Beyond the scandal: Fedez, Ferragni and the culture of intrusion
In the last few days, the media attention has been monopolized by the private events of Fedez and Chiara Ferragni, with revelations about infidelity and intimate details of their relationship. To this overexposure of their personal lives we are all too accustomed, but the question remains on the public relevance attributed to these figures and on what exactly it went wrong in our society, which seems to draw pleasure from the intrusion into others’ privacy.
While the spotlights are focused on these personal scandals, meanwhile the process for the “pandorogate” takes place. As we know, Chiara Ferragni is in fact at the center of a judicial procedure on charges of aggravated fraud, linked to the promotion of products that would have led consumers to believe that the purchase was aimed at a charity fundraising. All this noise around his bedroom therefore comes very appropriately.
A very convincing theater …
The question should then be automatic: how authentic this public narrative is? Are we really faced with a spontaneous exhibition? Is it just a lucky accident that can then benefit from the so -called engagement and monetize gossip? Fedez and Chiara Ferragni are entrepreneurs of their image, and as such they know very well that every moment of crisis, if well managed, can transform into an opportunity for visibility and profit (or can be created for need). The public is passionate about their events, takes a position, discusses and shares, feeding the usual media club that benefits those who are at the center of the storm.
Mind you: they earn us, in one way or another, are not only them. We think of certain journalistic figures who take possession of the topic by pressing overwhelmingly in the discussion (depressing that there is one, I repeat), revealing further details that who knows where they found, establishing who is right and who is wrong and judging each person’s behavior involved. It amazes that nobody asks these people: but what do you have to do with it?
A Reality Show product
And of course the most worrying question is what is the border between information and entertainment: we are witnessing the transformation of journalism into a reality show product, now for a long time. The chronicle of personal scandals and diatribes makes much more throat than true news, and the function of journalism is reduced to a mere vehicle of spectacularization and entertainment. And it feeds the instincts of a public opinion more attentive to the lounge scandals than to the issues that really impact on the community.
We seem to have an insatiable need to browse in the lives of others, raising people whose fame is often based more on media visibility than on real merits or contributions to the community (but even if it were: what do we care about their betrayals and engagements?) . It is hallucinating that two figures like Fedez and Chiara Ferragni have acquired such public importance, to the point of dominating the country’s social and “cultural” debate.
Their media exposure not only distracts attention from more urgent themes, but also contributes to modeling collective values and aspirations based on superficiality and consumption, which are obviously the only reason why these people follow. They are rich, blessed, and in addition they get together, they give birth live, they film the children 24 hours a day and we become attached to them how our grandchildren were, to the point that if they wouldn’t show them more we would miss them: We want to know how they are, they do. And then after introducing yourself as the most beautiful couple in the world, the perfect family not only give up but they also make the horns: it is like having Beautiful at all hours, and in addition we can convince ourselves that it is all true.