, that is, networking, being united even if far away.
In the digital world, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Tik Tok, and whoever has more than one, I am the flag of this moment, that thread that connects us all, that makes us all be on the same boat.
They are our pastime, they are the place where we can have company and not feel alone. They are the place for deepening, knowledge, finding old photos or kindergarten friends, memes, videos of kittens, "Buongiornissimo Kaffèèèèèèè" which, perhaps, were not so bad in the end.
They are the place of our current reality.
We couldn't have been perfect or pretend to be close for long, but perhaps perfect and far nobody has ever really been.
Now we understand it and it's not too late.
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